I have no idea how to properly label the place, but I think the thread title should be right.

Tofino is a small beach town on the western shore of Vancouver Island, which is in British Columbia, which is in Canada. I took a family trip there back in 2003, and was just digging through old pics and found a few to share. I had my rebel 2000 at the time but haven't scanned any of the prints I took, I just have a few from my p&s digi.

First of all, its a beach, and its neat, but the biggest problem is that the water is freezing cold, even in July. You can surf here, but you need to wear a full wetsuit to do it so I'm not certain its really a great location to do that. We spent more time hiking in the temporate rainforests, checking out the sea life on the shore, and just bumming around. We also did some sea kayaking and took a side trip to a hot springs which was also cool. Most days are what feel like 65 degrees, and its sunny sometimes. Here's a typical morning:


If you're lucky, it'll look like this by afternoon:


Once we were back near vancouver we went to Burshur Gardens in Victoria City (I didn't take any digital pics there, sorry - it would be fun to go back with my current cam setup as there was lots to shoot there), which was neat and also checked out some museum with some old stuff in it.

For me, not living too near the ocean for most of my life the tides, tide pools, and stuff like that were really cool to play around in. We don't see stuff like this in the midwest:


These things can swallow a chipotle burrito in one bite:


In the same way, the rainforests were pretty cool, lots of vegetation/wildlife that I hadn't really seen or paid attention to before:


There are cool boardwalks constructed to walk on:


And some big trees:


My sister was being a bitch one day of the trip so we left her home when we went kayaking. She shot this:


The rest of my pics are at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jay1441...7603407602989/

J, wth is that multi leg starfish mutant thing?!

and @ the your sister bit.

I have no idea, but those crazy starfish are everywhere up there and they're huge.

Originally Posted by subimatt

J, wth is that multi leg starfish mutant thing?!

Originally Posted by thechickencow

I have no idea, but those crazy starfish are everywhere up there and they're huge.

Sun starfish. The enormous starfish can have up to 24 arms, grow to 30 inches in diameter and have as many as 15000 tube feet. Sun stars are usually pink, purple or brown in color although will occasionally be red or yellow. They can regrow lost arms.

Species: Pycnopodia helianthoides


<--watches a lot of discovery channel