Tuesday 8th October 2013, day 89 - Surfing

The hostel is right on the waterfront, and our room overlooked the water. Happily for a village on which it rains for two-thirds of the year, the day had dawned not only dry but clear and sunny - so when we opened the blinds on Tuesday morning, we were somewhat surprised to find ourselves looking at a mountain on the island opposite. We could see all of the land, stretching to distant mountains, that the day before we had no idea was there.

Maxi had the hot springs trip booked for today and our two roommates Stephanie and Amy were going surfing at 11:30. I planned to go surfing, too, but hadn't yet booked anything: the companies I'd been to the day before required people to get themselves to the beach. Stephanie and Amy told me they'd booked with a company that would take them to the beach, and after Maxi left I walked down to that particular surf centre and book myself a lesson. There was still space on the 11:30 one for that morning so I went for that, and we three were the only people. For the two hours in the water we wore wetsuits and water shoes, so it wasn't as cold as I was expecting.

I'd done a short surfing course in Year 10 at school, for an hour or two after school once a week for five weeks, in Bournemouth - but with nothing between it and Japan, Tofino is the surfing capital of Canada, so of course the waves here were much bigger and it was a little daunting. But I managed to get to my feet! I didn't stand upright, only a low half-crouch, but I was still pleased! We all felt the cold after getting out of the water, my toes were numb and I took a long time to warm up.

I bought chips for lunch on the way back to the hostel, where I read and wrote for a few hours before Maxi returned. We'd only used half of the seafood mix, courgette and pepper the night before in the jambalaya, so finished them in a tasty pasta dish with some more of the tomato sauce we'd bought on Sunday.