Tofino was part of a trip to British Columbia we did recently, organised by Sabine, revisiting places where she used to live (Whistler, Victoria and Vancouver), and seeing old friends.   It was wonderful.

We did a birding boat trip from Tofino one morning that, honestly, was a huge disappointment and for me a bit of a disaster – more of that below.  We went back to Tofino again in the afternoon for a wander around the town (that took about 5 minutes), a look into the long house gallery of First Nations art that was beautiful but outside it was a hot day and we needed an iced coffee and something to eat.

We found this rustic place on the main street that had both and sat next to an interesting couple – this guy and his elderly, bike-riding father.  I say elderly because I think he was older than me, probably in his 80s.  They were having a wide-ranging conversation and until they got up to leave and said goodbye to each other, we didn’t know they were father and son.  Father got on his bike, son on his roller skates.

You can imagine my disappointment (the second of the day) ….. I looked but couldn’t find a shop that sold those maple-leaf budgie smugglers. So I won’t be parading down King Street in St Helier, not being in the slightest bit bothered by the spectacle I would be making of myself.

You might need to look Tofino up on a map – it’s a dead end on the west coast of Vancouver Island, about a third of the way up and in the middle of nowhere.  It’s very pretty, primarily a surfing paradise, full of mostly young, cool surfing dudes and dudesses.  It’s now a destination in its own right, though, with some very expensive resorts whose rack rates for rooms only at $880 per night confirm that the cost of living crisis is not affecting those who stay there.

We watched some of the surfers off the beach we stayed at.  There seems to be a lot of activity walking across the beach with the board under their arm, wading into the water till they can float the board, paddling out a certain distance and floating on their surfboards chatting to the other surfers while waiting for the perfect wave that doesn’t seem to come very often and hence not a lot of actual surfing.  The waves didn’t look very big but despite that, not that many made a good fist of getting up and riding them  when they did actually try, so maybe we were on a beginners beach.  Water temperature was around 10C, so full body wet suits were worn by all including hoods. 

Which precluded any thought that Sabine and I might want to join them in the water with or without wetsuits – we can get that cold in Jersey.  To put the water in perspective, there was open water between us and the north island of Japan, nearly 7,000 km to the west – i.e. the Pacific Ocean.

The day had started full of promise – sunshine, not too cold, and seemingly not too windy for a boat trip.  We left the hotel at 7am for the short drive to Tofino, found the Whale Centre building, signed our lives away, got suited up and escorted to the vessel for our 8am departure.  Some of our fellow passengers were all excited about seeing the tufted puffins and Jean Yvres, our captain, said they’d been seen round the island not that long ago and was keen to show them to us.

However he also told us that while he was ok with bird ID, he wasn’t an experienced birder and that there would be a 3 metre swell on the way out to the bird reserve on Cleland Island Ecological Reserve.  Some of the party (not us) were very keen to try to see the Tufted Puffins that are there.  He assured us it would be ok as he and the boat could handle that kind of sea.

Well, he was correct, right up to the point when he wasn’t.  We took the direct route that meant being on the open sea.  The sea had a completely random chop that reminded me of being on Georgian Bay, Ontario near the cottage – the waves coming at you haphazardly from all directions at the same time – but 10 times worse.  However, despite feeling like being on a roller (no pun intended) coaster, we did get to the island ok. 

Naively I was hoping that there would be a nice calm patch of water from where to look at the birds.  But No, calm water wasn’t on the menu that day; the boat was going up and down so much you couldn’t hold the binoculars or the camera still enough to be able to get a good view of the birds, let alone a photo.  Having said that, I couldn’t believe that one of sea lion photos actually in focus. 

And here is part of the photo blown up:

But with such choppy water, there wasn’t a cat in hell’s chance of seeing the beautiful Tufted Puffins on the sea (photo courtesy of Merlin, the birding app), even though they’re the size of a crow (bigger than our Atlantic Puffins).  They nest in burrows on the island when breeding but most of the year they’re at sea, like our puffins.

So far so good? At a crucial moment, while JY was paying more attention to the birds on the island than to what was happening on the water, the boat suddenly turned into the chop.  It hit a wave the wrong way and Sabine and I, sitting in the bow, were deluged.  The water even got into the floatation suits we were wearing.

And no, they’re not my ears

I had just been trying to photograph those sea lions.  The camera got soaked and didn’t want to work after the wave hit or in the days that followed.  The replay button turned it on and off and I could see the photographs on the SD card.  Back at the hotel, as a one-off, it allowed me to actually take a photo, but all the other buttons were either not working or not doing what they were meant to do.  We even bought a huge bag of rice and buried the camera in it for 3 days, following advice someone gave us.  So ….. for the sake of not disappointing some people who were always going to be disappointed that day, I need a new camera.

Back on the boat, JY got the message at that point, and immediately headed us for home through a much calmer inshore passage.  En route we actually saw some birds – rhinoceros auklets, harlequin ducks, pacific loons, black oystercatchers amongst them – and even a grey whale, and the piece de resistance was the most magnificent aerial display of six bald eagles close-up just as we were docking in Tofino at the end of the trip.  Two of them obligingly went and perched in a tree at the water’s edge but apologies for the picture quality of my phone as I may have mentioned that my camera wasn’t working.

The rest of our Tofino stay was relatively uneventful and extremely enjoyable.  We had a wonderful cocktail at the Wickaninnish Inn (all we could afford at their prices), and a magical walk through a rainforest on a raised boardwalk, comprising Western Red Cedars and Sitka Spruce (the same trees planted in abundance by the UK Forestry Commission), with the sun shining through the canopy and warblers singing in the tree tops (frustratingly not visible), and ferns of all kinds growing on the forest floor.