Toronto to Victoria

Hey all,

I haven’t written anything in a while, but I think it’s because life has been a little crazy lately. Just over three weeks ago, I set out from Toronto with the car packed to the roof and Maverick flat in his litter box as if we were driving at G forces, and pointed the wheel West. It only took four or five days of driving, but  I passed through Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, dallied in Drumheller, Calgary, and Canmore, then drove straight through BC and hopped on the ferry to get back home. The morning after arriving in Victoria marked the beginning of a crazy week where I completed my SVOP, MED A3, and ROC(M) certificates so I can now drive “non-pleasure'” (commercial) vessels, and after that I launched into a long interview process to find a good job for the summer on the water. So now I have a job, a place to live, a cat that is currently passed out on a windowsill, so he seems to not be totally traumatized from our drive, and it’s looking like a great summer on the island.

Movers came & went, and all that was left was the last supper

Mav actually liked travelling apparently; loved the hotels at least.

I’m actually not sure which province this is.. Either SK or AB

First view of the badlands

Ferocious as always

Massive ammonite, fossilized into ammolite

Dinosaur Provincial Park, where real dinosaur fossils were found by yours truly

Pretty rock with raw garnets exposed

Then I got to see the happiest little boy (and his wonderful parents) in Canmore

Notice the awesome sand tiger he loves. Only aquadork presents for Linden!

Mav got really excited about BC and took over driving for a bit

Going through Active Pass

Home, sweet home

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am so incredibly happy to be on the island again, but leaving Toronto wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I met and fell in love with some really amazing people back there, and it was so hard to leave the Fish Mafia. I can’t wait until they come visit, or I go back to visit, but either way, I could not be more excited to see their beautiful faces again. And I will show them why I love Victoria as much as I do.

Ten Mile Point

You know you’re back among your people when you buy a scooter with a milk crate zip tied to the back

He seems to have recovered well

Sea lions in the Salish Sea

Pretty little clown nudi at my new job

A huge ctenophore bloom is just off the Oak Bay marina right now

Chubby little harbour seals in the marina, waiting for food

Putting Crazy Run through her paces; caught two salmon that day

‘Little’ Finnegan and I

Out at Pat Bay mudflats, collecting for work

Not sure how, but this little guy was gilling and very determined to look like mud

And to top it all off, after what should be a great summer with a little side of Stampede thrown in, I’ll be heading off in the fall to begin my masters with Sean Rogers at the University of Calgary! Not sure whether I’ll be at Bamfield full time to start (which would be amazing) or at U of C, but this summer is just a warm up for a very interesting couple of years to come.

I’ll keep you posted on my misadventures. Til next time,

 

Sara x

 

Beautiful British Columbia

That’s actually what it says on our cars’ license plates: “Beautiful British Columbia”. I find that the provinces typically have their license mottos pretty spot on. I’ve never met an unfriendly Manitoban, so “Friendly Manitoba” seems pretty fitting. Ontario is definitely there for you to discover; in fact, I’ve been living in Toronto for eight months now and only today did I discover that Hamilton, an hour’s drive away, is apparently home to some amazing waterfalls, including Albion Falls. Nova Scotia proclaims that it’s “Canada’s Ocean Playground”, which I would have a hard time not believing. And just to cover all bases, the commemorative plates for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics state that BC is the “Best Place on Earth”. To defend BC’s latest claim, I thought today’s post would be a tribute to my homesickness and the beauty of my home province.

Francis King Park
Copyright Jon-Mark Photography, 2010

Copyright Jon-Mark Photography, 2010

Copyright Jon-Mark Photography, 2010

Copyright Jon-Mark Photography, 2010

Copyright Jon-Mark Photography, 2010

Englishman River Falls

Bamfield, 2011

Goldstream Park, Little Victoria Falls
Copyright Jon-Mark Photography, 2011

Salish Sea

Beacon Hill Park

Ucluelet

On the road to Ucluelet

Finnegan on the way to Ucluelet

Sidney

Strathcona Park
Copyright Jon-Mark Photography, 2011

Sarita Falls, Bamfield

Cathedral Grove

Aguilar Point, Bamfield

Ross Islets, Deer Group Islands

Aloha and Mahalo

Hey all,

It has been another long stretch of time since I’ve written anything down. Surprisingly, it hasn’t been because work has been busy and crazy like it was in the summer, but rather the opposite; it’s slowed down to a quick, but normal, pace, once we got over the Christmas holiday rush of families being on break. In fact, I even got away to Hawai’i in January for a week! Which was awesome in itself because it was the first time I was able to dive in warm water! I mean, I dive at work in warm exhibits, but it’s not the same as jumping off a boat into the Pacific and being able to look down to see the ocean floor clearly 80 feet below you. I didn’t even know I could see for 80 feet.

