Bamfield, Part 2! We were treated to even more beautiful sights and delicious feasts. I wondered initially if we would get bored out here in this small town, but of course that would never happen with Paulina, Jeff, and friends. We had to say goodbye to Melissa and Wade, but a new group arrived and they were quite the foodies! Ayren, Earl, and Carolyn made our fifty pounds of food look like nothing. Paulina had designated Monday night as pizza night and Tuesday night as taco night, so we all came prepared. Nobody really knew what anyone else was going to bring, but everything came together like it had all been pre-planned. Generosity was aplenty, and we left with our hearts, bellies, and memory cards very, very full. (Part One here)
Day Three.
- Whale-watching
- Wes made brunch!
- Farewell to Melissa and Wade
- More fishing
- Kayaking in the Bamfield Inlet. Brought along the Go-Pro!
- Brady's Beach in the daytime
- Cooking salmon for a "light snack"
- Pizza-Off
- Night photos of the Milky Way from our porch
I peed here!
Charming, to be sure.
Wes could start a whole album of me posing oddly to take pictures of stuff.
Well, this is the result of the prior photo.
Evan and his family arrived in the evening. This three-year-old was a lucky charm. Right when he hit the scene, Jeff started catching all this fish, including a big salmon!
Scales
The smaller fish was cut up and used for crab bait. The big one, unfortunately, was not big enough for Jeff's standards and got tossed back in. Wes and I would have totally eaten it!
Rolling out pizza dough was a traumatic experience for us the last (and only) time we tried to make pizza, so we were happy to have some professional advice. Still, the dough had a mind of its own!
There was only one oven and eight pizzas to bake, so we experimented with the grill. Wes tried a small piece of dough on there and it worked out pretty well, so we went for it and just stuck the entire floppy piece of dough to the grill.
I still don't get how people get pizzas to be perfect circles. I was just glad that the dough was thin enough, who cares about the shape when it doesn't need to fit into an oven?
There were lots of cool toppings in this kitchen, like goat mozzarella, blueberry sausage, anchovies...
Wes's creation: crushed San Marzano tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, local mushrooms, chorizo, anchovies, roasted whole garlic cloves, and basil.
My last-minute creation: sliced nectarines, fresh mozzarella, mint, pecans, and balsamic.
We call the shape "artisanal."
George made a dairy-free pizza with butternut squash puree and smoked salmon! It was, unlike ours, perfectly round.
Looks like we should have gotten Lorraine to form our pizza crusts for us.
After pizza, Wes snuck out onto the dock and looked up. The Milky Way was even brighter this day than it had been the day before!
So beautiful, but it gets better...
Day Four.
- Morning walk, led to a spontaneous stop into Brady's Gallery, where we met the cutest shopkeeper ever. His name was...Brady! And he had a fat rabbit named Oreo.
- Kayaking towards the Broken Islands
- Hiking the beginning of the West Coast Trail
- Mushrooms galore
- Taco bonanza with five types of meat and also an array vegetarian options (chicken, pork, steak, ground beef, red snapper)
- Last night at Brady's Beach + bonfire with dem stale marshmallows
- Best Milky Way sighting!
OOTD, haha
Brady was so nice to us and he was really open about his life! His mom owns the gallery and makes a lot of the pieces that are sold in it. He's the youngest of four kids - his siblings are named Sky, Lake, and Poppy. There are fourteen students in his school, all different grade levels, and he gets dropped off by boat every morning. To him, that is very lucky because the other kids have to walk quite a ways.
We bought this driftwood fish from him - his mom made it!
He really wanted to show us Oreo, his bunny. But not before having us taste every edible plant in his yard, which included oregano, stevia, sorrel, and chives.
He also showed us his various toys, one of them was an old fishing rod that he likes to chuck into a specific bush.
Kayaking again! This time, in the other direction.
Into the ocean! There are a bunch of islands in the distance, but they were farther than they seemed and the waves were pretty choppy out here.
No, we did not instantly filet and clean out the salmon that Paulina just caught. This was our last piece from the Port Alberni fish market.
Full and ready for another hike! This one is part of the West Coast Trail, a famous weeklong Pacific Northwest trail in British Columbia. Maybe someday we'll do the whole thing...not.
So many mushrooms waiting to be discovered!!
Last day.
- One last look at the Barkley Sound from our deck.
- Bill came to pick us up in his fishing boat, rather than the usual yellow water taxi. He had already caught a huge salmon early that morning and showed it off proudly!
- Driving back and stopping for a much-needed car wash.
- Cathedral Grove
- Last poutine...and ketchup chips!
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