There are so many people on CC who were so helpful with us planning our Tofino trip from late August - I was just heartbroken when I heard about this. This is the same dock we went to when we did our sea plane ride, and we know exactly where Jamie’s Whaling Station was. Am very curious to see what happened - how traumatic. For whatever people survived, there’s really no high-level trauma care anywhere for hours!
How awful. I’ve been on whale-watching boats off Cape Cod, and it never even crossed my mind that there was a real risk of anything going seriously wrong – it’s not like you’re in the middle of the ocean.
We (H and I) are sitting here trying to find the most recent reports. As of 15 or so minutes ago, they’re saying four dead, some have been flown to nearby hospitals (am guessing Victoria) and some are being treated at the Tofino hospital, which is about two blocks from the dock.
One report is saying the boat hit rocks near Vargas Island. The boat was big enough that life jackets were not required, so if it hit rocks and started to sink, people would have to find life jackets quickly. And that water is awfully frigid. Even with life jackets, hypothermia would set in quickly.
I can really remember walking by Jamie’s several times when we were looking for a place to take us bear watching (they offer it, but we went with a different company).
Sadly, when we did our bear-watching tour, before we got on the boat, we had to provide next of kin that wasn’t traveling with us, contact information to the operator. When we asked why, they said the tsunami in Indonesia back in 2004 had put the fear of God in many of the operators in Tofino - if something happened while we were out on a boat, they wanted to have contact information. I wonder if the other companies require the same thing… now that I think about it, the sea plane place did, too, but I didn’t ask them - I figured there was just an inherent risk with riding in a small plane. I didn’t think so with the small boat we were on to bear watch - there were only 8 passengers on it, and we all had life jackets on.