Summer Adventures

 

July was spend moving, painting and  spending mucho time with the little puppies. So when the last days of July came and my 11 days off work came I hit the road for some outdoor adventures. First stop Victoria to spend some much needed time with my ex-roomie.  We did some wedding stuff.. making some nummy blackberry jelly but also found time for an afternoon to hang out at the Cowaichan River- swimming, napping in the sun and enjoying the spa like mud.

 

 Then I solo roadtripped it up to Tofino..  spent the afternoon on the beach then met up with Al at her cozy house in the woods

Next morning we scrounged around town getting stuff together and then launched off her parents beach

Tanga pretty glad she doesn't have to come in a boat

 Heading out to the outside of Vargas island.. beyond that rock... Japan.  The fog had burned off and the swell was gentle making for a lovely afternoon paddle

 We saw/chased some whales.. a momma and baby and two other grays... just outside of Ahous Bay

 Coming in abit off of the outside we spotted a gorgeous deserted white sand beach with a view to the outside and not too swelly. After a small surf (read crash) landing on the beach we pulled up and explored

 There was lots of sand, dunes, shells, sanddollars, and big footprints... we told ourselves they were dog prints =)

So many sand dollars

 Making dins and Al checking out the chart

 View from by the tent.

 Lazy sunset pictures...  Lets just say I was going for the artistic impression of all of the pictures from one location

 West Coast sunsets are the bestest

The next day we woke up completely socked in by fog, the swell was bigger as well. We were in no   hurry to leave so We took it easy.. read, made sunday morning pancakes and just read our bibles and journaled.

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 Around noon the swell was no smaller but  the fog lifted slightly  so we packed up to leave.  A bit of a swampy send off from the beach found us in swell with the fog back down and thick as ever. 

 We had planned to bear off of Vargas and head over to Whaler Island and then Flores but the fog and the crazy whale water boats that speed through it discouraged us from making the crossing.  Boats are the biggest danger because kayaks don't show up on rader in the swell so if you are in a trough they wont see you until they are on top of you.  Here we had a bit of 1 meter swell... enough that sometimes I lost sight of Al when we were in opposite troughs

As we rounded the corner to the inside around 330 the fog started to burn  off.  Our 2nd option for a  destination was to be a beach on Catface(the mountain pictured below).. but as the fog burned us around us we were not motivated to paddle right into the fog.  So we played it boring and stayed on Vargas the second night as well

now that we were on the inside it was sunny with no swell.

We made our way to a little sandy peninsula beach.  We took a bit of a risk but looked at the high tide line from the last night and looked at the tide chart and decided that we would stay dry =) it was a bit gutsy but gave us a private beach with a spectacular beach because no one else dared to camp there. 

Little tent =)

The sun stayed out and it pretty warm so we swam and then walked on the ajoining longer beach.  Al practicing her handstand

Supper and tea time =)

Sunset view from the tent.  I must say tho that I didn't sleep super well until after midnight when it was high tide... the water came pretty close. 

The next morning dawned surprise surprise foggy... but this time more cloudy then foggy so the visibility wasn't the bad.  We had some breakfast and then when to pack up

 

 \All was going good until Al couldn't find her 10 liter top of boat dry bag which she had accidently left out the night before ...  We scoured the beach, rocks and forest around where we had camped anywhere anything that was not to big could have dragged it off to.. 

 

Finally we had to come to the realization that our main suspect ... as evidenced by the paw prints and how big the thing stolen was.. is one of the Wolves of Vargas!!!

 We paddled about three hours home to Al's parents place where we crashed landed on the beach!! Circumnavigation of Vargas complete (the big island in the centre of the chart)

 Al's mom and gramma came down from the house to see us in

 

 Tanga glad to see us back

So much fun!! |Next time we shall get to Flores and crashland less often =) 


The next day I took the ferry from Duke point and Niki took it from Swartz Bay and we met in Delta for Vacation Adventures Part two.   We spent the night at my house and then headed up to Needle Peak.

It always looks so far away from the highway. 

 No pictures of the grind up through the trees but alpine adventures await =)

 At the base of the first ascent we dropped our packs for the summit.  We kind chose the wrong line but managed to clamber up

 Choosing our line for the second assent

 At the top!!!

 On the way down!!

 Them be some big rocks!!

We picked up our packs and headed across the bowl to the lake. Little tent beside the glacier lake

 view to the summit

 Toes loved the water =)

 Tent with the lake and glacier debris field up to Flatiron in the background

 We had a early dinner then we climbed flatiron for the sunset

 Needle from the top of Flatiron

 Needle sunset

 Needle Sunrise

 Breakfast and then back down.  Lovey trip with a most wonderful friend