Me (pointing to boat): So is this some testosterone-driven fume inhaling macho jet-boat trip?
Guide (lying): No sir, this is eco-tourism!
A hundred bucks later we learnt the local definition of "eco". For
half the tour, all we saw were the eco-niches of homo
luckyrichbarstard in their absolute waterfront house.
Now I'm not saying that it's not interesting dying of envy looking at
other people's houses (look at that house- the princess of Thailand
spends summer in that one) while practicing tightening your buttocks
against the impact of the next big-ass wave (look at that house- its
from some Germanic fairy tale complete with deliberately broken
chimney) but I guess I'm biased against viewing human architectural
droppings when we we could be looking at seal colonies (look at that
house and weep- you'd need to sell your soul to several devils to
afford that one).
But what I am saying is that for a macho-less eco-friendly tour, we
burnt an awful lot of dead dinosaurs to smash over waves. A mere four
foot swell was not enought for our gungho skipper. "Look!" he shouted
with glee, "The ferry!" and roared us into its wake so we could
rearrange our small intestines into novel knots.
The start of this hopefully-not Gilligan's Island trip was Horseshoe
Bay. This place is a real find. Crisp, clean air and lots of forest
right down to a tiny town nestled in a little hollow by the sea. All
the inter-island ferries leave from here and its daggy tourist
heaven. Easy parking and easy driving to Vancouver (30 minutes to our
door). Coffee shops with high-dose oil breakfasts and sassy
waitresses. Views from coffee shops out over the bay, and up to the
mountains beyond. Pretty darn impressive.
Anyway, back to the boat trip. Once the skipper's manhood was spent
and after the afterglow was over, we headed away from the ocean swell
to the calmer waters up the sound. Lovely forest up and down the
sound- huge looming mountains with clouds for crowns that slide
cutting down into the sea. Autumn colors to soften the vista. Clear
water stretching up to mysterious places we might get to, one day.
And finally, the seals. To give our hyper-young skipper his due, when
we got him off the crest of the waves, he proved to be very
knowledgeable about the wildlife (in and under the water). He gave us
a great tour of a seal and bird colony out on two remote rocks in the
middle of the sound.
These seals- what a life. Rock dozing then a little light fishing,
then back to the rocks again. These seals barely registered our
presence- half an eye on us while snoozing in the sun on the warn
rocks. I nearly died on envy (actually, of envy3) but as I took my
dying breath, the stench of seal assulted my nose. PHEWWWWWW. Wassa
matta? Nature in all its glory never heard of breath mints? Well, I
guess if I spent all my life munching off dead fish freshly picked in
salt water, you wouldn't want to kiss me either.
One cute little incident on the way home- we were gazing at some HUGE
house under-construction overlooking some isolated beach. Back beyond
it, way up the hill and high in a treetop, we could see an eagle's
nest. Our guide told us that the eagles build bigger and bigger nests
till they just fell out of the trees. We gazed at the nest, then we
gazed again at the big big house, then back at the nest and wondered
if any eagles ran real estate offices in the local area.