Today we got up in the morning and had a great breakfast of waffles (something we had looked forward to having for a few days). The lecture that followed was pretty good but was a bit overshadowed by our excitement of the day's planned hiking excursion. In total, we walked 18 kilometers in about 6 hours, a pace that was pretty fast according to our leaders, but we were all really excited and felt good about continuing to charge forward. The trail had many mud pits to jump over and a bunch of ladders to climb. It was challenging to try not to slip in to the mud, but nobody fell all day. The forest included the deer and sword ferns as well as a Western Red Cedar tree, which can live up to 1500 years old. The high point of the trip came at the lookout point where right in front of us, there was a small island, called Flat Top Rock, with a huge group of sea lions on it. This rock is home to only male sea lions who most likely are too young or too old to breed up in Alaska. They don't want to waste their energy swimming all the way up the coast to Alaska if they aren't going to have the ability to challenge another male sea lion to his “harem.” (that's a scientific term for a bunch of females who are herded around by one male). So, these young and old males stay near Vancouver Island and we call their rock a “haul out.” Several fights broke out among them while we were there, but they were generally calm. We also heard their loud roars, which are different from California Sea Lions who bark.

Our luck increased as we spotted grey whales offshore about ten minutes after arriving at Flat Top Rock. We were freezing by the time we left the shore and headed back from the winds coming up off of the Pacific so we didn't stay for too long. As soon as we got back on the trail and out of the wind, it was much easier and warmer. Other animals on the trail included banana slugs and a type of thrush, a bird that we could only hear by its referee whistle. After the satisfying hike, we had a pasta alfredo dinner and then got a chance to work on our numerous projects before the showing of a Blue Planet Video and then sleep... or first another music night in the rec room and then... sleeeeeeeeep!