travel – Riveted

Port Harvey to Shoal Bay, BC

Laura Domela — Tue, 15 Sep 2015 21:57:48 +0000

It was super calm this morning at Port Harvey and after getting a couple of George's famous cinnamon buns (and a bonus loaf of homemade bread!) we said goodbye and headed for Johnstone Strait.

Johnstone Strait was not bad at all, even though we were supposed to have current against us, we still made plenty good time without much drama:

We went through Whirlpool Rapids right at slack (which means: no whirlpools, yay!) and hit Greene Point rapids about an hour and a half after slack, but it wasn't bad at all. A few swirly bits, but we were with a flood tide and maybe had about 3-4 kts of current with us.

Here we are docked at Shoal Bay on the government dock:

We walked up to the lodge and explored the grounds and gardens.

Looking back at the dock:

The pub is behind these trees, overlooking the bay:

The garden:

Heading back toward Airship:

We chatted with the other boaters on the dock for a bit and now we're cooking dinner. Grilled pork tenderloin, roasted baby potatoes with rosemary and garlic, and a salad (using produce we picked from Heidi's garden in Lagoon Cove). Tomorrow we'll leave at 6am to arrive at Dent Rapids before slack, then our plan is to go to Prideaux Haven in Desolation Sound tomorrow night.

Here's today's track (42.5 nautical miles…click to enlarge):

It’s Not About Luck

Laura Domela — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 13:51:14 +0000

"Wow, you guys are SO! LUCKY!"

This is one of the more frequent things we hear in response to the lifestyle we live and share on this blog. Although we understand where this sentiment comes from, the fact of the matter is that it's not luck at all. We didn't win the lottery. Neither of us has a trust fund. No rich relatives died and left us gazillions of dollars or anything. Here's what we did: we committed to a goal, and then we worked really hard toward that goal, and we didn't allow ourselves to be distracted by things that were not supportive of this goal. That's it, and you can do it too!

We feel very fortunate to be able to live and travel the way we do but "luck" has very little to do with it. "Luck" paints a picture of ease…velvet sofas and mint juleps on the veranda after sleeping until noon, while golden opportunities fall gently into your robed lap. But when it comes to luck, I'm sure we have just as much bad luck as we have good luck.

The lifestyle we've crafted for ourselves is very deliberate. We have worked hard and sacrificed a lot to make it happen. We have gone through difficult and challenging times, and have persevered because we really wanted to have a life like the one we live today. Years ago, we visualized it, we planned it, we worked hard to achieve it, and we adapted as we went along. Plans didn't always go as expected and there were many obstacles we had to overcome along the way. We kept our dream in focus. If you have a dream, and you make choices that support that dream (instead of listening to people who tell you that your dream is too…"dreamy"), your dream really can become your reality.

We've wanted to address this for a long time, and we think it's important, because if you attribute our lifestyle to "luck" — it might give you an excuse not to pursue the life that you want for yourself. You can't control your luck, but you can control the choices you make as you craft your life. Here's some background on how we got where we are today:

Controlling Your Life (or at least making a big effort to steer)

Back in 2001 and 2002 we were happily going along working at our fairly normal jobs and living our fairly normal lives. We camped and backpacked on the weekends or when we had vacation time. I was working as an artist. I had gallery representation, but the life of a painter is not exactly a booming money-making endeavor. Kevin was working for a large electronics design company where he'd been successful for 15 years. In 2003, Kevin got laid off from his job. There we were with a little bit of savings, two teenage daughters about to start college, and no health insurance. The internet bubble had just burst, and our investments had tanked. We had enough money and credit card slack to live for a few months before…well…you get the picture.

The high-tech job market in Portland was terrible. Most of the local tech companies were laying off rather than hiring. Kevin's expertise was fairly specialized, and finding a new job in his industry would have most likely required us to move to a different state. Things looked pretty grim.

However, we had always wanted to start our own business. We visualized a company that didn't have an office, where everyone worked from home, and where people set their own schedules and worked happily together toward common goals. In this vision, we sat outside our tent day after day watching happy little bunnies frolic in the grass while faraway internet servers worked day and night – earning us enough to pay campground fees. (Definitely in the "dream" stage, I'd say.)

