Day 13 - July 22, 2010 11:59 PM

July 22, 2010
11:59 PM

Diving and driving.

The boys were scheduled or a 9:00 AM scuba session. D got them down to the dock while I finished up packing at the hotel.

The guys got suited and sorted and were off on their adventure.

D and I packed up the car. D spent the morning wandering through the various art stores of Tofino while I caught up on my podcasts in the car (shopping is not my thing).

At 1:00 the scheduled time I heard on the radio there were gale warnings for the area with swells up to 2 meters. The diving party did not get back until 2:00 PM. Stories of fish they had seen were mixed in with descriptions of how cold they were. Apparently S could not pressurize his ears properly so was left snorkeling at the surface while the other dove. It sounded like they had a good time, but when pressed all admitted that diving in the Caribbean was more interesting as they saw more fish. They said the guy leading the tour was great and told many interesting stories about diving for the commercial fish farms. They also found out that the barges full of oil tanks we saw in the harbour were pushed out to the fish farms by tug boats.

On the road by 2:45. Along the way I put together sandwiches from the cooler as D drove. This was once again the very windy road with more than one big truck attempting to mate with our van. D was not impressed.

We once again stopped at Taylor River where P and J did some rock diving.

Back into the car in an attempt to get to Vancouver. B took over the driving. When we got to the ferry landing, the boat to Horseshoe bay had a 3 hour wait. If we drove 20 minutes we could catch a different ferry to a port further south. We decided to do that as it would balance out that we would gain an hour.

We had supper on the ferry during the 2 hour crossing. Since this was later in the day, the ferry did not seem as crowded but seemed to have more commercial truckers aboard.

Once across the search for a hotel started in the dark on unfamiliar highways. GPS finally lead us to a Day's Inn near the airport. Nerves a little frazzled from the long day we crashed and were in bed by midnight.

Tomorrow's goal is to visit with my Aunt and Uncle in Princeton on the way to kilona.