We spent our first winter in the Pacific Northwest on the boat in Victoria, British Columbia – the warmest place in Canada in the winter.  It’s a lovely city, and we were docked right in the heart of downtown, near the beautiful Empress Hotel and Parliament buildings.  The daily arrival and departure of the COHO ferry from Port Angeles, Washington helped us mark the time of day as she blew her sonorous air horns when arriving and departing.  We loved to watch the huge ferry back all the way across the inner harbor in the midst of boat traffic and commercial seaplanes to turn around and head back across the Strait.  We always said, “someday we should take a ride on her.”

And so, finding ourselves in Port Angeles, WA and seeing Victoria across the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Hurricane Ridge, we decided to take a day trip over on the COHO.

It was great fun to come into Victoria harbor, passing the long outer breakwater where I once ran out to watch the ship bearing our ADVENTURES arrive.  The somewhat narrow channel is also a commercial seaplane runway, so smaller boats like ours must stay close to a string of yellow buoys.  But the big COHO takes up the whole channel, and the seaplanes have to be patient.

We arrived and met a knitting friend and pen pal, catching up and walking around places familiar from that winter season 4 years ago.  Chinatown is always so photogenic with its tall gate……and the lions.  I love lions.The Telus phone booth in Chinatown has a Chinese style roof on it, and the Asian fruit markets offer a feast for the eyes as well as for the palate!My knitter friend is also a very good photographer, and she linked us up with her photo group on a “Hidden Places in Victoria” walk.  During our winter stay we walked all over the city, but never found any of the treasures the photo guides showed us except for the wonderful wall murals of people in windows that look so real.Little alleyways led us to other wonderfully painted walls……secret Zen gardens, and a helpful warning.We ducked into an alley that we must have walked past many times, and found shops and activity.  It’s a gamble to put a business in such a hard-to-notice place!I think my favorite “hidden treasure” was the parking garage.  The garage itself wasn’t hidden, but the stairwell used to get to the various levels had some funky lights at each landing, and a touch-sensitive bar over the handrail……where people can “play” the lights.  Each landing made different sounds, and we listened as an experienced local performed a nice solo on one of the levels.  Our group’s attempts at an ensemble were not successful – it takes a little practice.

Near the waterfront we found a funky statue that I particularly liked……because if you’ve ever felt a cold, wicked wind it would look a lot like this.  The statue was located near the repair dock for the adorable little water taxis that fill the harbor on summer days.We wrapped up the photo tour, and got to spend some time just admiring the beautiful fall color……and the orca topiary at the Empress Hotel……and savoring a hot cup of tea and long conversation with my dear friend.  We had a perfect day, and we caught the COHO back to Washington on the last day of the late sailings for the season.  Victoria is such a lovely small city, and if we weren’t so smitten with Alaska we would love to spend more time there.

I apologize for neglecting the Blog for a few weeks.  When that happens it usually means we’re having so many adventures that I can’t keep up with the photographs.  After our Stikine River trip we were busy getting the boat ready for winter, and then we headed out in the RV to explore Washington’s Olympic peninsula – Port Townsend, Port Angeles, and the Olympic National Park.We started at Port Townsend, camping right on the beach where the Strait of Juan de Fuca meets Puget Sound, on the site of the former Fort Worden.In the photo below you can see the Point Wilson lighthouse, a tall radar that tracks shipping in the Strait and the Sound, and Mount Baker (in the distance on the right).Fort Worden is a lovely property, now used as a conference/event center and a woodworking school.  Besides its fame as the shooting location for “An Officer and a Gentleman”, it was an important artillery installation for coastal protection in the early 1900s.

We hiked around the concrete structures where the 10″ barbette guns were mounted and fed with ammunition.  The guns weighed 63 tons each, and could fire a projectile up to 7 miles!  These guns were designed and built in 1898 – and we were amazed at the technology available at the time to build such weapons.There were a number of gun emplacements as well as some mortar wells nearby.  We tried to imagine the thunderous noise when these guns were fired.  Many of the Fort’s guns were removed around 1918 to serve as railroad-mounted weapons for WWI, and the rest were decommissioned in 1945 since ships and eventually aircraft could do a better job of coastal protection than the stationary guns.

We hiked all over the Fort’s grounds, through forest……the parade ground, and the artillery museum.  Living in the land of glaciers, we’re attuned to signs of glaciation so we were quick to spot the impacts of ice ages on the land.  Scientists believe that glaciation began about 2 million years ago and that the region has had at least 6 cycles of advancing and retreating since then.

In addition to the Fort, we enjoyed walking around the town of Port Townsend checking out the shops and cafes, and especially the wooden boat school.

From Port T we headed west to Port Angeles, on the Strait of Juan de Fuca and across from Victoria, British Columbia.  Port A became our base of operations to unhitch the truck and do some exploring, and our first stop was the ranger station in the Olympic National Park to figure out how to best spend a week.  Olympic is a huge park with mountains, rain forests, and wild beaches.  It’s much more spread out than we appreciated, and we left plenty of things for future trips.

We headed up to Hurricane Ridge for some hiking, and got a quick reminder that we’re used to living at sea level!  Ah, but the views were gorgeous and worth some huffing and puffing.If you look closely at the above photo you can see Victoria in the middle distance, and the town of Port Angeles on the lower right.  We were so happy to have perfect weather after the cool rainy summer.  We even enjoyed watching the Olympic chipmunks (a distinct species)……and deer……and beautiful wildflowers.This was just the beginning of exploring the park.  Stay tuned for much more, and a bonus day trip to Victoria, BC.