Anyway, after a night of being stuck in Chicago, the flight to Hawai’i the next day was one of six flights that left O’Hare International; the fuel and water caps were freezing as the planes were being prepped, but thank god they gave preference to getting a plane-full of tourists off to the Islands. And once the plane arrived, it was just a short hop from the Big Island over to Kaua’i, where I woke up to this view in the morning.

I mean, come on; who wouldn’t love this?

And then fresh fruit made its way onto the table for breakfast, and life slowed down enough to breathe.

I was wearing shorts. In January. Eating fresh, local fruit. Win.

And I got to spend a bunch of time with Rob Ford. Although, we mostly called him Linden, and he happened to be the most amazing and adorable little thing in the whole world.

Little Linden and his mum, Nat. He is an angel.

I was able to do a ton of really cool things during the week; I went on four warm water dives over two days with a charter company, went to an insanely cool luau (I had no idea they were such a big production), saw some cool birds, and hiked to an amazing waterfall. And all these awesome adventures were punctuated with family time, great food, beaches, paddle boarding (I’m a natural apparently; who knew?!), and a pitch n’ putt golf tournament (I am definitely not a natural; no surprises there).

Fathom Five dive company; I would recommend them to anyone in southern Kaua’i

Smith Family Luau. Not kidding, that’s the actual name.

Hiking along the Na Pali Coast

Nothing on the horizon; I couldn’t ask for anything more.

My advice? Don’t go swimming at Hanakapi’ai Beach. Though not everyone listens..

Past the beach is a gorgeous bamboo forest

And after the bamboo forest came the Hanakapi’ai Falls

It was a little muddy to get to…

But totally worth it; I was smiling pretty big that day.

So now I’m back, living in Toronto, and it’s snowy. Snow, snow, snow, ice, ice storm, snow, sun, wind, sleety rain, snow. My shorts and bikini have been put away in a dark drawer to be replaced by thermal tights and moccasins. Moccasins. Don’t get me wrong; they are beautifully handmade, warm, cozy, and I think the last time my feet felt this comfortable, I was probably still in the womb. Nevertheless, my toes are bundled up to not be seen until summer.

I will admit my feet have never looked prettier

I do have this one little monster that keeps me company though. He’s about six months old, furry, adorable, and an absolute terror named Maverick.

He’s got the pointiest little fangs in existence

You may hear from me again in the next couple of days, so stay tuned.

All my love,

Sara x

I did what..?

I graduated! I know, hard to believe. But I did, and it was pretty fun. Mostly, I was just really excited to get to go home for a few days. My brother flew in from Calgary, my dad took some time off, my mum is now retired (yay!) and I had some time to just see family and friends. The whole convocation ceremony kinda got in the way, actually, but it was the whole reason I got to go home, so I’ll take it.

I got to see the ocean (it’s been four whole months!), my fam-jam, and the awesome city of Victoria. Here’s a few pictures of the beautiful place I call home (even though I don’t live there right now) and the awesome people I saw there.

(Art says ‘sup’)

Sidney, BC

We were there over Remembrance Day, and this memorial was in Sidney

The flower man had a few poppies this time around as well

Reppin’ T-dot on VI

Whoo graduated! Proud mama

Seriously. So legit.

Mos at Original Joe’s!

Aleah’s friend had baby Quinn recently; we got on well.

I was only home for a few days, but it was well worth it. And I was totally fine with going back to Toronto again til Chad sent me this photo…

Beautiful Victoria

Can’t help but miss it. But all in all, a great trip, though it was short. I eagerly look forward to my next trip out.

