So, I’m off to Tofino! Time to quickly publish the post I prepped last night and head straight from work to the ferries! I’m not going to get started on the ferries though.

So I’ll be in Tofino until July 6th. Finally, a long week of surfing, camping, time by the beach in the sun (and rain), camp stove cooking, and friends.

Every year, we get a big group of people together and head over to Greenpoint in Tofino for camping and surfing on Canada Day.

Let me show you all the crap we bring along with us! Ah, the joys of car camping. Our equipment is well-worn and not in great shape after camping trips every other weekend, but they still hold up!

First off, time to prep the shallots. I got this idea from my friend Trev: prep all your food in advance where there’s light, good knives, and cuttingboards and then you don’t have to worry about all the mess and disaster while you are camping.

Pro Tip: Wear your snowboard goggles to prevent from massive eye hysteria while cutting up millions of shallots. It works. LOL!

Here’s all the food we prepped last night. Needless to say, we were up late. But it’s such a bonus not having to wash everything and cut it all up when you are hungry after a long day of surfing and it’s dark and cold out. Click on the photo and then click on “All Sizes” to see a bigger version so you can see the text.

Also very necessary: camping equipment. MEC Tarn 3 tent, MEC rollout mats (WAY better than having a bulk air mattress in my opinion, and much lighter)… and we normally don’t bring camping chairs when we go on our own but considering how much we miss them when we have a big group of people we decided to go buy some fancy Roots camping chairs with foot rests. Can’t wait to try them out. Allan’s not a big fan of how bulky and heavy they are in the car, but they will be nice to bring along every once in a while. We are also bringing our golf clubs so we can play 9 holes of golf at Long Beach Golf Course. Golf equipment + surf equipment + camping equipment = VERY full car.

We’ve also got tons of food, not to mention 40 strips of bacon from Granville Island (WOHOOO!), two coolers, a camp stove, a cast iron grill (a MUST for car camping cooking), lots of hoodies, my underwater camera case for my DSLR, my DSLR of course, and lots of supplies.

Food we will have there: Pacific Halibut, scallops, bacon, sausages, breakfast potatoes, everything you need to mix up Mojitos, lots of beer, cane sugar colas, tons of fruit, chocolate vegan cake, Uprising Breads, New Moon cookies, and tons of crackers and chips! I love food.

Not picture: 2 huge surfboards, also tons of wetsuits (bringing wetsuits to share with friends too)… I love my Roxy 5 mil wetsuit, but I bought Allan a new O’Neill Infiniti Drylock 5/4/3 for his birthday this year (a little early, his b-day is in July) and I have to say I am VERY jealous. It’s a darn nice wetsuit. Also pictured, lots of groceries, beach towels. And of course an absolute essential: TWILIGHT! Hahahaha.

Lots more not shown here, but you get the picture. It’s a full car.

Can’t wait to be out there for 8 days, hopefully our food lasts.

In other news, I booked my accommodations for Costa Rica! 3 nights at Paradisus Playa Conchal and then 4 nights in a villa rental on Langosta Beach (loved that beach when we stayed there last). Lots of time for surfing, relaxing, and hanging out on the beach. The weather: Humid, thunderstorms, sun, and rain. Just the way I like it.

Sadly, won’t have much time to blog in Tofino, but I’m looking forward to posting when I get back on July 6th! See you soon, and HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!!

Happy Canada Day (believe it or not, this photo was taken with a friend at my Xbox 360 clan’s annual meetup. Yeah, Patron tequila is trouble)!

My life has been a whirlwind lately. So much to do and so little time. But it’s always like that, isn’t it?

A long weekend in Tofino was just what I needed. Fresh salty ocean air, surfing till my body hurts, sleeping in a tent close to the ground, nature walks, sleeping in, and cooking over the camp stove.

I haven’t been that relaxed in a long time. Probably not since the last time I was in Tofino

We took the ferry early Saturday morning (don’t even get me started about the ferries) and set up our campsite in the afternoon.

We headed immediately to Long Beach for a perfect glassy sunset surf session. It was the best session of the weekend. Quiet, deserted… the only two people in the water. Pink sky, looooooooong long longboard rides on the waist-shoulder waves, and a family of 3 HUGE sea lions that came out to say hi. We rode waves for about 2 and a half hours until we couldn’t see anymore, and till we were frozen.

