Long Beach vacation day 4
Tuesday October 13, 2009.
Today was my first full day on the beach. Had a quick breakfast and then headed out to Long Beach proper. (There are several beaches between Tofino and Ucluelet and each has its own name. Long Beach is the longest stretch of sand unbroken by rock outcrops). Here’s my first view of the beach since I was a little kid:
Darkening of the sand near the middle is partly moisture and partly due to me shooting this panorama with autoexposure on; that’s where the sun was brightest. I think that rock near the middle is where my father crashed his car when my parents lived here. More research needed. Incidentally, when I was trying to create this panorama, Autostitch freaked out in an interesting way I haven’t seen before, and produced this work of computer-generated art:
I walked to Incinerator Rock at the north end of the beach. From there it looked like about a mile to Green Point at the south end, so I decided to walk the whole length. Wow, distance is very deceptive here – this beach is almost two and a half miles long. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but I had brought my full camera bag with me, including my film camera and my best lenses for it. Heavy. By the time I got back to the parking lot I was really bagged, and wishing I had equipped Sandvich for this outing.
During the walk I alternated between following the tide line looking for interesting debris, and either looking at the driftwood at the global high tide mark or taunting the sea by walking just out of its present reach (never once misjudged how far a wave would reach). Didn’t find any interesting shells along the tide line, but I did find about a dozen jellyfish of two or maybe three species. This one’s a moon jelly, about a foot in diameter:
Naturally I prodded them with my walking stick (slash monopod; highly useful) hoping to elicit an appropriate tentacular-horror response, but they were all motionless. Sullen about failing their migration back to their forest home, I imagine.
When I got to Green Point at the south end of the beach I did some climbing on the rocks and looking into tidal pools. Found one pool with a lot of small anemones in it, but they weren’t very colorful. Also on top of one of the rocks there was a very permanent-looking surfer shelter made of driftwood. Might be fun to spend a stormy evening in one of those.
When I got back to the parking lot I was really hungry, so I drove down to explore Ucluelet and get some eats. Not much to say about Ucluelet; small town with mainly tourist-driven commerce and some local-scale fishing. I ate at Ukee Dogs, which is a local hole-in-the-wall specializing in hot dogs. I had their signature dish, which is a baked frank in a hoagie bun loaded with fried onions and bean chili, with grated cheddar on top. Good stuff; I will eat here again.
There’s a lighthouse at the south end of Ucluelet with a park around it. I went for a walk there and enjoyed a bit of coastal breeze – the wind was really picking up and driving a heavy rain. Watched the waves crashing on ship-wrecking rocks for a while.
Then I headed up to Radar Hill to see what the view was like. Not spectacular due to the weather, and there were cougar warnings posted that made me a bit nervous (hardly any other tourists around, and I’m so sweet and tasty), so I didn’t stay too long. I do rather like this picture though:
Went back to Incinerator Rock for a while to have a look at the next beach north, but by then it was getting on so I went back to the resort for the evening. End of beach day one.
Today’s GPS track:
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