Summer Road Trip - Day 6

 I was oh so excited for this day.  We packed up our sleepy kidlets at 6:30am and made the oh so curvy drive to Tofino for our 10am whale watching trip!  (We only had to pull over once for poor AL who was beyond car sick from that crazy drive).  Tofino is located on the far west side of the island so isn't the same calm seas of Parksville.
When I was pregnant with AL I had missed out on a whale watching trip my family went on because it was too bumpy for the pregnant ladies so ever since then I have been itching to go.  We decided to skip out on the zodiac style tours and went with this more family friendly vessel (a bathroom seems important on a 3 1/2 hr trip with kids ;)

 We lucked out with incredibly calm seas although there was some serious rocking here and there.  The tour staff said the average day is 2-3 meter swells, gah. The scenery was amazing!

 It didn't take long before we were spotting adorable Sea Otters just floating in the water all on their own.  I loved how laid back they looked on their backs with their feet in the air!  We even saw one Momma with a baby on her belly.

 The first part of the trip is what they called "whale spotting", we were all on look out!

 We saw lots of amazing sea lions that looked like they were waving at us as we cruised past

 

 We lucked out with glorious warm weather (it is 10 degrees cooler on the open water so we dressed in mega layers)

 The tour companies all work together radioing to each other when they find a whale.  We had to cruise way up the coast but finally came across a couple grey whales!  By law they have to shut off their engine 100 meters from the whales.

 We had so much fun watching the whale surface a few times before it would go down to feed for a few mins then resurface.  Because we had to travel so far to find the whales and ended up putting them an hour over time we probably only got maybe a half hour watching the whale.  The captain said he would let the whale surface one final time and then we would head back.  If you can believe it the whale surfaced right in front of the boat.  The captain instantly shut down the engine and we got an amazing show!

 You can see the double blow hole grey whales have here

 This guy was only 1-2 meters from the boat.  The pics truly don't do justice to what we could see. We could see the entire body of the whale just under the surface of the water.  Amazing.

 Slightly out of order here but JA was loving his necklaces lol

 

 This whale was seriously so unreal to watch

 Can you see the tail?  Apparently having them come so close is a very rare experience.  We felt pretty lucky!

 And then we made the beautiful trek back

 And enjoyed some hot chocolate and treats below deck.......and of course all the kids had to experience the bathrooms ;)

 

We were pretty hungry people so we headed to this fabulous restaurant right on the dock I had been to on my last trip there

 So fun watching fishermen arrive and cleaning their fish on the docks below as we ate

 We had to snag a pic here and send it to their uncle

 JA snapped a pic of us!

 The restaurant

 

After lunch we wanted to check out the surf shops.  We were standing just up the hill from the docks on the edge of the hwy with traffic racing by when some true "islanders" came up beside us (man buns, beards, hippies) suddenly one of the guys jumps into the traffic pulls out a water gun and starts shooting the passing vehicles who are swerving around him.  Once they all stopped he turned looked at us and gestured with a bow "after you".  The hero worship in JA's eyes was intense.  If I could have read his mind it would have been screaming "I want to be that guy when I grow up!" lol

We toured the Sisters surf shop and AL got a hat and I got a shirt

 We headed to town and checked out some stores at which point WR started to melt down.  We cruised down to long beach and he was out for the count.  I headed down to the beach with the big kids while he snoozed for a bit with his Dad. 
Long Beach is seriously amazing.  The sound of the huge crashing waves, the mist, the surfers, one of the most beautiful places on earth.  It was so fun to watch the kids discover it all.

 

 The pull of the sand under your toes as the waves crash in is the best!

 T and I have resolved to bring babysitters with us next time and get in some surf lessons!

 JA was right in there in his jeans getting taken down by the huge waves!

 We headed back to the van for swim suits and to wake our little WR (he was not impressed to be woken for quite some time)

 

Eventually WR snapped out of his haze and was ready to play too!

 I could sit and watch surfers and listen to the waves all day in perfect bliss!  When we were kids my Dad had a coworker with a beautiful beach house here that used to let us use it in the off season.  I have so many memories on the beach.

 

T was watching all the surfers with envy so he took the boogie board out and got some good waves!

 So gorgeous

 The kids were so fascinated with this star fish and after a good look sent him back to the ocean

 A perfect end to an incredible day

 

As we were starting the drive out of Tofino a black bear came out in front of us and JA declared that the best part of the day lol