Canada part two (the quiet bit)

After saying goodbye to Nick's family and driving back to Calgary we took a remarkably scenic flight to Victoria on Vancouver Island. Most of the short flight is spent flying over mountain ranges. It's only from the air that you can really appreciate how vast a landscape British Columbia has. Just mile upon mile of rugged white mountain ranges with only a smattering of remote communities. Descending into Victoria is no less spectacular, with the surrounding ocean dotted with thousands of small green tree covered islands. We stopped briefly with friends in Victoria before hiring a car and driving across to the west coast of the island to a small town called Tofino. Driving across Vancouver Island is pretty much like everything else we saw in Canada, huge forests, huge mountains, lots of open space. Makes you feel healthy just driving through at it! On route we stopped at a place called Cathedral Grove. A collection of paths and walkways that wind through immense 800 year old cedar trees. Apparently this is one of the many sites where people have been protesting the massive amount of logging that's destruction is evident all over the island.

Tofino is a small community that is set at the end of a long peninsular that shelters the Clayoquot Sound. This sleepy little town has now become a haven for surfers and wildlife lovers in the summer and storm watchers in the winter. If and when I set up a home, I'd kinda like it to be somewhere like here. With quite a large 'First nation' community there are local style art galleries everywhere and it has some really nice restaurants and bars. We stayed in a beautiful mezzanine studio with a deck overlooking the water and islands. For my birthday we went out whale watching and were lucky enough to catch up with 6-8 migrating grey whales. They were a reasonable distance away most of the time but we did get a couple of close encounters. We even got covered in whale snot at one point when one surfaced after going under the boat. We then went to explore one of the many immense white sand beaches before heading out for dinner at a really cool surf bar/restaurant. I'll make it back to Tofino one day just so I can eat there again. It was quite an unforgettable birthday.

We really didn't want to leave Tofino and I wish that we could have stayed longer. It wasn't just that it's such an amazingly peaceful place to explore and you have nature right on your doorstep, but also as we had arranged to go diving with our friend in Victoria. The weather was great while we were in Tofino, but not great enough to make me think I was ready to jump in 7 degree water. Our plan for Victoria was to get back there in the afternoon and meet up with a friend at the local dive shop and after having a brief on land induction, hike our way along the breakwater in front of the shop and drop right in. Now anyone who's been in a drysuit is probably thinking that it sounds pretty foolish to drop straight in the ocean without getting used to it in the shallows first. But hey, come on, as an instructor and divemaster we were both kind of thinking 'how hard can it be...?'. Getting ready for a warm water dive takes around 5-10 minutes going slow. It took us 3 hours to get our stuff together, talk about the gear, get into the gear and get ready to hike. We set off rather hot and harassed in our 3 layers of fleece and thermal under our restrictive spaceman like drysuits, carrying 35 lbs of weight plus the extra weight of the tanks, all the way a long the concrete blocks that make the breakwater. It took us about 15 minutes to walk about 500 metres to the drop in point. By this point our thermals were damp with sweat and our knees were shaking from the weight.

It is quite a strange feeling to prepare yourself to jump into really cold water fully clothed. It is even stranger to hit the water and have the majority of your body stay dry. The only part of you that is exposed to the water is your hands and your head. When the water works its way through the hood the sensation is not really one of cold, more like someone slapping you repeatedly round the ears. Although as the water in your hood warms up this feeling eases. Diving normally in thin wetsuits, you get used to complete freedom of movement. In a drysuit every time you move your head or neck the chances are you'll let water in, also the huge hood you wear will move your mask and you get a face full of icy water. Turning around is obviously a skill that takes a bit of practice. When I took my drysuit off at the end of the dive I had to pour water out of my boots. Getting water in the suit means that all the insulation is lost and you just get cold. As well as being cold, I don't think I've felt that uncomfortable in the water since the start of my Open Water course. I felt like a student all over again. You have so much weight and air around you that you haven't a hope in hell of controlling your buoyancy. I must have looked like an overweight cruise shipper in the water, constantly going up and down and crashing into things I couldn't see (remember, no turning around).

The whole reason for getting cold and wet in the first place was to see one of natures more unusual creatures, the wolf-eel. This eel like fish has to be one of the ugliest animals on the planet, but it is also one of the friendliest. They often swim out and wrap themselves round divers, they just want to be loved. From the picture you can see why, not the most attractive of faces! Luckily we got our wolf-eel encounter before we gave up and called it quits. 3 hours to get ready for a 22 minute dive. Not only that but we ended up with a longer walk back with the added weight of the water. This dive was meant to be the warm up for 2 more challenging dives the next day. Needless to say I for one was definitely not up to that challenge and so we opted to stay dry and warm for our last day on the island.

The boat trip from Vancouver Island to the mainland has to be one of the most scenic routes taken by a huge car ferry. You wind yourself in and out of the small surrounding island and get to check out all the beautiful houses dotted a long the shores. We were lucky to pass a pod of killer whales feeding in the ripping currents that run between the channels of the islands. They were the last on the long list of stuff we had hoped to see so it was really cool. All in all while in Canada we saw wolves (sadly only in a sanctuary), grey whales, killer whales, eagles, seals, sea lions, a sea otter and Nick even saw a grizzly bear.










When we got to Vancouver city we decided to check into a hotel for a few hours before our late night flight home. After a very brief Internet check we opted for what appeared to be a nice reasonably priced hotel in a place called East Hastings. No doubt all our Canadian friends will be chuckling right now. We got to the hotel and spoke to the guy at check in about walking to the trendy Gastown area that was nearby. He recommended walking the back way to avoid the main street which apparently had 'a lot of poverty'. Following his advice we set off along a rather dodgy route past lots of prostitutes, homeless, and quite a few people who just stood on their own in one spot rocking. Vancouver is one of the wealthiest cities in Canada and this area seemed more third world. Getting to Gastown it's strange to see such obvious wealth right next to such poverty. However, we still got hassled by some rather aggressive beggars. Having explored a little bit and wanting to head back before dark made the area a whole lot worse, we decided that regardless of what the guy at the hotel said, that the main road must be busier and seem less threatening. Not sure if it was a result of the recent mugging attempt but I was feeling decidedly edgy. Walking along the main road in East Hastings is like being dropped into the middle of a movie set in the Bronx. There must have been a few hundred homeless people hanging around on the street. We were without a doubt the only people (other than a photographer) who had somewhere warm and clean to go to. Canadians call this area 'ground zero' or 'needle park'. Because Vancouver is slightly warmer than most other areas of Canada, and because East Hasting has Canada's first safe injection program, the area is a mecca for every drug user in the country. Two Canadian friends of mine said that when they visited the city and were driven through East Hastings they were told 'lock the doors' and they drove straight through. Feeling like we so obviously stuck out on the street was quite scary for me, but more than that it was quite depressing to see such a concentration of poverty in an otherwise wealthy city.

Considering that we were only in Canada for around 2 weeks, and that it is such an immense place, I feel very privileged to have done and seen so much (at times possibly more than we bargained for!). By the time we got on the flight to come home we were absolutely exhausted. Luckily we had 4 seats each to ourselves. A big thumbs up for China Air!