Til next time,

Sara x

Life Since August

Hey guys,

So as I’m sure you know through one way or another, life has not slowed down at all since I moved to Toronto. I started work the day after I landed, and started work with a bang. We were transporting sharks daily, working 24 hour shifts, up to 14 days in a row, and doing some of the craziest things I think I may ever experience. It has been a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly; some days have been amazing, others have been draining and downright disheartening, and others still have been some of the weirdest compilation of hours. But I’ve done it all with some fantastic people from all over Canada and the US, and honestly our husbandry team is pretty freaking awesome. We were under pretty strict orders to not post anything too detailed, or any photos, of the aquarium during its start-up phase, as the excitement and tension was mounting in Toronto, and understandably, the company wanted the grand unveiling to be a huge surprise. Thus, they didn’t want anything leaked ahead of time. So now, as we officially opened on October 16, 2013, I’ve finally had a chance to catch my breath, and I’m going to explain my life in the last three months. More through pictures than words, as I’ve come to do more and more lately.

First, we had 15,000 animals to bring into Toronto through a variety of methods of transportation. And we had some weird job requirements. I was lifting sharks (like the sand tiger below) that were up to 400 lbs! And then having to wear fall arrest harnesses to feed them, just in case I pitched over the edge of the rock. It was a fun day-to-day chore, and our days were anything but normal or similar.

Keep in mind, when I started, it was still an official construction zone, thus the safety glasses, hard hat, and steel-toe boots.

We started transports coming in a specially designed semi truck, trailer trucks, and by Air Cargo. The semi is below, and we brought in so many animals in this truck. It was, without a doubt, the longest process to do a semi shipment; we acclimated the animals, sometimes gave them treatment baths, transported them to their respective new homes, and then cleaned. Cleaned like there was no tomorrow. Drain, fill, bleach, thio, test, drain, fill, drain, fill… sometimes it took us 24 hours to do the whole shebang.

And those kinds of nights resulted in us getting energy in any way we could.

Xyience, by the way, stands for Xtreme Science. And somehow I willingly drank this, many times. The transports had tons of cool moments, like when the piranhas bit through the nets we were using to catch them…

Nikki & Leah proudly showing our ruined nets

… and bringing in 250 jellyfish in bags from Japan.

These beautiful little Mastigias papua are some of my favourite jellies, and now all of a sudden, I get to work with them!

Though they’re pulsing 24/7, so it’s a little hard to get a decent picture with an iPhone. Personally, being in the jelly gallery, I got to see it go from this:

to this:

and our Artemia harvest go from this:

to this:

Overall, a pretty cool experience to see how this place has grown. Here’s a few other random shots from the past few months.

The Queensland grouper, about 380 lbs of fish

One of our gorgeous sand tigers

Sitting on top of Kelp Forest during a feed

A map showing the NEPTUNE network!

And my little hometown alongside the VENUS network

One night, I was playing with this beautiful girl, Spot, scratching her shell and generally just playing around..

until she got way too excited and splashed me pretty good… Twice.

Once.

Twice. Hadn’t even dried from the first one yet.

Then we started getting closer and closer to the opening date, and things really started to pick up.

Swell & horn sharks

This is what it looks like when your bosses buy everyone dinner. We lived for these nights.

One of our beautiful girls, Octopus Prime (O.P.), a Giant Pacific Octopus

Pepper, our other, larger, GPO

Lionfish, in our Venomous Fishes habitat

Paddlefish (and others) in the Great Lakes habitat

The White Sturgeon

Gorgeous little cownose rays in Ray Bay

Kelp Forest all ready for opening

The biggest lobster in the world. Seriously. It’s as large as my torso.

But even through all this craziness, we still had just a little bit of fun.

Snapchat plays a huge role in the husbandry department

And I made a jellyfish version of myself.

And then we opened. And it got even crazier! Apparently it was kind of a big deal…

There were a couple of people there

And mermaids, for some reason

And aerial acrobats for some reason…

And now we’re a little bit popular

Maybe a lot bit popular

We work late shifts on a rotation. Dinner is a lonely time

But EVERYONE in Toronto is at the aquarium on a Saturday night for some reason

And when the vets come around, we do sweet things like giving rays ultrasounds and checking out the little baby rays

A photo tour of the whole place will come soon for those of you who won’t be getting out this way anytime soon. Sorry this was a long post, but the last three months have been pretty unreal. Stay tuned for more.

