Victoria – Riveted

Victoria, B.C. | Gorge Waterway and Fisherman’s Wharf

Laura Domela — Sun, 24 Sep 2017 22:50:49 +0000

The other day Kevin and I decided to take the dinghy out to explore the Gorge. The Gorge Waterway is a narrow tidal inlet that connects Victoria Harbour to Portage Inlet. Here’s what it looks like on the chart (with the yellow line being our cruise from Causeway Floats, up and back about 7.2 nautical miles):

From Victoria’s Inner Harbour the scenery changes from city, to industrial, to urban nature park. The speed limit is 5 knots, so we just puttered up about 3.5 miles and then back. It was a beautiful day for it!

As we returned to the Inner Harbour, the bridge was up to let a big tug and barge through.

This handsome vessel was docked nearby and we got a good look at her from the dinghy. Launched in 1930 as “The Chieftain” (she’s now called the St. Eval), she spent 60 years operating under the British flag escorting British warships during WWII. In 1992, she was purchased by Dennis Washington, and after extensive renovation (including a hot tub on the top deck with wood that matches the pilothouse perfectly!) she now operates as a personal pleasure yacht and is based here in Victoria.

Evening light on The Empress:

On Friday, Kevin flew to NY to cover the World Maker Faire for EE Journal, and I stayed with Airship to hold down the fort.

This morning I walked down to Fisherman’s Wharf along the David Foster Harbour Pathway, which winds along the waterfront of the Inner Harbour.

Fisherman’s Wharf is about a mile walk from Causeway Floats, and it was a perfect, quiet Sunday morning for a walk. I left Airship around 10:30am, thinking I might have a late breakfast/early lunch at one of the little floating restaurants in the wharf.

After reading several reviews I settled on the Floating Fish Store. I ordered one halibut taco and six Kusshi oysters with a cucumber jalapeño mignonette. It was all fantastic! So fantastic, in fact, that I brought a dozen Kusshis back to the boat, along with a sockeye salmon rice wrap and a cup of salmon chowder to have for dinner tonight.

View from my brunch

Halibut taco and Kusshi oysters from the Floating Fish House

(What I didn’t realize when I left the dock is that I’d be missing the very last Water Taxi Water Ballet of the summer, that took place RIGHT BEHIND WHERE WE’RE DOCKED! How did I not know this was going on? So disappointing!)

As I made my way back along the waterfront trail, once I could see Airship and the Empress Hotel, I could also see there were multiple fire engines with their lights flashing up on Government Street (between the Causeway Floats and the Empress Hotel). The fire engines had ladders up, but I couldn’t tell what was going on. I didn’t see smoke, so that was a good sign!

As I got closer, I could see an enormous Canadian flag hanging from two of the ladders, and as I returned to Airship, I watched as the firemen raised the ladders on two more fire trucks, and then spread an equally large British Columbian flag from those.

I decided to take a walk down to the art supply store near Chinatown (Opus Art Supply, if you’re interested…very well-stocked art supply store!), and on the way, check out what was going on up top! Turns out it was a British Columbia Law Enforcement Memorial. The street was closed off and there were all types of law enforcement and military, along with some really good bagpipers (unlike that one guy).

They paraded down Government Street and over to the front lawn of the Parliament buildings where they assembled for the memorial (complete with rifle fire and trumpets and more bagpipes).

I can say that being docked downtown is most definitely not boring!

Airship in Victoria B.C.

Laura Domela — Tue, 19 Sep 2017 01:27:56 +0000

We arrived in Victoria on Sunday afternoon. We’re now docked at the Causeway Floats, directly in front of the Empress Hotel. It’s so great being right in the inner harbour here…it’s touristy, yes, but from a distance — there’s a coded gate at the top of the ramp. It’s not an inexpensive moorage, but totally worth the slight splurge…so much to do nearby!

We both thought we remembered the Empress being covered in thick ivy, and after a little Googling, we learned we were right. They removed the ivy not that long ago, embarked on a brick restoration project, and I believe the hotel had its “grand reopening” in June of this year. The building’s ivy coat was definitely a fabulous look, but apparently rodents had taken up residence in the ivy and the vines were wreaking havoc on the facade. (Here’s an image of what it looked like with its ivy coat.)

After we were settled in, we headed out to stretch our legs and explore the city a bit.

The water taxis here are adorable!

