Surfing in Tofino!!!

Hello everyone! I’m excited to once again bring you the continuing adventures of the Kaleo program!

This past week was another busy one as we headed up to Tofino and Ucluelet to go surfing! 

As far as trips go, this one was definitely one of the more talked about and anticipated by the students. The surfing trip was definitely a uniquely West Coast experience for many of the students. Where else in this country can you go surfing in five foot waves in the middle of October?

On Monday morning we pulled out nice and early and headed for the West Coast of the island. It was almost a five hour drive there, so we decided to take a little stop in MacMillan Provincial Park. This park is well-known across the world for having Cathedral Grove as part of it. Cathedral Grove houses an amazing display of West Coast Douglas Firs, which are one of the largest trees in the world. We were treated to getting to spend some time with these giants, so we were sure to take lots of pictures!

From there we headed up to Tofino and after spending some good time shopping and wandering around the tourist town, we headed to our accommodation in Ucluelet.We were so grateful for the Christ Community Church to let us spend the evenings there. The first night was spent with some good group time that included some games that definitely brought us closer together!

Tuesday morning brought us our first surf day! Before noon we headed out the Chesterman’s Beach and met our guides there. We learned all about how to stay safe while surfing (Cover your head!) and how waves worked. It was then time to go surfing! While we weren’t quite the picture of surfing videos, it was definitely apparent how we were improving through the day. While none of us were surfing barrels or doing jumps off of waves, it was great to see how many of the group were able to get up on their boards and truly experience surfing for the first time. The wave conditions were intense, and we were treated to fairly large waves. It was amazing to see how many of the students kept at it while getting pounded by wave after wave

After over four hours of good surfing we called it a day and went back to the church in Ucluelet. That evening was a little less busy than the first one, because a lot more of us were tired, so it mostly consisted of studying, eating and a group movie. We all slept well that night! (I think!)

The next morning brought us to our last day on the trip, but also allowed us for one more morning of surfing. First, we headed out into a park in Ucluelet and spent some time marveling at the large waves and spending some time with God. 

Then, we headed back out to Chesterman’s beach and got in some good morning surfing.  From there we said goodbye to our guides, brought back our board rentals and started the drive back to camp. We had to make one more stop on our way back so we made a quick stop at Coombs. Coombs is famous for it’s unique market that has goats on it’s roof. While we didn’t get to see the goats on the roof, we did buy ourselves lots of goodies to eat on the trip home.

With the surf trip over, we come to a close in our major trips for the fall. There are no more over-nighter trips until after the Christmas break, so we look forward into seeing the students shift from adventure mode to more of a study mode. These next couple weeks will test the students in having a large number of their assignments due. I have been so blessed to see these students push through tough things already. Every challenge that has been taken on has been met with willing spirits and great attitudes. We’ve already climbed mountains, sailed around the gulf islands and conquered surfing. As we head into a more academic season of the program I’m excited to see how they will take to new challenges and strive to thrive in them.

We are also excited as a number of students have taken on the opportunities to help with the Juniors retreat this weekend .As I sit here writing, 100+ 7-11 year olds are arriving here. It will be fun to see a number of our students interact with camp ministry here at Qwanoes I look forward to seeing them work with kids and contribute to this amazing camp ministry. After this finishes, we are lucky to have Dr Don Taylor arrive to teach us Old Testament literature.

It’s been an exciting couple of weeks here, and we’re excited to see what God has in store for us coming up!

Until next week,

Derek