Til next time,

Sara x

Kensington

Hey,

So it’s no secret that this move has been hard on me, and that I’m not really a city person. But today I went down to Kensington Market by myself and found a little community within Toronto that made me feel more at home than I have since I left Victoria. I don’t really have much to say about it, other than I think it was lucky of me to go on a Pedestrian Sunday, when the streets are all blocked off from traffic so you can just wander the streets freely. There were street performers on every corner, and I went on a mission to seek out a small coffee shop called Ideal Coffee. I started a new book there, called My Heart Is Not My Own, which everyone should read. I’m only about nine chapters in, but I’ve been brought through many emotions in just those 60 pages that I feel comfortable enough in that endorsement. Anyways, I had two cups of fantastic coffee; thankfully I now have a bean to replace my Trekkie bean from Serious Coffee back home, since there’s none of those here. It’s a great dark coffee called Princess of Darkness, which is just awesome.

The front patio of Ideal Coffee

While I was reading, people started to assemble on the street out front, and bring out some beautiful drums and gourds wrapped in beads. The people were a part of the Afro-Caribbean percussion group Maracatu Mar Aberto. Along with the brilliance of Kensington as a whole, I followed this group in a makeshift parade of dancers and admirers for an hour through the streets of the market. It was remarkable, enchanting, and the happiest I’ve felt in a while.

I have a pretty cool, though short, video of them as well, but I don’t think I can upload videos on here. Oh well, they were fantastic. I spilled coffee all over myself as I was dancing through the streets with people I didn’t know, I signed a petition to stop a big box store being built on the border of the Kensington area and to support family businesses, poked around little stores, and browsed all the artists’ stalls as I wandered. It was breathtaking, and I loved every minute of it. As I meandered after the dancing phenomenon that was Mar Aberto, I came across some fantastic installments of street performance and genuine community happiness. The pictures are better than what I can explain. Actually, the photos aren’t very good at all, but I grabbed a few quick snaps on my phone as I was taking everything in, so you’ll just have to use your imagination to try to understand how brilliant it was.

A band that set up less than ten minutes after the Mar Aberto passed by

Less than a block up from the first street band, another had set up on the roof of a building

Impromptu tango

At the end of my Kensington stroll, another band playing I Put A Spell On You.

I had a wonderful day today, but I know how much fun I would have had with someone else who would have also loved it. I miss you Lauren.

Til next time,

Sara x

Post-move

Hey guys,

So, I’ve taken the plunge and moved to the big city of Toronto in Ontario. It is most definitely not the West Coast, or Bamfield, or the island, or BC in any way, shape, or form, which has been a shock to the system to say the least. I can’t really describe just how much I miss the West Coast and the beauty that naturally comes with that part of the world. I do realize that to fully appreciate it and to properly experience life as I would like to, I need to move away and uproot myself from time to time. That being said, it doesn’t make it any easier to admit that I now live in a relatively landlocked city; and no, the Great Lakes do not count. Well, they sort of do, I guess, I just need to get over my snobbish and idealistic view that the ocean is the one and only superior body of water. Freshwater just isn’t the same, but I’ll deal with it for now.

I’ve had my share of misadventures over the past two weeks, mostly to do with navigating a subway system that is integrated with street cars as well as buses. I will give credit where credit is due and say that Toronto has an absolutely amazing transit system. I’m accustomed to the transit in Victoria, where a bus would come to my neighbourhood maybe once an hour on a good day. Now, the buses are bumper to bumper along my street, take me straight to the subway that comes every four minutes give or take, and will bring me to most areas of the city relatively easily.

I also started to work at the Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada the day after I flew into Toronto, on August 5. I can’t say much about my job or what I’m really doing on a day to day basis because it’s not open to the public yet and I feel that being a bit more prudent with what I disclose is in my better interest. I can tell you, however, that the job is pretty cool and I’m really enjoying it so far, regardless of the long hours and limited time off.

I’m sure once I get more comfortable in this city, I’ll come into my own a bit more, but until then, I’m going to rely on the Bamily and my awesome new coworkers to get me through it. Here’s a few pictures I’ve collected over the past three weeks or so.

Alice & I reunited in Victoria before she went back to Sweden

Big fam jam outing to the Ridley Scott documentary ‘Springsteen and I’

Oh. And I graduated. Neat, eh? Convocation in Nov, I’ll keep you posted on that.

