Day 25 - Victoria Harbour

We started our first full day in Victoria by visiting the Tourist Information Centre, which was the best one that I had ever dealt with. We said that we were in Victoria for only a few days and we were interested a tour that would give us a good quick survey of the city and its history. The man had the perfect solution. There are two tourist bus services. The one that we chose covers the greater Victoria area from Esquimalt to Oak Bay with running commentary and 20 stops along the way. For $30 each we got tickets that allowed us to use the service for two days, hopping on and off stops as we wished. Today we did the full circuit in two stages. We got off and did a great walk along the southern edge of the harbour to Fisherman's Wharf where we had lunch of fish burgers, salad, and chips. Along the way we saw from our safe shore all of the posts and buoys that had marked our path of entry into the harbour.

After lunch we got on the next bus and traveled through the residential areas to Oak Bay and along the coast road back to the city. Along that road we got good views of Trial Island and the path that we had taken round Discovery Island to reach Victoria. It was so much more comfortable to see it all from the safety of a tour bus. We found this bus tour to be great value in helping us to get the feel of the Victoria area quickly and we recommend it to any short-term visitor. Victoria has a lot of depth that is not apparent from the tourist precinct.

On the way back to the boat we had a close look at a 130-ft sail boat that had appeared on D Jetty just up from Pachuca. This monster boat (We didn't like it.) had four communications domes on its cross trees, with radar scanners suspended below the two lower and larger domes. I took photos for the blog.

After a short nap on the boat Brenda went out for some shopping and later I made a telephone call to Helmer and Emily, good friends of Ron Beach in Honolulu. We had a good conversation about Honolulu (We both miss it.) and sailing through the Gulf Islands.

In the evening we had dinner at the Siam Thai Restaurant at 512 Fort Street where we had a superb meal over white wine. Victoria has many many restaurants and I am sure that most of them are excellent. However, we know the Siam and we would recommend it to any visitor.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com