We had a late lunch/early dinner at Tacofino, and were not disappointed…at all. The tacos were better than we remembered from the original taco truck spot in Tofino! We ordered four tacos total and shared: one crispy ling cod (cabbage, chipotle mayo, salsa fresca), one tuna (soy, sesame, wakame, ginger, wasabi mayo), one crispy chicken (guacamole, black chili oil, radish, sprouts, cilantro, green onion), and one steak (pickled carrot/onion/daikon, sriracha mayo, cilantro). We were prepared to like the fish tacos the best, but we both REALLY liked the crispy chicken and steak tacos.

Crispy chicken in front, steak in back

If you don’t eat meat, they have some creative vegetarian taco options: a tempura yam taco with chipotle mayo and salsa fresca, and a bean taco with crema, salsa fresca, and queso. Most taco options appear to also be available as burrito options. This is a VERY casual spot. It’s a brick and mortar place, but it feels closer to the taco truck vibe of the original Tofino location. Anyway…Tacofino. We love it. We’ll probably go back for another round while we’re here!

The Empress, behind the wall, with businesspeople

Last night’s view from Airship (Parliament buildings on the left)

Parliament buildings at night, taken from the pilothouse of Airship

Today we got up on the early side and worked most of the morning until we were hungry, which was about noon, so we walked up and visited the ramen joint we scoped during yesterday’s walk. It’s called the Menbow Ramen Bar and it’s just around the corner from Tacofino. Everything is made in-house. We both ordered the spicy pork broth ramen (toppings of soft boiled egg, fish cake, BBQ pork, seaweed, bean sprouts, etc.) and it was fantastic.

Back at Airship we cranked out some more work and we’ll probably just hang here and do dinner in tonight. (So nice to have the option of meals cooked by someone else! Ah, the benefits of boating in the city!)

We’ll be joined tomorrow by some friends (Carol and Parker, on Akeeva, from our Slowboat flotilla to Alaska), and we have a few more fun things on the list for the next couple of days: the Royal BC Museum, the Maritime Museum, Butchart Gardens, more tacos, and dinner out at Il Terrazzo on Wednesday night (with some laundry-doing and grocery shopping thrown in for good measure).

From Victoria to the Hood Canal

Laura Domela — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 04:27:12 +0000

The 7:30pm ferry ride from Victoria to Port Angeles was gorgeous. We saw two different pods of orcas during the 90 minute trip, and the sun was setting just as we approached Port Angeles. It was a bit of a tight squeeze on the ferry, but no issues:

The light was perfect as we were leaving Victoria:

There were three cruise ships in port:

Ferry at dusk:

Approaching Port Angeles:

Back to the Airstream:

After disembarking at Port Angeles around 9pm we drove about an hour and 45 minutes south on Highway 101 to Hoodsport, where we're now set up (well, we're parked, but not unhooked or plugged in — we are level though…I used ALL the blocks!!). It was late and we didn't want to be annoying, so we made the least racket possible and just decided to deal with the rest of it in the morning.

Tomorrow we plan to hit Taylor Shellfish Farms, just a bit south of here in Shelton, WA for some of our favorite oysters: Shigokus! It looks like they also have Olympia oysters (the teeny tiny ones we had up at the Willows Inn on Lummi Island) so we'll probably need to get some of those too.

So far, the place we're staying in Hoodsport seems nice, but I'll have to report more tomorrow when it's not pitch black out. (Bonus: stars!!!)

Last Day in Victoria

Laura Domela — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 21:46:24 +0000

We had some breakfast and did some work this morning before it was checkout time at Westbay Marine Village in Victoria. Since we're on the 7:30pm ferry tonight to Port Angeles, we had a bit of time to kill. (Long story, but the basic deal is: make reservations more than a day ahead of time for the ferry when you are 48.1 feet long and it's the middle of summer.)

We headed over to Thetis Lake Provincial Park because they had a day use area and we figured we'd be able to park there for the rest of the day and hike or ride bikes out from there if we wanted. We paid for the two parking spaces we were taking up and headed off to hike around the lake.

It turned out to be a beautiful hike, with some fun signage along the way:

We decided to head over to the ferry terminal early to see if there was any chance of getting on the 3pm ferry. There wasn't. So we parked and walked over to grab some lunch and sightsee a bit more. The ferry was just arriving as we walked past and we noticed the different configuration of the Coho (compared to the other more recent ferries we'd been on) so we stopped to see how the side door loading and unloading worked.

