It's amazing how fast seasickness can hit!

Hello again, this time from the town of Ucluelet on the western coast of Vancouver Island!
So much has happened since my last post two days ago - I will try to capture as much as possible, if only for my own reference later, and beg your forgiveness if I end up being a total bore! :->

Sunday morning I checked out of my hostel in Vancouver and picked up my rental car - which ended up being an electric-blue PT Cruiser! I never had pictured myself in a PT Cruiser before (I'm not so crazy about the shape), but I have to say that it handles really well, and has lots of room for its vehicle class.

I drove up to Horseshoe Bay (outside West Vancouver) to catch a ferry to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. The wind was fiercely strong at the harbour, and its combination of water and tree-covered mountains all around was thrilling! I stayed out on deck as long as possible.
Upon reaching Vancouver Island, I started the trek across this beautiful island. This involved driving in the rain on a two-lane road that twisted up and down mountains - one could say that it required a certain amount of attention! One thing about the forests here - in the rain at least they seem to have this bright green glow that I've never witnessed before. As I drove through this wild, vivid, and dramatic countryside, I thought about my smug assessment of Emily Carr's work in my last post and realized I'd been an ignoramus. After seeing nature in this setting, her work doesn't seem cartoonish at all! I guess this just goes to prove that travel opens your mind in ways you never could have predicted - and that it's never safe to write off someone else's art, because someday when my circumstances change, I might just get it! LOL

On my way across the island, I happened to stop at a place called "Cathedral Grove", which is an amazing little place. It's in MacMillan Park, and it's got these stately, immense trees. If you're ever in the area, please do NOT miss it!!!!

It had been raining for several days by the time that I'd reached the island, and as a result, I drove past countless temporary waterfalls (both large and small) down mountains. I kept saying, "Wow, wow, wow!!!" to myself, and more than once wished that I was driving a convertible (except that it was raining, and that I really couldn't afford to gawk if I didn't want to wind up in a lake or crashing into a rock face or tree. I guess what I was really wishing for was a sunny day in a chauffeur-driven convertible! LOL).

I finally arrived in Ucluelet late in the afternoon, and had a very early night.

Early this morning, I got up, got ready, and got on the road. I walked a short trail through an old-growth rainforest (I can't wait to show you the picture I took of a giant skunk cabbage!!! LOL) before going to the small harbour town of Tofino for a whale-watching tour.

Never having needed to consider these things before, I didn't pay any attention to the sign on the road that warned of high waves. About 9 of us got in a little closed-cabin boat and headed out to open ocean. Within a few minutes, we were rocking and rolling up and down 2-metre waves. Before I learned how to brace myself properly, I found my feet suddenly on the dashboard in front of me after a particularly large wave! LOL The ocean was roiling and dark, but Bill, our guide and captain, was a young native Canadian man with obvious experience and a very calm manner, so I put all my trust in him.

Mind you, there were times when the fibreglass base of the boat went up in midair and then slapped down on the far side of a large wave, and I wondered whether it would hold up to the structural strain. But it did!

One of the passengers became sea-sick fairly early on, but aside from the concern for my life, the ride was kind of fun, and I suffered no ill effects. We went to a couple of small islands to see some seals and sea lions, but the water was so rough that we couldn't get very close to the jagged rocks, and they certainly weren't about to come near us! So then we went to Cow Bay, where, according to Bill, was where grey whales would often be found.

After an eternity of searching, we finally saw the plume of a couple of grey whales, and Bill cut the motor while we waited for a whale to breach or do something interesting. We started bobbing and turning in all directions, even while Bill kept complete control over the vessel. This motion, combined with the fumes of the diesel engine of the boat (which were now blowing forward into the cabin), started a curious sensation in my body which I didn't quite equate with sea-sickness until just a couple of minutes before I was desperately trying to open the window next to me in order to feed the fishes below my partially-digested breakfast! LOL Somewhere in there we actually saw a grey whale rise to the surface of the water before it dove again.

Most of us must have looked fairly rough, because shortly after that, Bill decided to take us back to shore. There was no protest. On the way back, he heard on the radio that some of the Zodiaks had actually seen a humpback whale (far more rare), but none of us on my boat really cared that we'd missed it. LOL (Weren't the people in the Zodiaks puking their guts out too? I guess not ...)

In the midst of this misery, there was a couple with twin 15-months old. Their mother couldn't figure out why, when four of the nine adult passengers was tossing his/her cookies, her cherub-like infants were snacking on cookies! I didn't want to say anything to her, but I saw how she'd bounced them around while on shore, and probably the motion on the boat seemed par for the course to them. LOL However, I wouldn't be surprised if their IQs are somewhat below normal in a few years from the shaken-baby syndrome.

After blessedly reaching dry land, I spent some time just hanging out in Tofino until I felt better. I then drove to a place in the Pacific Rim Park called Wickaninnish, which someone in a Tourist Info office had recommended. Wickanninish has a long, sandy beach (creatively called Long Beach), and I spent hours walking along it, listening to and watching the waves. It was wonderful and relaxing. I also happened to see not one, not two, but THREE bald eagles in the air! (They have a distinctive white head and white tail, so I'm pretty sure that's what they were.) I had a delicious dinner of fisherman's stew at The Wickaninnish Restaurant before going for another walk along the beach and heading back to the hostel in Ucluelet.

So there, in a nutshell, is the last two amazing days of my time in British Columbia! Tomorrow I head off early, back across the Island, then south to Victoria before heading to Seattle for my brother's wedding. I am really looking forward to my stay at a nice hotel tomorrow night, and also to seeing my family in Washington State. :->

Bye for now!

Eclecta