September 2nd, 2006 by admin

Alex and I arrived to the campsite in Ucluelet Friday afternoon.  Cidey and Dana were already setup by the time we got there.  We quickly set up camp and the four of us headed for Tofino.  We arrived at Long Beach, where there were 3 - 4 footers that looked pretty clean.  We had an awesome day of surfing this was my second or third time out and by the end of the day I was catching every wave I was attempting.  Had a ton of fun, awesome group to surf with.

We headed back to the campsite and the rest of the crew started to arrive.  Brooke showed up first and the Kelly, then Adam, Rich and Ryan.  Out came the beer bong and the party was officially on.

We all woke up in fairly good time and headed back out to Tofino for another day on the water.  We once again hit Long Beach and the conditions were virtually identical to the day before, the only slight difference was that I was having a little harder time catching waves than the previous day.  This was the first time that I felt the effects that a good hang over has on my surfing abilities.  It was great beeing out there with so many friends at the same time.  Nearly every surfable wave turned into a party wave.  brooke was out a fairly long ways away from the group so Dana decided to go out to her to see what she was doing out there.  A couple of minutes later we noticed that both of them were quite a ways out now, so I decided to paddle out and see what they were up to.

As I approached I could see that they were both struggling to paddle their way in.  They were trapped in a rip tide that was sucking them straight out.  We formed a train, Brooke grabbed my feet and Dana grabbed Brooke’s.  I paddled and Dana kicked and we were able to angle our waythrough and out of the rip.  This was my first encounter with a fierce rip tide and from that moment on I will always respect the sheer force that a good rip can have.

All in all it was one of the best camping trips of all time fun times and fun rides.