Vancouver Island part three - Ucluelet

We arrived in Ucluelet late afternoon and, having checked in to our room, headed out for a little wander around the harbour. Here we were most surprised to see a pack of five or six marauding river otters, jumping from pier to boat to pier, in search of fish I'm guessing! I only had my 20-70mm lens with me, but you can see most of them mid frame! They were significantly larger than our otters - and I've certainly never seen them in a big group like this.

We'd decide to visit Ucluelet as well as Tofino (despite the close distance) partly because we wanted to eat (and stay) at Pluvio Restaurant and Rooms - reputedly some of the best food on the island if not in the whole of British Columbia. It would be hard to imagine anything better - it was wonderful.

We were up early the next morning to do the Wild Pacific trail lighthouse loop and this proved to be a great move - as we reached the shoreline, a thick fog was rolling in and a bell buoy just out to shore was ringing - it was wonderfully atmospheric and somewhat eerie - I just wish I could play the sound to go with the photo!

The recently risen sun briefly broke through, and I just managed to find a vantage point where I could photograph the beautifully backlit seascape. The widest end of my 70-200mm lens let me include just enough of the rocky shoreline - it would have been nice to have been a bit higher to gain a little more separation between the layers but this was impossible.

We thought that the sun might then burn off the fog but, far from it, the view vanished as quickly as it came, and the fog thickened, making for even more eerie conditions, complete with the incessant and somewhat mournful sound of the bell buoy.

There were plenty of sea birds to be seen and heard, as well as my favourite bull kelp, floating just offshore. Just beautiful!

As we worked out way around the trail, the scenery would come and go - often just the odd little glimpse of rock and trees was all we were treated to, but I'd not have had it any other way.

Well perhaps a little more light coming through would have been even better, and I've had to bring out just a bit of the more distant detail in processing, but we repeated the walk at the end of the day, with clear blue skies and, whilst it was nice to see the views we'd missed in the morning, there was none of the moody atmosphere we enjoyed on our pre breakfast walk.

After a late breakfast, we decided to have another attempt at visiting Florencia Bay, this time taking a shorter woodland path through beautiful forest, with an initial detour to Halfmoon Bay. There was still a little remnant fog in the woodland, with some lovely rays creeping through as we descended to the beach.

Halfmoon Bay was all but deserted - a stunning white sand beach, bordered by tall, steep woodland, bathed in sunshine, yet with views across to a clearly still foggy Florencia Bay.

I loved the way a small section of trees were almost peering through the fog, their shape and visibility coming and going as the conditions kept changing.

It was a scene that worked beautifully in either colour or mono; typically I find I'm more likely to tend towards black and white when the scene is that much more minimalist, as below:

It seemed a good idea to keep moving and get to Florencia Bay whilst the fog remained. I needn't have worried - it was there for ages! Initially I set about trying to photograph the amazing bits of driftwood on the beach - the fog was helpful but the sun was also high in the sky by now, so quite tricky to get everything to balance.

Looking inland, and up to the woodland bordering the beach, the fog was still very thick, with only the nearest trees really visible - beautifully minimalist scenes, yet with a bit of chaos just peeping through!

Another advantage of working with black and white for these scenes, is it allows you to bring out just a bit more of the detail in processing, withough moving too far away from reality. Somehow the same is not always so achievable with colour.

It was definitely a morning for getting carried away! It's so rare that I see conditions such as these, and when the sun did eventually start to cut through the fog at the edge of the woodland, it was time for headless chicken mode ;)

With the warmth of the sun contrasting with the cooler tones of the shaded areas of woodland, I found myself enjoying using colour more than black and white here, and the strenth of the rays and contrast rapidly started to increase.

The sunlit areas were so bright, it was really quite hard to compose, either through the viewfinder or using the screen and before long, the sun was just too strong. It almost is for the picture below, but I loved the mad combinations as I looked high up into the canopy.

It really was an extraordinary thing to see - I've never seen anything quite like it and felt very lucky to enjoy conditions such as these. What a day!

The 'show was over' and we headed back to Ucluelet with the skies now unremittingly blue and did another couple of trail walks - beautiful, but not so photogenic. Another amazing meal followed and then the next day, it was time to move on and visit the north of the island.

We had a final pre breakfast walk on one of the nearby beaches, where we spotted this beautiful little short-billed Dowitcher - not a bird I'd seen before and this is a massive crop - but I loved the way his plumage complemented the seaweed dotted along the shore.