Storm watching in Tofino
It’s the time of the year when the West Coast beaches of Vancouver Island have such a different face in the winter than they do in the summer. During the cold rainy months from October through March, there is something to be said about Tofino. Storm watching is a spectacular experience, and is at its best and most dramatic during the winter months. The rage of the wind, rain and thunderous waves, produce as many as 15 storms per month that hits the west coast during the storm season.
Despite the extreme weather, the beach explorers of Tofino, locals and guests alike, suit up in their rubber boots and rain gear and head out to the beaches. They are staying outdoor to witness the enormous storms chunched up by powerful gale generating 40 ft waves which in turn when smash into the rocky headland rocket spray 100 feet into the air. Watching these huge waves up close is awesome.
If you are adventurous, you can experience the storm first hand walking the Wild Pacific Trail near Ucluelet and enjoy the sight and sound in all its glory. Or at Long Beach in the Pacific Rim National Park you can stroll for miles along sandy beaches and experience storm watching up close.
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A Tofino property owner says a rock wall along Cox Bay Beach is an “environmental catastrophe” destroying one of the surf town’s best known beaches.
John English said a 1.5-metre wall of large boulders erected by three beachfront resorts — Pacific Sands Resort, Long Beach Lodge and Cox Bay Resort — is causing the pristine sandy beach to erode and has caused trees and bushes to fall into the Pacific Ocean.
“We’ve lost six feet of shorefront and it’s getting worse every day,” said English, who owns Pacific Rim Resort, next to Long Beach Lodge. Ralph Tieleman, a member of the executive committee of the Tofino chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, an environmental non-profit organization, has been documenting the effects of the rock wall on the beach.
The rock wall has been a contentious issue since Pacific Sands Resort put it up last December. The rock wall was erected to prevent erosion and to protect the roots of nearby trees, said resort director Stephen Peters.
Peters said English is exaggerating the changes to the beach.
“There’s been no degradation to the land,” he said, adding the wall is “depositing no rocks whatsoever.”
This summer, the provincial government ordered the resorts to remove the rock wall because it was encroaching on Crown land, but the wall was simply moved back onto their own property.
“Personally, I don’t think the rock wall is making all the change in the beach patterns,” Tofino Mayor John Fraser said.
English calls that “absurd.”
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The final result for is the second annual O’Neill Cold Water Classic Canada is out:
“The second annual O’Neill Cold Water Classic Canada concluded this week under sunny skies on Tofino’s North Chesterman Beach, an anticlimactic final pitting two spent competitors on a relatively calm ocean. Hundreds lined the beach Thursday at daybreak to catch a glimpse of hometown hero and 2009 champion Peter Devries, who fell in the round of 16, and hundreds more returned later in the day to watch Australian Josh Kerr outlast American Eric Geiselman to win the $20,000 first prize”.
The OʼNeill Cold Water Classic Series now moves to its final event of the year in Santa Cruz, California on October 18 in what is lining up to be a dramatic finale.
Read here the report by Globe and Mail>.
Two years ago, Tofino, population 2,000 was selected by O’Neill officials as part of the Association of Surfing Professionals’ World Qualifying Series. The contest received an enormous boost last year when Devries emerged with a stunning victory on home water.
Tofino – well known as the “surf capital of Canada” revolves around fishery, tourism and the surfing community has played a big role in promoting that surfing industry in Tofino. There are many surf schools – Bruhwiler, Westside, Surf Sister and others providing surf lessons. Tofino was named “best surf town in North America” by U.S.-based Outside magazine last year.
The event was so well received – both locally and by the visiting pros – that Bernhard Ritzer, O’Neill’s director of global sports marketing, confirmed that it will return to Tofino in 2011.
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