Then, if the weather and my wife's confidence allowed, we could take on a bit of the more challenging water on the open coast. During our circumnavigation of Meares Island, Theresa was relaxed and confident in the choppy water and windy weather we encountered. Rather than take the inside route back to our starting point in Tofino, we crossed to Vargas Island to try paddling its exposed western coast. We made camp on the northwest corner of Vargas, and weighed our options for the next day's paddle. Our options were the beach at Ahous Bay, about two miles away, or a beach just west of Moser Point, about four-and-a-half miles away. The weather forecast called for light morning winds developing to moderate winds in the afternoon from the southwest. While the beach at Ahous Bay had the advantage of being in a protected horseshoe-shaped bay, it was farther from our take-out in Tofino. In addition, its setting-around the headland from Ahous Point-would not allow us to see our actual paddling conditions until we had broken camp and rounded the headland. The beach near Moser Point would put us much closer to Tofino, and it would allow us to see the actual paddling conditions from our campsite, alleviating the need to break and set up camp again should we be weather-bound. I talked over the options with Theresa, and we agreed that if the weather looked fair, we would spend the last night at Ahous, but if it looked threatening, we'd push on to Moser Point. We'd leave the final decision until we were actually on the water and could observe the weather. We were up before dawn and got ready to paddle.