Family dinner at my old work before we spread across the country again

A little bit of the Bamily in Toronto. Love these girls.

Until next time,

Sara x

Been a while

Hi all,

So it’s been quite a while since I wrote anything on here because I’ve been packing in a lot of field hours in the last few weeks. I guess I left if off after the best weekend I have ever had (Canada Day will forever have huge expectations to live up to from now on),  and starting that week, my project partner, Christina, and I started going out almost every morning to begin our research project. We happened to have fairly early morning low tides for the first week, so we’d head out early, put in six hours of work, and be back before lunch. And that went on til last Friday, the 12th, which was followed by a presentation of our research on the 16th, camping on Ross Islets overnight, and our paper due today, the 18th. So, it’s been busy, to say the least.

Christina and I got really excited over one particular site off the coast of Bamfield, a little rock in Trevor Channel called Wizard Islet. This tiny little piece of land jutting up from the ocean happens to contain over 30 tidepools – which we were not expecting – and hundreds of Tidepool Sculpin (Oligocottus maculosus), which we were interested in studying. These little pool fish are able to home back to a preferred tidepool between tidal cycles and exhibit a long-term site fidelity to their preferred pool or range of pools. 

Tidepool Sculpin (Oligocottus maculosus) in a pool on Wizard

So we decided to implement a mark-recapture experiment in conjunction with data collection of physical pool parameters to see if we could find any correlation between the measure of site fidelity to the physical characteristics of the home pools. We ended up determining that the rugosity, elevation, and volume of the pool, when assessed together, explained the majority of our observed data, which was pretty exciting. We spent a lot of time in the field, catching hundreds and hundreds of fish every day, tagging them, and learning new, complicated model building methods. It was a pretty good few weeks, I won’t lie. Somehow, even after living, breathing and working together for 12 weeks in an intensive setting, Christina and I haven’t killed each other. In fact, we’ve gotten so close, we experience acute separation anxiety when we’re apart. I’m a little worried for our sanity, so I apologize for my inevitable Bamfield withdrawl anyone at home may experience over the next two weeks before I move.

On the bright side, Christina and I are doing the last edits of our (incredibly long) paper, and once we hand it in this afternoon, I am officially done my undergraduate degree. So, that’s kinda neat. Anyways, enjoy some photos from our last few ridiculous weeks.

This is how you get to Wizard; a small, scary aluminium boat with crazy people driving

Wizard! We had some pretty fantastic weather

These little guys show a remarkable variance in their phenotypes, even just on Wizard alone

Rockin’ the hip waders errrday. We also needed a crazy good playlist to keep us pumped up in the mornings.

Emily, a fellow undergraduate we enslaved to help us catch all the fish we could

We used blue and pink visible implant elastomer (VIE) tags to keep track of our fishies across different home ranges

Sea lemon! Can’t get away from inverts, even if I wanted to.

Doing science: measuring elevation with a stadia rod and laser level. If you can, note the attractive red laser goggles I have to wear so I don’t get blinded. They were almost as fantastic as my waders.

This is how you science; I’ve patented a technique for catching fish that has been fondly referred to as “The Gecko”

On my brother’s birthday, a bear lunged out onto the path in front of Doug & I, then proceeded to forage around our dorms for about a half hour.

We went camping overnight on Ross Islets after our symposium, and this is just one shot of the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen.

So, that sums up my last few weeks pretty accurately. Oh, and I licked a dead jellyfish solely due to peer pressure. I have Tim & Doug to thank for that one.

As of tomorrow, I’m out of school for a while, which is pretty crazy, and then on Saturday, I leave Bamfield in the morning. It’s going to be pretty surreal to leave this gorgeous place, and the amazing people that are here. Still can’t believe I actually have to leave, let alone will be in Toronto, of all places, in two weeks…

Until next time,

Sara x

Canada Day Weekend

Hey all,

So, to preface this post, you should know that this was the absolute best weekend I have ever experienced. Ever. Bamfield is probably one of the more beautiful spots I’ve been lucky enough to live in, even for the short three months that it is, and I’ve said that over and over again throughout this blog. It rains, it pours, it gets foggy, kinda chilly, and sunny, and it is gorgeous nonetheless. But when it gets sunny, oh my goodness, it really comes to life. This entire weekend was sunny, our prof is awesome and basically gave us the weekend off to participate in the festivities, and when the Bamfield community comes together, it really does things right.

