Advertisement
Published: July 25th 2005
Edit Blog Post
I am continuing these emails in a new web format which will hopefully make it easier for me to send them to everyone. You will be notified by email when a new diary entry appears. The trip route, in case you are interested in also attached.
Vancouver island is a large island just west of Vancouver on the west coast of Canada. My first point of call after Victoria was Campbell River, which is famous for its salmon fishing industry. This area is home to five different type of salmon, kohu being considered one of the best in the world. If the salmon had been running (they come down from rivers in Alaska) then I would have gone fishing. I envisaged doing some fishing in North America but have found that fishing regulations are strict and you have to have a license for each province/state that you fish in. I opted to buy some smoked and candied salmon from the local store which was delicious.
Vancouver island makes up the start of a string of islands called the Inside Passage, a popular ferry and cruiseliner route starting from Seattle/Vancouver and finishing in Alaska. Huge cruiseliners (some as high as
13 stories) would pass through the Discovery passage enroute to the rest of the Inside passage.
I decided that it would be cool and somewhat different to go for a scuba dive in the Discovery Passage at Campbell river. They say that if you fall in the water here without insulation from the cold you have 20 minutes before you turn into a piece of blue meat. After my first dive I decided that was probably true. Brrrrrr. The water was a chilly 8 deg C, a far cry from the 20 deg C common around Perth. On the second dive, it made me feel a lot warmer diving with PADI divemasters wearing drysuits when all I had was a 7mm wetsuit! Considering the temperature of the water, there was surprisingly alot of colour and fish to see. Although I didnt see any they have these fish here called Halibut which look very similar to the flounder found in Australia except grow up to 2m in length! On our second dive, the guy that took us diving timed our descent to the minute so that we were swept one way with the outgoing tide 200ft....then stopped....and swept in the
opposite direction 200ft with the incoming tide.
The island is covered in forests and has consequently attracted large numbers of companies associated with deforestation which has probably attracted the large number of hippies that live on the coast. You would think that both parties would be at continual log-a-heads, so to speak, but it seems that the hippies are happy entertaining surfy visitors with their alternative lifestyle. Tofino and Ucluelet are the most notable hippie towns and they attract large numbers of surfers to enjoy what is considered Canada's best surf. Personally, having just surfed in Hawaii contrasted with cold water scuba diving in Campbell river I was happy to give the surfing a miss. I guess that just left sightseeing and socialising.
I met up with Steve, a cool guy from England, in Tofino and we travelled around and I introduced him to an Aussie rules football (see photo). As you can see, the beaches in Canada do not compare with those in Aus. We decided the go for 12km run along the beach and at the end found a baby seal stranded in sharp rocks about 30m from the ocean. Not knowing what to do with
it, I picked it up and dropped it on the sand. Steve thought that it was bleeding but we found out it was the umbilical cord so it must have been newly born. We were going to get the ranger but suddenly saw something swimming in the water and thought that it was the mother responded to the calls of the pup. We let it swim out to sea but later found out that it was probably a sea otter that we had seen. So I guess the seal has been eaten by a killer whale somewhere, which are so common here.
It was in Ucluelet that I met up with Nadine, a 31yr old self-confessed but retired hippie from Toronto who has moved to Vancouver. I was heading to Vancouver at the same time as Nadine so offered to give her a lift and share some driving costs. She accepted and so began an interesting 1 week experience in Vancouver later to be know as 'living the BC (British Columbia) dream'....
Mike
Advertisement
Tot: 0.161s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0368s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.1mb