The Pacific Marine Route is a driving tour that will take you from Duncan west to Lake Cowichan where you follow a seal coated logging road out to the west coast. Passing beautiful rivers and streams and lakes you will wind your way to Port Renfrew, a small village on the ocean. With an access point to both the West Coast Trail and Juan deFuca Marine Trail plus Botanical Beach, the population of Port Renfrew swells considerably in the summer. You can continue south east along the coastal highway making your way into Sooke, then Langford and back to the Trans Canada Highway just north of Victoria. Keep in mind logging trucks are active on this road, keep your headlights on and eyes off the gps when driving.
Purple Sea Urchin
Growing up to 3 inches across and living up to 70 years, the Purple Sea Urchin lives along the rocky coast from Northern British Columbia to Baja California. They are herbivores, grazing on algaes and kelp. Intertidal urchins live in groups that move together generally feeding on the base of kelp which is called the stipe, leaving the rest of the kelp to drift away, eventually eating through entire kelp forests creating large barren areas. Subtidal urchins on the other hand tend to use their 5 toothlike plates to burrow into rock, such as the sandstone at Botanical Beach in Port Renfrew where they eventually create a dugout as deep as they are tall, so deep that they can't actually get out of it. They then sit and wait for algae and kelp to drift by, grabbing hold with their spines and passing it spine to spine to their mouth on their underside.