We started everything off with a pretty relaxed day on Friday, which was a nice way to end the week before heading to happy hour at the director’s house. Happy hour was a rainy one, for sure, so we started out by just hanging out in the house but it got pretty toasty in there quickly. Rachel & I escaped out to the deck for a bit of air and it started to rain pretty hard. It was glorious. People started to slowly make their way outside as the hour progressed, but there’s something about not caring what state you’re in, what the weather happens to be doing, and just relaxing in the rain with good company.

After happy hour, we had a quick dinner and I ran off to ballet with Meaghan in an attempt to keep in shape while I’m here. Meaghan runs the ballet class for a couple of us on Friday nights after dinner, which is pretty fun.

The Bamfield Ballet Company

It was Gary’s birthday earlier in the week (he’s from a lab down in California), and he’s a great DJ, which are hard to come by in Bamfield, as I’m sure you can imagine. We don’t really get a lot of DJs out here. Great bands, talented individuals for sure, but sometimes you really just need to hear something completely inorganic. So Gary DJ’d his own birthday party at Cabin 7, which was really fun, a good way to kick off the long weekend for sure.

Saturday rolled around and brought with it a nice long sleep in, followed by a somewhat spontaneous jaunt over to Brady’s Beach on the West side. It involved a ton of wonderful sunshine, lunch at the bistro, sand castles, swimming and some volleyball. Really can’t go wrong with that, in my opinion.

Brady’s Beach

Boys & their toys

Ross building Winterfell and Tim reconstructing the pyramids. And Jones, enjoying life.

Travis, on the other hand, is a bit of a trouble maker

Christina & I playing in the surf, like the mature adults we are

Roooooooomies

Beautiful day for a swim or two

Then it was Victoria’s last night, so we hung out at Seaside and had a little get together for her. Which was delightful, as all Seaside gatherings typically are. Sunday brought about another gorgeous day, so we went back to Brady’s and stayed there all day. More sun, more swimming, more volleyball. And caves this time!

Heading to the cave at low tide

Dr. Jones

Suuuuchiiii

And for Sunday night, Nancy hosted her annual Canada Day party on her lawn, which spills over onto the boardwalk, since everyone in the community shows up for it. They had a dance floor set up in front of the tent over the band, and they played for about five hours! It was awesome. I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate Canada Day, even if it was a day early. They finished off the night with fireworks, more dancing, and just a generally good vibe. The California lab ferried Christina & I back across the inlet in their zodiac, which was a stroke of good luck since the water taxi stopped running at midnight, and we didn’t even think about going home until one or so.

Monday started off with a community-wide parade around East Bamfield with everyone dressed up, following the fire truck and a boat float from the Seabeam Lodge. It was a fun way to begin the day, and it was beautiful again, which helped. We painted scales on our faces, taped paper fish to our shirts, dressed up like a variety of fishermen and fishes, and had all the flags, tattoos, bubbles and songs a parade could possibly need. It ended at the community park, where there was a free picnic set up, with hot dogs, salmon, snacks, fresh watermelon, and a good solid round of Oh Canada to start it all off. Amber, Tracy & Patrick, whom all work at BMSC, came by with their horses, and since I dragged Amber out on the dance floor on Sunday night, her payback was getting me up on her horse for a walk around. Truthfully, she had an awesome time on Sunday, so the payback was more of a reward, because I haven’t ridden in years and it felt awesome, even if it was just a quick walk.

Carmen, Robyn & Tanja

Suchi & Doug

We gathered a group up to head out to Sarita Falls afterwards for Suz’s birthday outing. Last time, when Chad & I left BMSC after the first block, we took a quick sidetrip to Sarita Falls to see if it were possible to find. If you recall, Nick, Jessica & I tried to find it one night, but just got lost for 2 hours instead. Anyways, when Chad & I went there, we went to the bottom by the lake portion and just played around there for a half hour before having to head out. This time around, people actually knew where they were going, so we hiked for about an hour to get above the third set of falls. It was a beautiful setting, all old growth forest surrounding a set of three awesome waterfall ranges. Once we reached the main stream, I took my shoes off to cross and then didn’t put them back on for the rest of the day. I don’t think my feet have ever been in worse shape than they are right now in terms of bruises, cuts, general dirtiness, but I don’t think I’ve ever been happier. Once we hiked up past the third falls, we cut back down to the water and broke out of the forest at this amazing expanse of tumbling water, pools, and genuine beauty. I feel as though this weekend was the epitome of West Coast living. The pictures will do more justice than my words, I think..