We bought two laptops and a couple of domain names, signed up for some $10/month internet hosting, and filled out the paperwork to start a sub-S corporation. The company we started was an online publication geared toward electronics engineers. I started learning web design so I could create and maintain our website, and Kevin started writing articles about electronics technology. We began by sending out an email newsletter every week to our growing list of subscribers. We soon had a publication and an audience, but no income. Kevin hopped on a plane and flew to Silicon Valley to meet with marketers from various companies he had worked with in the past – in hopes of finding someone to buy advertising on our new website. That turned out to be a very slow process.

Each month our savings would decline, and we cringed as watched ourselves careening toward financial failure. Finally, we got a breakthrough – our first advertiser – for a whopping $1,500. That wasn't enough to save our sinking ship, but it gave us hope. Gradually, we sold more and more. We brought a sales person on board part time – working for commissions – and doubled our efforts to grow the publication. We cautiously started to discuss what we'd do "If we could somehow manage to get this business to cover our living expenses."

We were now in business for ourselves, which meant basically no more paid vacation time, and most weekends were filled with work alongside whatever else we wanted to do for fun. Some of you, I'm sure, know what it takes to own and run your own business, and it's no piece of cake. We could still travel and camp and backpack, but it took a lot more planning and sacrifice. It also took energy, and during those first stressful months, we had very little left.

Ever-so-slowly the income increased until we had stopped burning savings and weren't running up credit card balances anymore. We were encouraged, and were able to reduce our stress levels a bit – unfortunately without reducing our work hours. Now, we needed to do something to keep our sanity.

We decided to take a one-month road trip in our car with our camping and backpacking gear. We figured we could publish articles and run our business from the road, and we did this two different ways: (1) from our tent using a Treo smartphone tethered to a laptop for internet (by candle lantern at night sometimes), and when we couldn't get any internet service that way (2) we'd hit a coffee shop or check into a motel/hotel with Wi-Fi so we could publish our weekly article and send newsletters. Romantic, huh? (It kinda was, actually.)

During that road trip we went through San Francisco, and during a side trip to SF MOMA (the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), we saw the Christopher Deam 16' Airstream Bambi as part of an exhibition. We thought "Hm. We could work from THAT!" and our Airstreaming dream began.

We researched and researched (for about a year) and eventually decided on and purchased a 2005 22' International Airstream trailer. We loved it. It had a double bed, a dinette, a wet bath, a great kitchen, and a little desk in the back (perfect for work, we thought). We had the little bit of solar that came with it, plus some that we added afterwards, but it was nowhere near the ship of technology that our Airstream (and now our Nordic Tug) is today.

We used the Airstream on weekends and for shorter trips, and during the five years we had this 22' Airstream (June 2005 to April 2010) we spent 156 nights in it. That's about 30 nights per year. We wanted more. Fortunately, our business was growing.

In 2010 we took the 22' trailer in for a few repairs, and while we were waiting, we went across the street to "just look at the new ones" (hint: Don't do this!) We never got our old trailer back. We traded it in for a 2010 27'FB International. Five more feet!!! They pulled the new Airstream up alongside the old Airstream cop-style, we unloaded everything from the 22' into the 27', and off we went.

At that point, it sounds like things could go on cruise control, right? We had a growing business, a cool trailer, and a solid plan…but no. Toward the beginning of this decade we went through several major crises all at once. We realized that there was a real chance that the whole thing we'd worked so hard for might crumble. Things looked very bleak. We had several very stressful months of sleepless nights. Finally, when we couldn't take the stress anymore, we did what we do…we took a road trip. On that road trip, we made our contingency plan. If the business tanked and we had no more money, we would just sell everything but the Airstream and the truck and go full time on the road, living a frugal, nomadic life while exploring the country. We know a lot of VERY happy people who were already doing this by choice. It wouldn't be bad at all.

Once we'd come to grips with our "worst case" and knew we would make it fun, we redoubled our efforts. We worked twice as hard at keeping our company alive and our small team happy and healthy. We came up with new ideas for making our company succeed, and improved on the old ones. With everybody pitching in and with the new plans in place, one win at a time, the business came back, stronger than it had ever been.

Where We Are Today

Our company now has ten people. Everyone works from home (or wherever they are) and has the flexibility and freedom to set their own work hours, manage their own responsibilities, and share in the rewards. (It turns out it's hard to find people with the self-discipline to work this way.)

