We woke up after a big sleep in a real bed, we had showers and it felt so good to feel clean again. Ngaio said she was starting to doubt if she was even human before we got to Tofino. We made the most of having a laundry and washed all of our paddling clothes, thermals and sleeping bag liners.
Usually when we are paddling we will make sure we wash ourselves every day at the end of the day in the ocean and dry out our paddling clothes. Since we started doing bigger days to get to Tofino on time, we hadn’t been able to dry our paddling gear, this meant it had been damp for five days. The closest it got to being dry was when we made a washing line by the fire, but we had landed at the beach late in the day and a heavy dew came down before we got the clothes in. This resulted in us smelling like smoked salami... great.
Anyway, we were clean with clean gear and feeling good. After a big breakfast with our friends we said our goodbyes and got dropped to the dock where our kayaks were. We were sad to say goodbye but both Ngaio and I feel like it isn’t going to be goodbye for long... more like see you soon.
Today my job was to fix my kayak which had developed two holes, most likely from being pulled over a sharp rock while fully laden with gear. We try to be very careful with the boats as they are fibre glass, it’s likely that after a huge day I pulled the heavy boat up a rocky shore and wasn’t as careful as I should have been. However, repairs and maintenance are all part of the journey. I had to sand it back, lay new sheets of fibre glass, paint on resin, wait for it to dry and repeat.
We spent the afternoon in Tofino, checking out the town and finding a place to stay. It’s a groovy little area with nice surfy vibes and so many yummy looking food places! We passed a small pizzeria on our way in, so at dinner time thats where Ngaio and I were headed.
One glass of wine had us giggling like preschoolers and we had some of the best pizza I have ever had. We are even going back tomorrow just to check it wasn’t the wine making us think that.
