These are the Chronicles of Famous Surf Writer Ben Marcus and his trip into the Wilds of the Alaskan Frontier.
Latest Update: November 11, 2000

19:10 BC TIME ROOM 106 OF THE TOFINO MOTEL

Wow, I actually met someone today who had heard of swell.com. He was the fourth and last hitch-hiker of the day, a guy with a surfboard along the road in Tofino, Vancouver Island. I told this guy who I worked for and he said he and his buddy used swell.com all the time. That was good to hear. I don't know if he'd ever bought anything on swell, but at least he read it. That was heartening. Nice to know someone is taking advantage of all this work they (and sometimes I) do.

This was the third stop and fourth hitch-hiker of the day, which meant I had some company on my drive from Port Hardy to Tofino. The first rider was an Indian guy named Sikander who didn't speak much English. He rode from Port Hardy to Campbell River, and I'm still not sure if he was a ghost or a mirage or something. I took two photos of him. If they come out, I guess he was real.

The Shaman pumping gas. (The second photo titled "He showed up on film," did not survive the Internet. Coincidence?)

The second ride went from Port Alberni to Tofino. This was a guy and a gal who scrunched into the front seat together, and listened to me rattle on about the American presidential elections. I should have taken photos of them. The guy was pierced.

The third ride was soon after I dropped them off. He was a young guy with a surfboard, the guy who used swell.com. I took him only a short way, then asked where I could find a cheap hotel.

That's where I am now, except that it's not very cheap. $70, Canadian. I'm watching The Devil's Advocate on color TV. This will be my last big splurge before heading back to Sequim, and staying with my mom until she throws me out. A couple of days, tops.

But let's go way back, before Port Hardy, which was at the end of a long, 21-hour ferry ride from Prince Rupert. And before Prince Rupert, which was at the end of an eight-hour ferry ride from Queen Charlotte.

The Queen Charlotte ferry was all at night, so uneventful. I ate too much and read magazines and slept on the floor on my sleeping bag and one of Joanne's quilts. Thanks, Joanne.

I had a few hours to kill in Prince Rupert, so I killed them at a really nice Internet Café, hacking around and watching CNN. There was a pretty girl there.

The ferry ride from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy was uneventful, but scenic. There was one drunk guy playing the Tony Hawk Pro Skater game on PlayStation, and they showed a Jackie Chan movie and Home Alone II. I ate too much, had some okay conversation and slept on the floor with my sleeping bag and blanket. I'm getting too old for that.

The first eight hours of the ferry ride were scenic. It was a perfect, blue day and the ferry went through the Inside Passage, past lumber mills and freighters and a zillion nooks and crannies. There were some whales off to starboard in the evening and I was hoping to finally see some orcas, but they were gray whales.

All the time I was thinking the same thing: The Inside Passage would be a blast to do in your own boat. It wouldn't have to be a big boat, just a comfortable boat with every electronic device in the world, and enough juice to counter the tidal currents. To take a boat from Seattle all the way up to Alaska would be a blast. Safe, scenic, secluded and it would take forever. Spend money on gas, live on halibut and salmon. Maybe one of these days.

The ferry ride got boring after the sun went down. It was hot and stuffy inside the ferry, and too cold and blustery outside. I read magazines, played with the computer, watched videos and tapped my toes.

I slept okay, for just being on the floor.

Made it to Port Hardy at 8:00 in the morning, drove off and hit the road, which was a little icy and slippery, but I'm a veteran of that by now.

I picked up the Holy Man first. He was hitch-hiking just outside of Port Hardy so I stopped and moved the printer out of the passenger's seat.

He looked like a Holy Man, or a character from The Man Who Would be King. I couldn't understand a word he said, and mostly he slept with a scarf over his face and his hands clenched in prayer. At one point he said his name was Sikander, which made sense, because that was the name of Sean Connery's character in The Man Who Would be King. I understood him when he said, "Coffee," so we stopped for coffee. Mostly he rattled on in some language I didn't understand, although I did learn that his name was Sikander and he was from the Punjab and had been living in Canada for five years.

I dropped him off in Campbell River, and took the coastal road along places I remembered from last time. I eventually got to Courtenay, where I almost ran out of gas, about two years ago, it seems like. From Couretnay I cut across to Port Alberni, where I picked up the guy and the gal. They had kind of a rough ride in the front seat, but that ride across to the West Coast is as scenic as scenic can be. It was shorter with company.

I dropped them in Tofino, and picked up the surfer dude a little later. He reads swell, which inspired me a little to get going on my project for them. They want me to write an ongoing column, similar to this, which I'm going to call South by Northwest. I'm going to hit every surf spot I can heading north to south, from Queen Charlotte Island, along Vancouver Island, then down through Washington and Oregon.

I'm going to write the intro to that right now.

Bye for now.