We are constantly refining and redefining how we want to live. It takes much trial and error, and constant attention, compromise, and sacrifice to successfully run our company and travel the way we want to. We've been building our business for 11 years now, and each year we're able to travel more. As of this week we've spent over 700 nights on the road in our 2010 Airstream and 100 nights on the water in our new Nordic Tug. This lifestyle is not for everyone, but we love it and it works well for us. We feel lucky. But we know that it's not about luck at all. It's about setting your sights on what you want, defining a plan to move ever closer to your dream, and then doing it (not just talking about it or wishing for it or waiting for retirement for it).

That's it. It's not easy, but it's definitely doable, and you can do it too.

One More Thing

Recently, a colleague of Kevin's was giving him a hard time about our lifestyle. He implied that by being out "gallivanting around the country all the time," we weren't being serious or mature about our lives and our careers.

"Y'know…" Kevin said, "…my father died when he was three years older than I am right now. It's really important to me to live a healthy, low stress life, and maybe that will help me live longer than my dad did, but whether it does or not I refuse to spend my life waiting around and planning for some future fulfillment that might or might not happen." (Go Kevin!)

We want to explore and experience the world NOW. We want to continue growing an ethical business that empowers and enables other people to follow their dreams as well.

We want to do things, not just think about doing them. And we hope to inspire you to do the same.

Travel Camera Upgrade

Laura Domela — Wed, 11 Mar 2015 14:06:26 +0000

Since 2007 I've been using a Nikon D300 with an 18-200mm VR lens as my travel camera. I've got a D700 in my studio with a variety of fixed lenses, and I love that camera, but something like the D300 with one good, versatile lens seems perfect for travel…no changing lenses, and quick on the draw. Lately though, I've been noticing that the images from my Fuji x100s are way better images than the ones coming from my D300. (The Fuji is wonderful for general travel, but it has a fixed lens so it isn't ideal for capturing whales in the distance or sea lions tearing apart a salmon 200 yards away).

We decided that a new camera was pretty high on the list of upgrades/things to get before going up the Inside Passage to Alaska in May. So, meet the new travel camera:

I went with a Nikon D7100 and an 18-300mm VR lens (100 more mms than my previous lens!!). I'll be selling my D300 and 18-200 VR lens now (that's the rule, camera in, camera out).

So far, I'm very impressed with my new setup. Can't wait to try it out on some sea life!

Friluftsliv is My New Favorite Word

Laura Domela — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 18:01:00 +0000

Friluftsliv — pronounced free-loofts-liv translates directly from Norwegian as "free air life."

It's a concept we don't really have a word for in English, and doesn't translate easily, but it's a word used in Norway to describe a life spent exploring and appreciating nature.

YES!

(I know, I used that water photo in a previous post. So what. It's pretty.)

Read more about friluftsliv here

My second-favorite new word is the Danish word "hygge" but it has more to do with winter, so it moved to number two, because it's March and things are blooming, but it's fabulous, and you can read about its meaning here.

Mignonette Sauces for Oysters

Laura Domela — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 15:02:06 +0000

For raw oysters eaten on the half shell, I normally make some variation on a classic mignoette sauce: champagne vinegar, Prosecco or Champagne, shallots, fresh ground pepper. Since we picked up enough oysters yesterday for more than just one meal, I decided to make a few different sauces, so I googled "mignonette recipes" and found several that sounded interesting.

I ended up making five:

1. Classic mignontte (front, standard favorite)
2. Lemon/cucumber/jalapeno/vodka (right, bright light yellow, one of our favorites)
3. Shoyu/scallion/rice wine vinegar/ginger (dark one in the back, least favorite…we needed pickled ginger or seaweed for this one to work better)
4. Sriracha/grapefruit/tequila/scallions/vinegar (red one on the left, another favorite).
5. The fifth sauce (not shown) was more of a relish, with minced cucumber, ginger, rice wine vinegar, shallots, and pepper. It was good, but not as good as the two favorites and the classic.

We had three oysters courses last night. For the first course we smoked/grilled a few of the Shigokus on the Traeger with a bourbon chipotle butter sauce (delicious, we'll definitely be repeating this). The second course was a half dozen of the teeny tiny Olympia oysters, with the classic mignonette, and the third course was a dozen Shigokus with the variety of sauces, and a side of sauteed spinach. It was fun and delicious!

Exploring Hood Canal

Laura Domela — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 21:19:22 +0000

We headed out to explore Hood Canal today. We're staying right near the town of Hoodsport on Hood Canal near the Olympic National Forest in Washington. Hoodsport is apparently renowned among SCUBA divers as a staging area to view the giant Pacific octopus (cool!!!)

