Wednesday

This morning we got up to partial sun! That was good news as we were off to Tofino at 11 am to catch our boat to the Hot Springs Cove in Maquinna Marine Provincial Park in Clayoquot Sound, about an hour and a half north of Tofino. The sea was acceptably quiet (about 1.5 meter swells - which looked and felt like more than that to me!) for us to take the open ocean route, with the potential for seeing a whale or two.

Our first "sighting" was a cluster of Sea Lions, lolling about on several rocks

Remember to click on any photo to see a larger version.

Our sharp eyed driver and guide, Eugene, had been told by another guide that there were 3 grey whales not far from where we were and we were lucky to spot them, or at least their blowhole water spouts which we saw several times.

The boat was rocking relentlessly so it was difficult to get photos, but, though I didn't actually see the whale, my camera did see this whale's back, and duly recorded it! They were really surfacing only to breath so we didn't see much else, but it was exciting to be close to these whales.

 We arrived at the Hot Springs marina (some of us feeling a bit queasy) where we learned that we had a 2 Km hike before getting to the hot springs.

The sign that says it is 2 Km it fails to mention that it is really 4 Km - 2 Km horizontally and 2 Km vertically!

Though pretty vigorous for me, this walk through old growth forest was an unexpected treat, rivalling, though different from, Cathedral Grove. I don't know if there are any 800 year old trees here, but there are lots of very large trees, and some seemed close to the size of tree we saw in Cathedral Grove (see photo below with Michael standing beside one of the larger trees).

The walk was entirely on this boardwalk and there were many ups and downs like the one here.

This is a photo of the hot springs area with some folks enjoying the warmth.

Rod and Michael immersed themselves in the hot springs - I did not. It was rocky and a bit tricky getting into the pools so I decided I would rather postpone my "hot springs" experience until we got back to our hot tub. And because of the rocky area I did not get photos of Rod or Michael in the water.

The trip back was through the endless islands between the park and Tofino and Eugene was confident that we would see and get quite close to bears on the way. We didn't, unfortunately.

 But Eugene's sharp eye spotted a group of sea Otters and was able to get quite close to them, so we got some pretty good photos of them relaxing in the water and seeming to be as curious about us as we were about them.

Near the end of our trip back to Tofino Eugene stopped near an island to show us a large eagle nest. He said that it had been there for about 25 years and that a similar nest near by had been found to weigh around 1200 pounds! There was an eagle in the nest (which I didn't see) and another perched, as you see in the adjacent photo. Not a great photo but I think good enough to be quite sure it is a bald eagle.


A great day, again, and the weather was good to us again - partially sunny and pleasantly warm with no rain at all.

It was such a terrific day that we decided to stay Thursday and return to Abbotsford on Friday, which gave Michael the time to arrange his surfing lesson on Thursday afternoon. The lessons take place just behind our house so there should be some interesting photos in the next post.