August 24, 2004
Effingham Bay, Barkley Sound (N 48° 52' W 125° 18')
We spent the nights of August 22 and 23 in Tofino after making a quick passage from Young Bay. One of these trips we're going to get to the west coast early enough in the season so we don't feel like we have to make tracks south. As it is, we feel like the trip home is lurking over our heads so we cruise down the coast without stopping at places that look interesting. Oh well, we will just have to come back again and do it right.
Tofino is (was) our last "big" town before returning to the U.S. (though we may make a quick stop in Ucluelet for fresh fruit and veggies for the trip home). If I had to describe Tofino, I'd say it's a cross between Half Moon Bay and Berkeley. It has the small, fishing village feel of Half Moon Bay and the sandalwood scented/dread locked/liberal attitude of Berkeley. We had two meals out: fish and chips for dinner and pizza for lunch. Quite different from our trip in 1997 when we ate lunch at a trendy style cafe that had just opened. The cafe was still there, but was only open for dinner and the prices had gone up considerably.
We arrived on the afternoon of the 22nd and did laundry for the first time since July 30. Strangely enough it only took 90 minutes to complete this chore, thanks to the new triple loader washers in the laundromat. I'm not sure I ever mentioned this before, but I get to play "pack mule" whenever we do laundry. We have found the easiest way to transport things like laundry and propane tanks is on a back pack frame, the docks being too rough and uneven for rolling a cart. So we bag all the bedding and many weeks worth of T-shirts, underwear, pants, and sweatshirts and strap them to the pack frame. Then I get to sling it on my back and carry it however far we need to go. In Tofino the laundromat is not far, but the marina is at the bottom of a very steep hill which makes laundry day a special work out.
Today we made the jump from Tofino to Barkley Sound. It's about 35 miles in a southeast direction. We just managed to make it in before the weather. The 4 AM forecast called for wind out of the southwest at 10-20 knots. That would have been great, except that this was the only area forecast to blow from the southwest. Every other forecast area was supposed to have wind out of the southeast. I figured the guy recording the forecast had misread it. Sure enough, when they came out with the 10:30 forecast it was for southeast. Thankfully it never blew hard enough to impede our progress and the only problem we had was reduced visibility while bands of rain came through.
Oh, we did have one other exciting moment. We were entering the islands of Barkley Sound. I was out on the bow making sure we were heading through an appropriate gap in the rocks and Linda was at the wheel taking directions. I was checking the chart when all of a sudden Linda shouted and threw the boat into neutral. I look up expecting to see a rock that I had missed directly in front of us, but there was nothing there. I looked back at Linda and she yelled, "A whale, we almost hit a whale!" It had surfaced about 30 ft in front and to the right of NAKIA while I was looking at the chart. Thankfully we didn't feel any bumps and we continued on into the protection of the islands without further incident.
The rain started coming down in earnest just before we got the anchor down. That's fine though, at least we had reason to appreciate our afternoon tea and cookies. Hopefully the rain will stop tomorrow and we can take the trail to the other side of the island. We've done this one before so we know it's "an easy walk."
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