Tofino was the apex of the trip, the land’s end for Vancouver Island and the land’s end for us. It was as far as we were going, north and west. Next, we boomerang back through Victoria, Washington, Oregon and the boring part of California.
Toddler-sized Wetsuits
Since most of the day would be in the car, we started with a hearty walk along Chesterman Beach. There were surfers, which was impressive enough, but I was gobsmacked by the daddy with his two-year-old, rolling around in the surf. It’s 47-freakin’ degrees outside, or 8 degrees as the metric people would say. The water is decidedly frigid. I checked.
I didn’t know you could acquire toddler-sized wetsuits, but clearly you can and, apparently in Tofino, you must.
I have been whale watching before. I have been to Tofino before. I have been on a boat in very choppy waters before. But everything old can be made new.
We changed our overnight stay from Ucluelet to Tofino specifically because the whale watching season ends in Ucluelet October 1, but continues in Tofino until the end of the month. This is the hazard of traveling in shoulder season; services are shut down. We passed a lot of CLOSED until May 2020 signs. On the other hand, no crowds, and it’s easy to imagine this cute little town crammed with cars circling for the handful of available parking spots.
Thar She Blows
Of course, when you book whale-watching, you never know if you will see whales. The migration season to Mexico starts in September or so, and whale sightings are most plentiful in the summer, when they travel up to Canada to spend the summer feeding. That might mean no whales. Tours like these always post multiple warnings that whales are NOT GUARANTEED. Jamie’s Whaling Station, the tour we picked, was unique in specifying that they would give you a ticket for another boat another day if you didn’t see a whale. But we weren’t going to be here another day.
Then, I thought, maybe climate change was making the water warmer and causing the whales to stay up north a bit more. Could Exxon and our doomed love of carbon-spewing SUVs have created the perfect opportunity for me to see whales? Sorry, future generations, but I want to see whales.