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.

The littoral zone

As I visit the beach each day and become aware of the daily changes, it occurred to me several days ago that it might be interesting to take some photos and say a bit about the ever changing littoral zone. But, though I took some photos and tried to find something to show and say, nothing of interest seemed to materialize.

I had pretty much given up on the idea until yesterday when, after the rain, I went to a slightly different part of the beach than I usually go (though I have been by this area many times this year on my way to old town) and found something new that made me think I might do the littoral zone thing after all. The above sunset photo does not show the new thing I am referring to but note the flat beach in this area.

I am sure everyone knows what the "littoral zone" is, but best not to assume - one dictionary definition is "relating to, or denoting the zone of the seashore between high-water and low-water marks". That's close enough.

As the littoral zone is constantly subjected to moving water, things like distribution of sand on a beach is always being revised. Fairly vigorous wave action and rain in the last few days have modified "our beach" substantially.

This is roughly the same area as the photo above and I hope you can appreciate the change from a totally flat to quite eroded beach.

Make sure to click on the photos to access a larger image.

It's interesting that this word, littoral, looks and sounds quite close to "litter", and in some ways what occurs in the littoral zone is a bit like littering, isn't it? The tide and waves wash in and depart leaving all manner of things behind, including our waste - note the plastic bottle here among the other debris.

Some of the leavings are food for the these gulls and, no doubt, for innumerable less visible residents.

In this low tide photo the littoral area is so smooth and clean except for  a few scattered shells and rocks. I particularly like this image.

And all this is fairly boring, which is why I hesitated to do this blog in the first place. So, speaking of shells and rocks, let's get to the bit that prompted me to do this post - it's these things you can see in this photo strewn along the beach in large numbers. What are they? 

Shells. Millions of them! What an incredible sight - all kinds of shells, all colours, sizes and shapes, piled on top of others and strewn for long sections along the beach. And when the waves roll in and out the shells make sounds like castanets as they are thrown against each other and shifted to a new location. 

In some of these photos you can see the shells under the receding water as well as on the sand; an indication of the extent of this accumulation of shells

Some of you who know the ocean much better than I may have seen this before, but it is a new and fascinating experience for me.

Why, suddenly, have all of these shells been deposited here now? They weren't here 3 days ago. We have experienced winds and significant wave action at other times like we had during the last few days but I don't recall seeing anything like this before.

I asked a Portuguese friend about it. She said that one possible explanation is the beach modification last spring that included bringing sand in from off shore. (see earlier blog) This no doubt stirred up the bottom freeing up a lot of material and the machines likely brought in, along with the sand, a lot of other ocean bed material. What the machines didn't bring in the water now seems to as all these shells get washed in and, presumably, out by the tide and wave action. Why they are there now and weren't earlier this year isn't so clear.

 

And, at this point in time they are shells but they were once part of the ocean life. Who knows when they became just shells.

What does seems clear is that when you change the ocean's littoral zone and modify the ocean floor in this way, you never know how the ocean will respond. Now there is more beach for people to walk on but they have to deal with the shells, beautiful for the likes of me to photograph, but not great to walk on, especially in bare feet. Can't beat the natural forces, at least not for long.

Thoughts of a practical nature

We have been here now for just over 5 weeks with 5 days left before we leave, so time to think about the coming days.

Don't forget to click on the photos to see the larger image.

It's quite amazing what two people accumulate in 5 plus weeks, in addition to the extra personal weight from eating way too much excellent Portuguese bread and desserts and, I suppose, too much food in general. But we have been very judicious about eating out and have done so, apart from on our trips, only 3 times since we have been here. Ruth has prepared great dinners with lots of vegetables and mostly fish for protein. That should be good, correct? But desserts, sangria, black olives, wine and snacks are clearly the enemy, so, in spite of walking 5 or more kilometres every day there is fairly clear evidence that too many of those calories have remained on board. Fortunately the airline will not count that in our weight limit. 


Accumulation of calories will definitely have to be taken more seriously when we get home.

And now we have to be attentive to what food we buy so that we can use it up, without over eating, before we leave so that we don't have to throw food out. Ruth has, as you might imagine, lists that make sure that is all sorted out.

The next accumulation matter for attention is that of things purchased while we were here - personal things and gifts, all of which must find a place in the available suit case space. It turns out that Ruth has accumulated more personal stuff than I and she has also attended to the matter of gifts more than I. So, in spite of an acknowledged significantly limited sense of how much will fit into any given space, she will also take responsibility for sorting out this matter of space. 

Fortunately, what she lacks in the sphere of space assessment she more than makes up for in the capacity to adapt to the impending crisis, from my point of view, when it appears that there may not be enough room to accommodate all the stuff in the closet.  One bag is already packed and, at least at this point, there is general, though cautious, optimism that the extra duffle we brought in my suitcase, the space freed up by removal of the duffle and the expansion capacity in my case will provide the necessary extra volume. 

Of course, we will only be sure next Tuesday evening when everything, even those things we have forgotten to include on the list, will have to find a place, or the gods forbid, be left behind.

Stay tuned.




The photos included may seem, on the surface, to have nothing to do with this somewhat frivolous commentary. 


But they were taken on my way to or at the beach this morning while I was trying to avoid thinking about the matter under discussion here. So, in that context, they are at least somewhat relevant.

Thoughts on things

Well, I thought that after the long piece on Évora I would be quiet for a while, but here I am winging it again. Not sure where this is going, so please don't expect any coherence.

I'm thinking about good things coming to an end as we leave here one week from tomorrow. Of course, it seems like we just arrived but also like we have been here for quite a while.

I am in that ambivalence zone, not wanting to leave, especially the warm, but also ready to be back home. And, strange as it may seem to some, I am missing Amber.

So, in this frame of mind I go to the ocean to look and listen. When the water is fairly quiet, I watch the water break on the beach then recede. I don't know if you have had the opportunity or been interested in this, but if you have you will know that it not only leaves interesting patterns in the sand, of which I showed some photos last year, but it creates endlessly interesting patterns of a mix of foam, water and sand.

I find it fascinating to watch these patterns develop and have taken quite a few photos of them, a few of which are here.

Here is another pattern that I quite like.

And this one, which you have seen before but I like it a lot so think worth showing it again in case you missed it.

And, at the other end of the action spectrum, the last couple of days we have had some wind and the ocean is pretty active, pounding the shore more vigorously than usual. So there is interesting spray to be seen against these rocks and,

aided by the folks who built the new breakwater, there is a new obstacle for the ocean to pound.

I know, everyone has seen waves raising mountains of spray and, especially for those of you on the west coast, these are ho-hum. But for a prairie lad and the photographer in me, it is endlessly engaging watching and waiting for the next even bigger splash.

So it seems that at times like this, I can spend a lot of time watching and listening to the power of the water and being here instead of thinking about leaving.



I must go down to the sea again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume and the sea gulls crying.

A verse from Sea Fever by John Masefield

One of my favourite poems (and one of the few of which I remember at least a bit)