The shores along the canal are mostly rocks and shells (oyster, clam). Clam season is apparently over, but oyster season is not, and there were plenty of people out doing what looked like gathering shellfish as we drove past.

We were headed down toward Shelton to Taylor Shellfish Farms to pick up some of their Shigoku oysters (our favorite). Shigokus were developed by Taylor Shellfish Farms (right here!) and we were lucky enough to discover them about 1/2 mile from our house in Portland at our local market that happens to carry them most of the time. (But it's still fun to get them right from the source!)

Taylor Shellfish is quite an operation.

The seafood store had everything we wanted (Shigokus, and the tiny Olympia oysters) and we left with four dozen Shigokus and two dozen Olympias. Hey guess what we're having for dinner tonight and tomorrow night??

Shigoku oysters are grown in floating bags that are attached to stationary lines and floats that rise and fall with the tides, so the oysters are tumbled twice a day. This low-energy, low-maintenance method is a variation on British Columbia’s more labor-intensive Kusshi, and it continuously chips off the oysters’ growing edge and forces them to “cup up." The shells end up deep and scoop-shaped.

This results in a small, dense oyster with a light clean taste of cucumber and salt. (My mom does NOT like oysters, and she liked these, so if you're not an oyster fan but want to be, try the Shigokus.) Also, they're super easy to shuck compared to many other oysters.

More scenery along the canal:

The road runs right along the water in most places:

Cute little beach house:

Our next stop was the Hardware Distillery Co. in Hoodsport. I read about this place online and decided we should check it out. The owners, Chuck and Jan, started the distillery a few years ago near their vacation cabin in Hoodsport and it's become quite a little hot spot in town!

Chuck was pouring today, and started us right off the bat with their award-winning aquaivit. (It was great!) He had a special bottle from the freezer out for the folks who were finishing their tasting as we arrived, so in all the excitement we were included in that special moment, and then started at the beginning with the vodka made from peach wine (oh hey, and ended full circle with another tiny pour of cold aquavit).

We bought a bottle of the R Gin and a bottle of the Bee's Knees Plumb. For the R Gin, Chuck takes up about 100 pounds of barley to Hama Hama Oyster Co. (just up the canal a bit) and they cold smoke it in their big smoker. R Gin has a subtle smoky taste, and the name comes from the (discredited) old wives’ tale that oysters are best in months with the letter "R".

The Bee's Knees Plumb is a distilled honey mead, made from 80% honey and 20% plums from Chuck's friend's plum trees. It's good! I'm not sure what we'll do with it yet, but we'll figure it out.

The building housing the distillery used to be the Hoodsport Hardware Store, hence the name Hardware Distillery. They've got a great vibe in there, and the decor is all old hardware and cool distillery equipment. Definitely worth a stop if you're coming through and are into this kind of thing. We also tasted in sequence the white dog, and then the same spirit that had been aged for just a little while in that small barrel…interesting to taste the difference a little wood makes.

Next we headed back up the canal and decided to try the Hama Hama Oyster Bar for lunch.

There's a market where you can buy fresh oysters and clams and other stuff, and outside around the corner they've got a "snack bar" where they're serving up oysters (raw and grilled), crab cakes, steamers, etc. while you sit outside on the water, in the sun, having a totally chill day eating delicious fresh seafood.

Fun atmosphere, great service, nice people, delicious seafood! We had some grilled oysters (since tonight's meal will be mostly Shigokus and Olympias on the half shell), a crab cake, some steamer clams, and a glass of Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc. Everything was delicious and we'd come back here in a second!

The grilled oysters with served two sauces: (1) a chipotle bourbon sauce (so good!) and a classic escargot sauce of butter and herbs (also good, but I loved the chipotle bourbon one best).

Hoodsport is a cute little town, and this whole area feels authentic and not too touristy at all. There are several state parks along here that (of course) are pretty dang crowded right now (a sunny weekend in July) but overall the place still feels pretty mellow.

We're just back hanging out at the Airstream now. The RV park here (Glen Ayr Resort) is totally fine. It's nice, right across the road from the water and we're backed up onto what I hear is a small creek (I'd have to go check to verify). We've got full hookups, but their internet is out (we're using our AT&T datacard with router and doing just fine). I'd stay here again, but I might try to see if this place had any waterfront spots first, because it looked fabulously close to the water as we drove past an hour ago.