So they must load them from the other side, or the back? They got these guys on somehow, so I think we're fine.

We walked up the road a bit and grabbed some lunch and did a bit more sightseeing. Here's our view from lunch today:

Which way should we go? Oh I guess we'll head back toward home.

We're in line for the ferry now, with about an hour and half to go. We're working back in the Airstream with free ferry internet (well, "free" meaning it came with our $250 fare to get ourselves, our truck, and our Airstream back to the US). Next stop: Hood Canal!

Boppin’ Around Victoria

Laura Domela — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 18:41:16 +0000

This morning we got up and worked, did some work, and then worked some more. For our lunch break, we headed down to the docks and caught an adorable little water taxi across the harbour. It was still pretty dark and windy, but the rain had stopped for a bit.

Our ride's here!

Leaving the West Bay Marine Village:

Dark sky with purple martin house silhouette:

We got off the harbour ferry at Miner's Landing and headed straight for Red Fish Blue Fish for some lunch (well, or breakfast…brunch? We have an early dinner reservation tonight so we just did a late breakfast/early lunch combo today and this place was it!) Their website said they opened at 11:30am. We arrived at 11:15am, and there was already a line of about a dozen people (we knew this would probably be the case). Red Fish Blue Fish is on the pier right by Miner's Landing, inside of an upcycled cargo container. It's cool, and has a great reputation for their food.

We had a 1-piece halibut fish & chips, a grilled, seared albacore tuna tacone (a cone-shaped taco), a half order of grilled Fanny Bay oysters, and a couple of Pellegrinos. Our halibut arrived first:

Everything was great! I'd say this is the second best fish & chips (next to Bandon Fish House in Bandon, Oregon). The other creative items on the menu help quite a bit, but the batter on the halibut was crunchy, the fish was great, and you gotta love their 100% sustainable policy.

After lunch we walked around Victoria a bit just sightseeing. Harbour, with BC Legislature Building:

Totem art:

Empress Hotel:

Cute little water taxi in the harbour:

There are flowers everywhere in Victoria!

Look at the line at Red Fish Blue Fish when we came back to our taxi stop:

We hopped on a boat and headed back to West Bay Marine Village. Looking back from the boat:

More purple martin houses:

Westbay Marine Village from the little ferry:

You can't beat the location of this marina and RV park. It's so close to town (would be an easy–and cheaper–bike ride into town, but we weren't sure what the weather was going to do and we kinda wanted to ride the boat) and the exterior spots all have marina or harbour views. Two of the shorter, marina view spots:

Remember when we were over in Pedder Bay and we had made reservations for the Sooke Harbour House for dinner (the whole reason we even went to Pedder Bay/Sooke in the first place)? And remember how we had the day wrong and we missed our reservation and had no chance to go again while we were nearby? Well, guess what? We figured out that the Sooke Harbour House is a 45 minute drive from where we're staying in Victoria, they are open tonight, and we got ourselves an early dinner reservation. Woohoo!

And now, a bit more work!

Pedder Bay Marina, British Columbia

Laura Domela — Sun, 13 Jul 2014 19:01:03 +0000

We're all set up in our new campsite at Pedder Bay Marina and it's lovely.

We left our spot in Bellingham at 6am this morning and caught the 8:25am ferry from Anacortes to Sidney, BC.

The M/V Chelan:

We pretty quickly headed into a fog bank and couldn't see much for the beginning of the ride:

Eventually it cleared and we had a gorgeous view going through the San Juan Islands. We made a quick stop in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island to pick up a few more passengers:

Canadian waters:

Welcome to Sidney, BC:

Pedder Bay Marina's RV Resort is very nice!

Some of the waterfront spots look out over the marina, and some (like ours) look out over the back bay. Here's the marina:

And this is the view from our home sweet home:

Later in the afternoon we headed over to East Sooke to do a hike out in East Sooke Park. We parked at the Pike Road entrance (the furthest west) and took the trail out to the beach.

The land all the way across is the Olympic Peninsula:

We hiked back up and caught the Coast Trail for a bit. Rocky and challenging in spots (but fun), the views were like this:

…and this:

Great hike! Afterwards, we drove on around the point as far as we could, and found this:

Back at camp now, we're cooking up some chicken and asparagus for dinner. The tide came in and we've got a regular bay out here now: