Trip to Tofino, British Columbia

I arrived in Abbotsford on Thursday, April 26, in time for Candra's birthday and on Friday Candra and I had the day for some great walks and talks.

Michael arrived on Friday evening and Michael, Rod and I left for the ferry to Victoria around 8 am in time for the 10 am ferry. After the ferry trip and arrival at the ferry terminal near Victoria we went to Burchart's Gardens for lunch and spent most of the afternoon walking around the garden amazed by the colour and variety of the tulips, daffodils and a variety of other flowers.

It won't be a surprise to learn that a lot of photos were made there and a the photos in this blog are just a few of mine.

Later we had dinner at the Penny Farthing, the pub in which Rod is a partner owner. We walked around Victoria a bit, visited another pub then back to the hotel.

Sunday morning we did some grocery shopping and started the drive to Tofino with a stop at the awe inspiring old growth forest, Cathedral Grove

I will post some photos later, but in the meantime check it out by clicking on the link above. After about an hour there we continued on to our rented "cottage" on Chesterson Beach just south of Tofino with a view of the ocean less than 100 meters away.

As you can see, the photos in this blog are all from Butchart's Garden. Photos of Cathedral Grove and our place on Chesterton Beach will be included in later posts.

The house we have for the next 4 days is an outstanding place! I will post some photos later but in the meantime, check out the on line photos at Tofino accomodations . We have all the amenities you can imagine in a spectacular setting!

Tomorrow, weather permitting, we will all be out photographing the area.

Stay tuned!

The Three Crowns

Well Ruth has suggested another post, so I will do as she suggests.


But about our trip to the Three Crowns for lunch rather than Light and Shade.

This is one of the main shopping streets in Old Town Albufeira. We have just come from that street, up the stairs on the left of the photo, on our way to the restaurant.

This is one of our favourite places for lunch. You can sit near the railing and have a great view of the ocean.

While we were waiting for our lunch I spotted the reflection of two crowns in the wine of the woman in front of us, and thought it would make a neat photo.


Click on this or any photo for a larger image.

So neat, I thought I would put two versions in here

As always, great lunch. Now we are on our way home.

Through the minor maze of streets in Old Town.

Can you see those rocks past the white building? Click on the photo to see it better.


That's where we are headed.  Looks like a long way but it's not as far as it looks - maybe 15 or 20 minutes.


I thought it might be nice to leave you with a view of the beach and the ocean!


This will definitely be the last blog post from Portugal for this year.


'Bye from Portugal.

Light and shade - again

Well, this will almost certainly be the last blog post before we leave. Tuesday evening we will eat at our favourite nearby restaurant, A Concha, and the rest of the time before an early bedtime will be last minute packing - we will be picked up by the airport bus at 5:20 am Wednesday for a 9:15 flight.

I am ready to be at home and am looking forward to seeing everyone - that is, everyone that I can.

So, no educational stuff or theories about the mysterious shell game in this post. It's back to some of my light and shade efforts so essentially photos with little or no commentary.

The above is an early morning image of part of the back of the first floor area of our apartment hotel.

And this was taken from our balcony.

Again, click on any photo to see a larger version.

One morning when the sunrise light was especially golden and, in this case, shining on some slightly pinkish chimney pots at the apartment hotel close to us.

Lots of straight lines and angles in this very white building in the morning sun.

A house about 3 or 4 blocks from our place. This image was made in the late afternoon getting close to sunset.

More straight lines and sharp angles. This is a different view of a house that I showed in my earlier light and shadows post. Do you recognize it?

I have shown some variation of this building in the past, but not sure where on the blog. It is a view of the apartment balconies of our apartment hotel building. All of these face the ocean and, if you are on the 4th (as we are) or 5th floor, you have a great view of the ocean.

The front of what I think is like a duplex at the corner just under a block from our place.

Another of my growing chimney pot collection. I was very lucky to get this image. I noticed it completely by chance one evening when I was walking back from the beach.

Well, I think this is the end of another year of blogging from Portugal, but I have been wrong before.

Good night.

A bit more on the littoral zone

If you read the previous post on the littoral zone you will know about the shell accumulation and that I proposed  reasons for the enormous collection of shells and wondered why they appeared now having been absent a few days earlier.


If you haven't read the March 31st post, now's a good time - I think you will like it.


And this post has been modified Monday morning.

I like this photo and think that it demonstrates effectively the large number of shells that cover parts of the beach.

Today when Ruth and I were walking on the beach we noticed what might explain the recent appearance.

I mentioned in the last blog that we have been having some pretty heavy surf pounding on and reshaping the beach. This photo shows how much sand has been washed away leaving a fairly substantial wall between the level where the sand has been removed by the surf and the level where the beach has been since we arrived in February. This latter level is much higher than it was last year.

What we noticed today is in that "wall" of sand, there is some apparent stratification of shells with a couple of levels embedded in the sand below the upper surface.

So, here's another theory. In the previous blog post I suggested that the shells might have been brought in by the pumping equipment, but that they might also be washed up on the shore from time to time.

This may offer a bit of support for the shells having been brought in by the pumps and buried as they poured stuff on the beach. How they accumulated in layers isn't clear; but there certainly are shells embedded in the beach sand about one to two feet from the surface, depending on where you look. And in one place there seemed to be a second level of shells below the one shown in this photo.

If they were buried in layers like that, the reason for them appearing now could be that a particularly dense layer of shells has just been uncovered by the recent heavy surf eroding the beach.


This morning I was at the beach again and from this low tide photo it appears that the ocean is doing its work - the beach is clearing and the remaining shells are congregating closer to the low tide water level. 
This image (above) is the area where I first discovered all the shells (I was looking the other way when I took the photos in the previous blog post).

And a bit further in the other direction, the beach is amazingly clean! 

Whatever the reason for the appearance of all these shells, this post is really just a reason to show a few more photos of the shells,  the beach changes and the creative use of the shells by a 5 or 6 year old.

Enough on the littoral zone.