Last Day in Victoria

Laura Domela — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 21:46:24 +0000

We had some breakfast and did some work this morning before it was checkout time at Westbay Marine Village in Victoria. Since we're on the 7:30pm ferry tonight to Port Angeles, we had a bit of time to kill. (Long story, but the basic deal is: make reservations more than a day ahead of time for the ferry when you are 48.1 feet long and it's the middle of summer.)

We headed over to Thetis Lake Provincial Park because they had a day use area and we figured we'd be able to park there for the rest of the day and hike or ride bikes out from there if we wanted. We paid for the two parking spaces we were taking up and headed off to hike around the lake.

It turned out to be a beautiful hike, with some fun signage along the way:

We decided to head over to the ferry terminal early to see if there was any chance of getting on the 3pm ferry. There wasn't. So we parked and walked over to grab some lunch and sightsee a bit more. The ferry was just arriving as we walked past and we noticed the different configuration of the Coho (compared to the other more recent ferries we'd been on) so we stopped to see how the side door loading and unloading worked.

So they must load them from the other side, or the back? They got these guys on somehow, so I think we're fine.

We walked up the road a bit and grabbed some lunch and did a bit more sightseeing. Here's our view from lunch today:

Which way should we go? Oh I guess we'll head back toward home.

We're in line for the ferry now, with about an hour and half to go. We're working back in the Airstream with free ferry internet (well, "free" meaning it came with our $250 fare to get ourselves, our truck, and our Airstream back to the US). Next stop: Hood Canal!

Sooke Harbour House

Laura Domela — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 12:32:13 +0000

Last night we had a second chance to have dinner at the Sooke Harbour House in Sooke BC, after our reservation spaceout last week. The above photo is the view from our dinner table (!!!) looking across the Strait of Juan de Fuca over at the tip of the Olympic Peninsula. (Our table came with binoculars…nice touch!)

This is the dining room looking back from the window view:

We ordered the four course tasting menu with wine pairings, and ordered two different things from each section, so we got to try quite a few dishes. The presentation of each dish was beautiful, and the light from the window on my left made for some pretty nice photos.

First courses

Black Pearl Oysters (on the half shell with begonia, radish, and verjus):

Morel Mushroom and Kombu Broth (morels, heirloom cherry tomatoes, radish and english peas):

Second courses

Steamed Smoked Sablefish (green beans, potato, candied hazelnut, pickled beets and beet gel, potato & sorrel vinaigrette) — this may have been my favorite dish:

Duck Leg & Smoked Breast (plums, walnuts, watercress, wild rice & popcorn, honey mustard and fig leaf ice cream):

Main courses

Seared Sockeye Salmon (beans, summer squash, tomato, Vernena roseti, lomon thyme soubise, basil emulsion, pursalane):

Grilled Lamb Sirloin (farro and blue cheese, kale, pink turnip, beets, hay oil, savory lamb jus and peas):

We opted for a local cheese plate as one of our desserts…

…and a chocolate something or other for our second dessert (that's an Earl Gray truffle there in the middle). The great light was starting to decline for these last couple images:

The bonus dessert (this was a cakey bit with a custard-like thing on top, with maybe bergamot, then some chocolate):

I didn't get a copy of the dessert menu so I'm less clear on what all these were (some of the servers that were not our main server didn't explain things too well). The desserts were good, but I'm not a huge dessert fan, so I thought the cheese plate was the best. Also, it was paired with a local dessert wine from Venturi Schulze vineyards, called Brandenburg No. 3 that was delicious. (I think all of the wine pairings were from the Okanagan area/local.)

The meal was good and the view was lovely. We're glad we got to do this!

Boppin’ Around Victoria

Laura Domela — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 18:41:16 +0000

This morning we got up and worked, did some work, and then worked some more. For our lunch break, we headed down to the docks and caught an adorable little water taxi across the harbour. It was still pretty dark and windy, but the rain had stopped for a bit.

Our ride's here!

Leaving the West Bay Marine Village:

Dark sky with purple martin house silhouette:

We got off the harbour ferry at Miner's Landing and headed straight for Red Fish Blue Fish for some lunch (well, or breakfast…brunch? We have an early dinner reservation tonight so we just did a late breakfast/early lunch combo today and this place was it!) Their website said they opened at 11:30am. We arrived at 11:15am, and there was already a line of about a dozen people (we knew this would probably be the case). Red Fish Blue Fish is on the pier right by Miner's Landing, inside of an upcycled cargo container. It's cool, and has a great reputation for their food.

