Reptiles at Risk

Days Off

Posted by Jeff Hathaway on September 18, 2008 at 5:46 PM

We completed a few programs on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands before taking a bit of a break from programs in order to clean, feed and make some decisions. The first couple of days we spent cleaning and tidying the trailer and van. Quite a lot of clutter had accumulated over the last number of weeks. Jenny then flew out from Ontario to meet with us. We won't be home before a major funding application deadline - NSERC PromoScience, one of our project's biggest supporters. We had to decide whether or not to apply for another three years of funding to keep this project going. This seems like an easy decision, however the project takes a tremendous amount of effort and planning so the possibility of another three years warranted serious consideration and all three of us needed to discuss it. One big challenge is the uncertainty from year to year about funding from some sources, so in the end we decided to apply for a fairly significant amount for three years and see what happens. We hope that we'll be approved and that the project will continue. We also gave the animals a big feeding, since this was our only major break in our program schedule. With these important tasks out of the way, we took a few well-earned days off! For our holiday we explored Vancouver Island and enjoyed being tourists.

We had many memorable experiences including renting sea kayaks and going out onto the Pacific Ocean. We kayaked up to a pull out rock for seals and got to watch them swim around our kayaks. We went to Nanaimo and ate Nanaimo bars as well as a place called Coombs which has lots of touristy stores, one of which has a grass roof with goats on it. The best part of our week was when we traveled to Tofino on the West Coast of the Island. Tofino is pretty touristy as well, however we didn't stay long in the actual city. We took a Whale watching tour to Hot Springs cove and spent the night there. The hot springs are really neat, they are not built up at all like some of the others that we've seen. The water cascades down through a bunch of natural rock pools until it hits the ocean about 25 meters away. You can stand in the really hot waterfall at the top, or choose a pool you're comfortable in. As the water travels down it cools off a little until it hits the last pool. The last pool is right by the ocean and cold waves wash into it every once in a while. It is really neat to sit in the hot bath and then have a nice cold wave wash in to cool everything down for a bit.

We finished off our holiday with an evening on Long Beach. We flew Jenny's kite then sat and watched the sun set over the ocean. It was a great finish to a great but brief vacation. Jenny took the opportunity to drive our van back across the island, she really enjoyed the mountain roads. We got back to Jeff's cousin's house quite late but were up again before dawn to get to the Duke Point ferry which took us back to the mainland. Before taking Jenny to the airport we had a little time to tour around the fishing harbor at Steveston - it was really neat to see a harbour dominated by working fishing boats instead of recreational craft. Too bad our limited freezer space prevented us from buying a lot of fresh seafood!

Heather and Jeff