Bamfield

This week, I, along with 2 other teachers, took 29 students to Bamfield. There were 23 girls and 6 guys along which made for an interesting dynamic. The kids were fabulous, the food and accomodations were great and the weather was CRAZY!

Here is one of the groups (Team Ogopogo) out on the ALTA. You go out for 1.5 hours and do a dredge so that you can touch and see all the cool creatures out on the ocean floor.

Here are the kids in the whale lab (grey whale skeleton in the background). Here they got to touch a bunch of invertebrates and teach the class about them.

I love the sea anenome

Group shot on Brady's Beach

The weather was extremely stormy so the students were not allowed to venture out as far as usual. Unfortunately the tide was not all the way out so the tide pools were not optimal.

Maria, Nicole, and I on the ferry home. We were supposed to take the bus but unfortunately, we got stuck on the biggest hill, halfway between Bamfield and Port Alberni. We were there for about 6 hours, and at least 2 of those hours were outside in blizzard-ish conditions. The students did extremely well for such a unique situation. We spent time huddling and building a shelter for fun. Once it got dark, and students were wet and cold, we just huddled together and watched a bunch of people trying to free the bus. Fortunately, we had blocked the entire road so people had to help us! The tow truck we waited for (for 2 hours) was too afraid to come down the hill and help us as it was too icy. In the end, the students were fabulous and we went back to Bamfield for the night where they gave us accomodations and 3 meals for FREE!

You can't tell here but this is on a hill and they ended up swinging the front of the bus in the opposite direction. In all, I was gone for 4 days. Def. too long to be away from my little guy! But, def. a great trip.