This morning we left our gray rainy campsite (wow! things changed overnight!) in Tofino and headed back across the island on our way to Victoria. But first, here's one more shot from yesterday at Bella Pacifica Campground while it was still sunny:
Oh wait, there are a few more things I want to mention that we did before we left Tofino. Yesterday afternoon we went into town to grab some oysters, and right as we got back to the car I looked up in response to some intense bird sounds and said to Kevin quickly "lookuplookuplookup!!!"
There were about eight bald eagles flying overhead, and two of them were in dramatic combat. As we watched them RIGHT above us, two of them went careening into each other, locking talons (you could HEAR them hit each other, that's how close they were) and spiraling through the air. After a couple rounds of that, the loser retreated to the top of a nearby tree while the others went on their fish-hunting way over the bay. It was so cool to see this so close!
Here are two of them — already much higher than before — after the drama was over (when I could finally stop watching for a second to get my camera out):
Also, yesterday we stopped for lunch at Tacofino, a taco truck right off the main highway near our campground (in the parking lot behind "Live to Surf" surf shop). This place has seriously great tacos. We each had a regular Baja-style cod fish taco, and the Tuna Ta-Taco (seared sesame albacore with wasabi mayo, cabbage, salsa, and seaweed salad). So good!!
Also, check out their fabulous t-shirts! The skull is made of flowers and in the middle of his forehead there's a Tacofino logo (praying hands holding a taco), and the skull has a big fish in its mouth. (Kevin's wearing his right now!)
Okay, back to today! We left early (for us…8:30am). The drive was soggy but beautiful and looked mostly like this:
We made a stop at Qualicum Beach to pick up a bit more seafood (still not tired of fresh seafood). I did a little research while Kevin was driving and found a highly-rated spot called French Creek Seafood. We parked in the nice big marina parking lot and walked around the marina to the seafood store (it's the large clump of buildings you can see in the distance, across all the boats):
The entrance to the fish store was completely nondescript and working-harbor awesome, and had the nicest fish ladies inside helping customers. We highly recommend a stop here if you're up this way. Enter through the brown door with the little red neon "open" sign:
We picked up some clams for dinner tonight, some fresh crabcakes, more frozen calamari (I love putting this in risotto or pasta!) and some more smoked salmon pate.
We drove the rest of the way to Victoria (about 4.5-5 hours total from Tofino) and now we're at the Westbay Marine Village. It's still gray and rainy, but we're close to town and we'll have a great time here exploring (and working of course) until we catch the ferry over to Port Angeles on Friday morning.
Here's Victoria, just across the harbor from our spot at Westbay:
You decided the plane was too fast? 🙂
Traded plane in for a boat