Day Tripper

Saturday morning we packed a lunch, hopped in the Loon and headed for the west coast. Our third and furthest trip to Juan de Fuca Park took us to Botanical Beach and Botany Bay just past Port Renfrew. We timed our arrival so we could explore the tidal pools left behind by the receded tide.

Heading down to the beach.

As you can see, there are plenty of puddles to explore. Each little groove in the rocks is like its own little ecosystem. We saw a lot of of large nymphy things, maybe they were fish, we're not scientists. We also saw some anemones, urchins, and that rarest of ocean animals - - - ducks!

Ducks!

There was plenty of plant life too, also crabs and lots of things that shall remain unnamed in this post.

Purple things.

These growths were abundant and quite pretty. The speckles on the edges look like gold when the lights hits them. Unfortunately we are not destined to have Sunshine, we are oh-for-three on that aspect at this park. You can get a sense of the weather and the crashing of the waves in the video below.

Panoramic shot of Botanical Beach.

Yes, our spirits remained high despite the foreboding weather. Here are some more shots of things we saw on our trip.

Concave cliff wall.

Nymphy, fishy things.

Purple sea urchins.

Green anemones.

A discovery by another intrepid adventurer.

Again, the Sun didn't do us any favours so a lot of the pictures are a little dull. We did get a couple of shots of the sea that made the weather look considerably worse than it actually was.

The surf meets the sky.

The tide coming back in.

The blue sky and Sun began to tease us as we prepared to go. We went for a little hike to Botany Bay before heading back up the parking lot and departing.

Where do these stairs go?

Yet another ridiculous tree.

Botany Bay.