Victoria

Victoria Classic Boat Festival’s Flag ship: Oriole

The HMCS Oriole is one of the Canadian Navy’s officer training vessels. She also participates in public events, such as being the flag ship during the sail past at the Victoria Classic Boat Festival.

During the festival, I was lucky to catch her displaying the flag in the harbour. I was even luckier that there was a bit of wind when she had it unfurled.

The shot below is her out in the sail past with a couple of smaller boats out saluting her.

There’s just so much great tradition attached to the sea…

Colour me fall

Another early fall flower in Beacon Hill Park.

I took this with my Fujifilm X-T1 using the lovely XF60mm Macro 2.4 lens.

Walking about, getting used to a new city.

Over the last couple of months, I’ve spent a lot of time walking about my new neighbourhood to see what there is to see.

In the summer, one spot I visited a number of times was a place called Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s less than half a mile from Victoria’s cruise ship terminal, and it’s a magnet for the throngs of visiting passengers walking along the promenade, from the terminal to the downtown core.

It holds an eclectic community of house boats (above), mixed with a slew of whale watching tour companies and restaurants. Some family joined me one day, and we quite enjoyed some halibut and chips from a place called Barb’s Fish and Chips (what else, eh). It seems that Barb’s is quite well known for its excellent fare, but it is seasonal, so I’ll have to wait until spring for a repeat performance.

The houseboats are what really stand out though. The various shapes, colours and artwork make each one as unique as the community they’re part of.

The start of a new month

I moved over to Victoria from Surrey back in August. Shortly after that (in Sept) Victoria held the Classic Boat Festival in the inner harbour. Part of that festival was the sailpast, where all the boats left the harbour, went out into the straight of Juan de Fuca and around a flag ship – our navy’s training ship, Oriole.

This is a shot of a private training vessel the Pacific Swift heading out. She’d just caught the wind coming out of the harbour. The Pacific Swift has a sister vessel called Pacific Grace. They were both out that day, along with tons of ‘classic’ motor vessels.

I’ve attended this event several times over the years, and I’ve noticed that classic sail is being hugely outnumbered by classic motor. This year, I noticed that some of boats built in the 1950’s and 1960’s were being called classic. Not sure that meets the criteria, but I guess time marches on.

Speaking of time marching on; here we are at the start of another month, and I must get caught up here on the blog. Perhaps I can make this NaBloWriMo (National Blog Writing Month) in place of NaNoWriMo and get some posts up about Victoria in the fall.

We’ll see how it goes. I do have some catching up to do.

Meet my new neighbours

Well, the deed is done. I’ve moved to Victoria, British Columbia, and this is my backyard now.

The view in this photo is looking south across the City’s inner harbour to the BC Legislature building. I live in the same neighbourhood.

The causeway along the east edge of the harbour (left) is usually filled with buskers plying their talents, and the government dock hosts boating visitors, festivals and a few businesses like the little ferries seen here.

There is always something going on, so it should be an interesting place to live.