Our campsite setup isn’t the bare minimal that it could be, but it’s definitely not the big hullabaloo that I’ve seen is possible.

We’ve got a TARN 3 MEC tent, surfboards on the car, a camping stove, head lamps, a cooler, and lots of food. We sleep on foam mats and thin MEC mats with our sleeping bags. I actually like being close to the ground and being so flat. Feels great on the back. Our biggest luxury is definitely the heavy cast iron grill we put on the camp stove. Despite the weight, it’s totally worth bringing it… we wouldn’t be able to hike with it but I looooove cooking on it when we can bring the car!

Grass along the path to Wickaninnish Beach.

We lay in the tent most of the day Sunday and listened to the rain, the wind, and the ocean for hours. So relaxing.

At night we headed to Long Beach again for another sunset surf session. Not as glassy, and there were way more people in the water (maybe about 20?)… but it was still awesome. I caught my best wave of the weekend… a shoulder high steep wave that I rode left for ages… it just kept reforming. Loved it. We surfed again till we were freezing and it was dark…

Despite our 5 mil suits, booties and gloves… the frigid waters of the Pacific always manage to wear us down at the end of a surf session. It’s not like Costa Rica where I could surf all day in the warm water. But Tofino and the Pacific will always have their charms…

I love how green and alive everything seems to grow around Tofino…

We definitely like our cooking and camping. I love to use lots of garlic and shallots to keep the immune system going out in the cold… here we are prepping our breakfast.

A true breakfast for surfers! Lots of bacon and protein… tons of carbs with the crispy fried Yukon Gold potatoes… topped with garlic, shallots and peppers.

For dinner we had Wild Pacific Halibut (from last year’s fishing trip in Tofino), panko breaded and grilled over the cast iron, topped with peppers and bacon… with pesto pasta.

Loved the water droplets on the pine surrounding these yellow flowers.

On the way out of Tofino we stopped by the Wick to see if anything was happening at that beach… didn’t look too bad for a low tide session, and there were about 20 people in the water. Wish we could have stayed and surfed but it was time to make it back to the ferries.

Ah the end of a long weekend… always so sad. It was cold and rainy heading back. Whenever we come back from Tofino I wish that Tofino was home. I could see myself living there for the rest of my days.

Well, back to work.

It’s becoming a bit of a tradition. Every March, I wake up at 7:00 AM on the weekend and have to put up a huge upfront sum of money. Once a year, before every summer, I now book my Greenpoint campsites for the rest of the year.

Greenpoint is quite possibly my favourite campsite in the whole world. Located in the Pacific Rim National Park, Greenpoint is a small campsite (only about 100 sites) that becomes fully booked for the summers. Why? It’s close to Tofino for the surfers like us, it’s got beautiful private campsites that are surrounded by old growth forests and separated by more foliage than you may ever see at any campsite…. and you can hear the ocean while you sleep. It’s not really a place for people to come and get drunk and be loud. It’s a place to enjoy your surroundings. It’s a short walk to the beach, and there are fire pits. There are no hot showers or any real amenities other than somewhat primitive bathroom facilities.

There’s nothing quite like the way the sun sparkles through the trees or the rain patters on your tent when you’re in Greenpoint. I can’t explain it.

So, my campsites are booked for the rest of the year, starting in April and ending in October. Should be fun! I can’t wait to get back in the water on my board.

For those of you who haven’t booked your sites yet, I recommend you do so soon. Many long weekends are sold out long before the summer even begins.

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A quick mini update on the weekend:

- I went snowboard at Cypress yesterday and it was pretty epic. Great pow conditions. Maybe the summer isn’t upon us so soon after all
- I picked up the first book of the Twilight series thanks to the persistence of Amy. I finished it in a few hours and shortly picked up the next one, and promptly finished that last night as well. This series is ruining my life. Don’t expect many updates from me till I finish it
- Did some more design work for the apartment. Pretty excited!
- Two of my best girl friends are coming to visit in the coming weeks so I can’t wait for that.
- My working out/going to the gym/skating in the mornings is starting to pay off… hopefully I’ll be a little more fit for the summer when it rolls around

More soon!