We had a 1-piece halibut fish & chips, a grilled, seared albacore tuna tacone (a cone-shaped taco), a half order of grilled Fanny Bay oysters, and a couple of Pellegrinos. Our halibut arrived first:

Everything was great! I'd say this is the second best fish & chips (next to Bandon Fish House in Bandon, Oregon). The other creative items on the menu help quite a bit, but the batter on the halibut was crunchy, the fish was great, and you gotta love their 100% sustainable policy.

After lunch we walked around Victoria a bit just sightseeing. Harbour, with BC Legislature Building:

Totem art:

Empress Hotel:

Cute little water taxi in the harbour:

There are flowers everywhere in Victoria!

Look at the line at Red Fish Blue Fish when we came back to our taxi stop:

We hopped on a boat and headed back to West Bay Marine Village. Looking back from the boat:

More purple martin houses:

Westbay Marine Village from the little ferry:

You can't beat the location of this marina and RV park. It's so close to town (would be an easy–and cheaper–bike ride into town, but we weren't sure what the weather was going to do and we kinda wanted to ride the boat) and the exterior spots all have marina or harbour views. Two of the shorter, marina view spots:

Remember when we were over in Pedder Bay and we had made reservations for the Sooke Harbour House for dinner (the whole reason we even went to Pedder Bay/Sooke in the first place)? And remember how we had the day wrong and we missed our reservation and had no chance to go again while we were nearby? Well, guess what? We figured out that the Sooke Harbour House is a 45 minute drive from where we're staying in Victoria, they are open tonight, and we got ourselves an early dinner reservation. Woohoo!

And now, a bit more work!

Tofino to Qualicum to Victoria

Laura Domela — Wed, 23 Jul 2014 22:11:00 +0000

This morning we left our gray rainy campsite (wow! things changed overnight!) in Tofino and headed back across the island on our way to Victoria. But first, here's one more shot from yesterday at Bella Pacifica Campground while it was still sunny:

Oh wait, there are a few more things I want to mention that we did before we left Tofino. Yesterday afternoon we went into town to grab some oysters, and right as we got back to the car I looked up in response to some intense bird sounds and said to Kevin quickly "lookuplookuplookup!!!"

There were about eight bald eagles flying overhead, and two of them were in dramatic combat. As we watched them RIGHT above us, two of them went careening into each other, locking talons (you could HEAR them hit each other, that's how close they were) and spiraling through the air. After a couple rounds of that, the loser retreated to the top of a nearby tree while the others went on their fish-hunting way over the bay. It was so cool to see this so close!

Here are two of them — already much higher than before — after the drama was over (when I could finally stop watching for a second to get my camera out):

Also, yesterday we stopped for lunch at Tacofino, a taco truck right off the main highway near our campground (in the parking lot behind "Live to Surf" surf shop). This place has seriously great tacos. We each had a regular Baja-style cod fish taco, and the Tuna Ta-Taco (seared sesame albacore with wasabi mayo, cabbage, salsa, and seaweed salad). So good!!

Also, check out their fabulous t-shirts! The skull is made of flowers and in the middle of his forehead there's a Tacofino logo (praying hands holding a taco), and the skull has a big fish in its mouth. (Kevin's wearing his right now!)

Okay, back to today! We left early (for us…8:30am). The drive was soggy but beautiful and looked mostly like this:

We made a stop at Qualicum Beach to pick up a bit more seafood (still not tired of fresh seafood). I did a little research while Kevin was driving and found a highly-rated spot called French Creek Seafood. We parked in the nice big marina parking lot and walked around the marina to the seafood store (it's the large clump of buildings you can see in the distance, across all the boats):

The entrance to the fish store was completely nondescript and working-harbor awesome, and had the nicest fish ladies inside helping customers. We highly recommend a stop here if you're up this way. Enter through the brown door with the little red neon "open" sign:

We picked up some clams for dinner tonight, some fresh crabcakes, more frozen calamari (I love putting this in risotto or pasta!) and some more smoked salmon pate.

We drove the rest of the way to Victoria (about 4.5-5 hours total from Tofino) and now we're at the Westbay Marine Village. It's still gray and rainy, but we're close to town and we'll have a great time here exploring (and working of course) until we catch the ferry over to Port Angeles on Friday morning.

Here's Victoria, just across the harbor from our spot at Westbay: