Post date: Mar 16, 2012 2:27:47 AM
(No, I will not name it "The Forest Strikes Back")
The dark sky lay as a background for the hail splattered down from the sky. a class of students, their rain pants and boots covered in mud, ran for cover in the only bus around for kilometres in the small clearing in the forest beside the lonely highway. But one person was missing.
Sounds like something out of a disaster movie? No, it's just another average day at Bamfield Marine Science Centre, as our outdoor education group found out.
The second day started for me with the tinny beeping of my wristwatch informing me that it was 7:00 o'clock. I turned it off, and lay asleep for another twenty minutes. Plenty of time, my inner anti-conscience thought.
Alas, it was not enough time to think. In my half-awake state, I got up and dressed, and foolishly thought that I would have more than enough time to come back and get a pair of rain pants.
Breakfast was at 7:30, but because I woke late, I pretty much missed the lineup when I came in at 7:35, which was lucky, as the cafeteria was packed with our group and another group, who was leaving on that day.
Breakfast was fried eggs with some vegetables in them, sausages, and a chocolate muffin. I wanted to try the orange juice, but the orange juice poured out of the dispenser at a rate slower than roofing tar flowing in a bell jar. I gave up halfway through, and filled up the rest of the cup with some apple juice that, sadly, came from the same dispenser and flowed at the same speed.
After breakfast and after making a lunch, we prepared for the first walk to a nearby beach to view marine creatures in the intertidal zone. For me, that meant rain pants and a sprint back to the dorm for them.
Soon, however, with rain pants, I joined the group, put on a lifejacket, and stepped down the slope again to the boat. At 8:30, we cast off, and were ferried across to a dock to the other side of the very narrow inlet, scarcely two minutes away. We hopped out, and our guide lead us up a path up the banks of the inlet, down a gravel road, past some houses and stores, and finally ending at a beach covered with cobble where the path entered.
Our guide explained that the beach was at low tide, and thus some marine animals, who lived in the Intertidal Zone – the area that high tide covers but low tide leaves, can be seen. We were handed a sheet of paper with the names of some animals that we may see on the beach, and then we divided into groups and started looking for them.
The first sea animal we saw was a dead sea star exposed on the cobble.
“You can tell that it is dead because it lost its colouration – the sunlight breaks it down.”, the guide explained.
We did see some less-dead animals, though. We walked through a blanket of seaweeds, acid-green, wood-brown, and blood-red, and Mr. Butler, the Biology teacher, explained that it was the different types of chlorophyll, their photosynthesis chemical, that gave them different colours. Then, we climbed some rocks that were exposed by the tide. The force of weathering met its match here, for, instead of meekly submitting to the force of erosion and wearing down to smooth stones, the rocks defended themselves with jagged edges created during their solidification as metamorphic rocks. They harboured a rich variety of sea life – a snail in a pool here, three sea stars under the overhang of a rock there.
While we were working, the clouds were blown by the wind to reveal a beautiful sunny day. It was with this weather that we left the beach, back down the path, and back to the Centre to prepare for our hike. We arrived at 10:30, and waited for our bus.
Bus Driver Aaron pulled up the bus, and as we loaded the bus in, the clouds launched their counterattack. Hail the size of a grain of rice began to fall from the sky, but we were sheltered in the bus as we headed down the little highway that lead to the trail that we would hike on.
As we got off the bus, the sun slowly appeared again. (Correlation between us going out on that day and good weather: high.) We headed onto the trail. After passing 7 bridges, going up 3 ladders, 3 people at a time, down 3 ladders, through a path that led through the forest, full of living and fallen trees, and with many muddy spots that had me following the footsteps of the person in front of me in order to avoid sinking in, all the while punctuated by Bailey's screams and Christina's groans that she “would rather be in Arizona”, we stopped for lunch. Soon after lunch, however, some members of our group decided to stage a little democratic vote.
“Who's ready to turn back? “ Bailey asked. “If you want to turn back, put up your hand. Let me count... Yes, that's a majority!”
“If you are voting for three.” Mr. Butler pointed out.
After an intense period of democracy in action, thankfully devoid of any more vote fraud (the lack of cell phone reception helped prevent robocalls), the teachers simply vetoed the request and continued on. Finally, after passing two more bridges, we reached the 5-kilometre marker.
“So let's turn back!” Christina suggested.
That was exactly what we did, after taking a picture of all of us standing around the sign, for proof that we did it.
After more mud, more ladders, a few slips and near-falls, and a sudden onset of hunger and a lack of strength, probably caused by the lunch disappearing, we hiked the 5 kilometres back at 2.5 km/h. When we left the forest, it was around 4 o'clock, two-and-a-half hours before dinnertime. Our guide suggested that we stay on the sandy beach near the trail during this time. Andre, though, had doubts, as fog rolled up the bay half-an-hour after we arrived.
“It looks like it's going to rain.”
As he spoke, the hail returned in full force. We sprinted back to the bus, waited for Mr. Butler to come back, and were back at the dorms of Bamfield before nature could create its own disaster movie.
With an hour to spare before dinner, Andre and Peter attempted to teach me different combinations of cards that one could use in card games. Soon, however, before I could let the meanings of three-of-a-kind, two-pairs, flush, and strait dissolve in my head, it was time for dinner at 6:30.
I was really glad of dinner – pork, corn, potatoes, and a bowl of salad tasted like nectar of the gods after the hike. I was so hungry, that I regretted not taking a dessert when I got my dinner. Finally, my stomach commanded me to move, and I got the dessert – strawberries and whipped cream on top of a small piece of chocolate cake.
After dinner, we dragged our leaden legs across to the auditorium across the road from the cafeteria, where we listened for two hours on the different types of marine mammals in the Pacific – Whales, dolphins, sea otters, sea lions, seals.
Finally, with the sound of whales grunting like pigs, braying like donkeys, and screaming like a Minecraft enemy still in my ears even though the presentation ended at 9:00, I fell asleep at 10:00 again, wearing socks, because I was so tired that I did not have the energy to take them off.
I am very glad that I came on the hike. We remember the forest - I've got used to wearing glasses while walking, when I couldn't before, and I enjoyed focusing my mind on the simple act of walking instead of pondering homework, for instance. The forest remembers us – Mr. Butler discovered that he had lost his glasses during the hike, and thus the trees have a souvenir of the ourdoor education trip by WPGA.