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Summer 2018 #6 August 7, 2018

A Tour of Vancouver Island

Water – Mountains - Forests

 Departing from the mainland at Horseshoe Bay on the Salish Sea just north of Vancouver, we arrived about 1 ½ hours later in Nanaimo, the port city on central Vancouver Island.

   

Lowest deck on the ferry                                               Leaving Horseshoe Bay

Nanaimo – home of the Nanaimo Bar - a first layer of cocoa, graham wafer crumbs, chopped almonds and coconut, covered with a layer of vanilla custard and icing sugar, topped with melted semi-sweet chocolate and butter. This recipe is also used in cheesecake, tea latte, cupcakes, truffles, milkshakes, and a martini. We only sampled the original bar. Yummy.

Pacific Rim National Park Preserve

The Wild Pacific Coast

The Pacific Rim National Park Preserve spans the west coast of Vancouver Island with numerous forested coves and beaches. In a climate of 300 cm of rain annually, bog plants grow among hummocks of sphagnum moss and sea stacks topped with Sitka spruce and Western Red Cedar rise along the beach.

Moss covered trees

   

Sculpted by wind and water

Carnivorous sundews

Life in a Tide pool

In Ucluelet’s He-Tin-Kis Park we explored a rocky section of tide pools with a park naturalist.

   

Tide pool Scavenger Hunt                                                     Moss Chiton

Moss chiton has 8 overlapping plate shells. They feed on algae using a radula.

   

Green Anemone                                                                         Keyhole Limpets

The Green Anemone looks like an underwater flower.

Limpets attach to rocks by strong muscular feet to withstand being eaten by sea stars.

   

Sea Star                                                                                         Sea Urchins

Sea Stars can have 5 or more than 20 arms. Their mouth is located on the underside and their “eyes” are located at the tip of each ray.

Sea Urchins are spiny globular animals. They move slowly, crawling with their tube feet and pushing with their spines.

Spooner Cove Trail

A 1 km forest boardwalk lead down a series of stairs and ramps to the Pacific Ocean at Schooner Cove on Long Beach, the longest stretch of surf-swept sand on Vancouver Island. With the tide out, only children were running and splashing in the shallow surf. The First Nation village of Tla-o-qui-aht extends inland from this beach.

   

Through the rainforest                                                           Schooner Cove on Long Beach

High tide driftwood                                                    Giant Western Hemlock

A Glimpse of the Past

These petroglyphs, mostly sea creatures, are thought to have been carved with a sharpened stick using wet sand as an abrasive.

   

Mythical sea monster                                                                                Killer whale

Returning to the USA

Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, is our departure city for Port Angeles, Washington on the Coho Ferry. The ferry dock in the stone-walled inner harbor is surrounded by English style gardens and docked pleasure crafts. We happened to be departing during Symphony Splash, an annual music festival in the harbor. As our ferry left the dock the symphony was beginning their evening program with “O Canada”, the national anthem, a fitting conclusion to our travels in Canada.

We are now in Sequim, WA with our friends Pat and Dick Gritman. We will leave in a few days for Oregon and California.