Spicy Amigos

The trip started out with Nathan, Kelsey, and Justin packing all of their kayak gear, all of Nathan’s personal belongings, all of Sarah’s belongings she forgot in Vancouver, a bike on the roof, a Thule pod on the roof full of more things, beer for 4 days, food for 4 days, a kayak on the roof, and 3 people. It was a tight squeeze for sure. They took the 8:00pm ferry out of Vancouver and arrived in Nanaimo 2 hours later, where they then drove in the dark to find a campsite. The next morning they drove to Tofino where they met me at Tofino Sea Kayaking. We slowly packed up the boats and eventually headed out.

DAY 1: We started our first day (which was ALSO Kelsey’s 26th birthday!!!) by kayaking clockwise of Vargas Island. Our first stop was on Wickanninish Beach for lunch (Siegels Bagels, cream cheese, carrots, cucumbers, and apples). We continued onward towards Medallion beach where we ended our first day. A really short but nice day. The sun came out and we walked around the beach and ate Ms. Vickies chips as a snack. Justin brought along some funky ceramic mugs from the Salvation Army, some San Pel, and some nice Hendricks Gin (Kelsey’s favourite) to make some cocktails to celebrate the birthday! We made a nice stir-fry for dinner with lots of fresh vegetables and sat around a campfire to eat it. That night, as we were sitting down to make orange chocolate cakes in the fire, the most amazing thing happened – a family of 3 orcas swam by the beach as the sun was setting. We kept seeing their faces and their fins as they swam by – they must have known it was Kelsey’s birthday! We did eventually make our orange cakes … but Justin and Kelsey’s were more hot, chocolate, orange soup.

DAY 2: We got up the next morning, made a great breakfast of oatmeal with a selection of dried fruits, nuts, chia seeds, and hemp hearts. We paddled from Medallion Beach to our first stop which was Ahous Bay. When we got to Ahous Bay we sat in our kayaks for at least an hour watching the grey whales feed in the bay, there were so many! We even saw a grey whales face which was SO great. Then when we got on the beach eating some lunch, there were 4 different planes that landed on the beach (we thought one was going to run us over!). From Ahous Bay we kayaked to Dick & Jane’s beach. There was a section where it was absolute chaos – well not actual chaos but I was about to throw up from the swell, Kelsey and Justin were slightly behind me but were fighting the waves because it was getting big, and Nathan was concerned about someone tipping, me throwing up, and him having to choose between the two…yikes. We eventually rounded that part of the water and we all felt a little better once we got to the beach and munched on Ms. Vickies. We spent the day lying in the sun, napping, reading, and eating…it was much needed after kayaking in the swell.

Day 3: We didn’t kayak this day we just walked along all of the beaches, looked at the intertidal zones, played cribbage (don’t believe Nathan when he says “I don’t like this game because I don’t know how to play so I can’t win” – he won by a lot), ate snacks, drank beers, and laid in the sun.

Day 4: This was our last day of the trip, so we had another great oatmeal breakfast, some Rhino coffee , and then packed everything up to head back to Tofino. We saw some more whales and a sea otter on our trip back. We didn’t end up stopping anywhere which was a bad decision because we all ended having to pee, which resulted in none of us talking very much…that was shortly resolved after making it back to Tofino Sea Kayaking!

Once back in Tofino we went to Tacofino – waited 1 hour for our burritos, but was well worth it! At least we weren’t the girls who waiting over an hour for 1 taco each…

That night we stayed at Hotel Zed and it was so fun! It was like an amusement park for adults, but also so random!