Third falls! Our swimming hole

Looking down the falls

Rae-rae

Xtina

Overall, a more or less perfect weekend.

Til next time,

Sara x

3, 2, 1…

Hey guys,

So it looks as though I’ve got a tentative start date of August 6th at Ripley’s aquarium! Trying to organize a move while I’m at Bamfield is less than ideal, but I could not be more excited about everything that’s happening. By the time I’m finished up with this fishes course, I’ll be home for about two weeks before flying off to TO, so I’m a little pressed for time. Even with the pretty short time I have back in Victoria, I’m already looking forward to the time I have there.

First off, my brother is going to be in town for the first week I’m home! Which is probably the best thing that could have happened. I was originally planning on driving out to Toronto, and passing through Calgary to visit him, but in light of the time crunch and Calgary floods (he’s all good by the way, unfortunately evacuated still though), I have started to look at flying out and shipping the few things I need to take with me. Anyways, so Scott will be here for the week, which is going to include a family outing for a one-time showing of the Bruce documentary titled “Springsteen and I” on July 22nd, some dinners, and seeing our beautiful cousin who’s getting married in September! So, the Springsteen documentary is going to be unreal, I am so excited. We’re probably going to end up getting ourselves kitted out in our concert gear again, like we did in November.

Scott & I before the concert in Van, November 2012

You can see why I love my family. They’re freaking awesome.

So if you’re in Victoria on July 22nd, and see this rowdy bunch out and about in their Bruce gear, you should know it’s because we’re going to the best film ever made.

For the rest of the week, I’m going to have at least 2 appointments a day to tie up loose ends with my doctors, lawyers, etc. OH! And I get to have my grad photos taken, because in just over three weeks, I’ll be done my undergrad! It still shocks me when I think of that. Scott & I are going to try to meet up with our cousin and her soon-to-be-husband for dinner & drinks that week as well, because I know I won’t be able to make it back for her wedding now in September. Which breaks my heart, but I can barely afford the move out to TO after being in Bamfield all summer, let alone coming back a month later.

Then I’ve got a relatively unstructured second week in Victoria for sorting, packing, throwing things out or donating them. Thankfully everything is concentrated in one place right now, and I’m hoping it’ll be a pretty quick process once I get back. Then I’m off for new adventures in Toronto! I’m considering keeping this blog going once I get there to document all of the craziness I encounter at work and in that city, but I’m not sure yet.

On that note, I’m also selling my beautiful and trusty car, Clarence. He’s named after Clarence Clemons (RIP) the amazingly talented former saxophonist of the E Street Band; Bruce and the guys did a fantastic job replacing him with Clemons’ nephew, Jake, who was incredible when we saw them. That’s totally unrelated, but he’s a gorgeous 1992 318i BMW that is in fantastic shape; standard, 4 cyl, 4 door sedan. If you’re interested, he’s in Victoria right now with my parents, so just leave a comment here or give me a shout through some other means of communication.

Clarence

So, this was a random, odd mix of a post, but on another note, research project on tidepool sculpins (Oligocottus maculosus) is getting off the ground, exams are in full swing (about one a week lately), we’re out in the field by day and studying by night. Everything in Bamfield is pretty wonderful, even when it’s raining. At night, when it’s loud on the roof, that’s when the rain is especially amazing. As I’ve prattled on, at length, about nothing in particular, I’ll just finish this off with some photos of the last little while.

Christina & I rocking out our hip waders in the field

After nine weeks out here, I have a tan! For the first time in my life, however faint it is. I have an even better one on my back.

We did a beach seine for the community during Aboriginal Day, and the kids were soo excited.

We visited the Nitinat Hatchery and had a behind-the-scenes tour yesterday. It was pretty cool to see.

Until next time,

Sara x