bvi captains log blog

I bet you are dead tired of seeing spectacular sunsets, interesting underwater fish and pretty blue water, so I thought I would put up some pictures to give you something different to look at today!
Even I miss the islands every time I see the pictures!
My father convinced us that a small walk was in order in Victoria Harbor today, as the Tall Ships were in town! My mother said about 830 or 9 we would go, I just about cried so they set it back to ten! I fooled them, I was ready at 10 after 9 though! Here I am with my mom and dad

My father does this walk about every day from about the house, but he deemed to drive us closer. I took along my camera so I would have GREAT excuses to stop for a breather!! You will be able to tell by the amount of pictures i have here that I took a few!

We started out on this side, and I do have to say that it was a gorgeous day out. They could not have asked for better! There was tons of kayakers around. The water was flat calm...



I loved this picture, all the guys were rowing the boat and the girl was going faster beside them shouting out orders!

This part of Victoria used to be owned by the First Nation people a long time ago, and they exchanged land here at the water front for land in Esquimault. Here is a couple old pictures from the 1800's that show where we were standing today...



And this is the same view 130 years later! Pretty awesome. Except for now we have tall ships, planes and ferries instead of canoes!



And some of the tall ships

I love this picture, with the blue skies and the buildings behind it looks like we are in Curaco in the Caribbean a hundred years ago!


There is a woman who owns a few buildings that are OLD, Last name of Janion. One used to be a hotel, but they have been closed for decades upon decades. Her husband told her that as long as she had property she would never be poor. After he died, she has lived by that and has refused to sell. These properties are worth silly sums of money now. This Hotel, was the first one in Victoria to have hot running water. Apparently it is in pretty good shape inside, I would have loved to have seen it!

You can tell a lot of old glass in the buildings, like in this picture. Apparently it takes a fortune to fix up these old buildings, as they have to be brought up to earthquake codes, and there are also heritage laws, so...

One thing I noticed was the amount of homeless people that Victoria has. I guess if you have to be homeless in Canada, this is one of the best cities weather wise. I don't think I saw this many homeless in Atlanta last time we were there! We walked down a small alley

which had tiny little places that had half numbers on them!

I took a picture of the flowers as my mom liked them...

and this field of poppies was sitting there with the facade of an old building that they were hoping to save and build behind it. good luck! There is not much left, but the poppies were pretty.

We saw a couple water fountains that were pretty...

and walked under the gate at China Town

Someone had helpfully hung up a pink purse on the side of the building that a little girl lost (or at least I hope it was a little girl!)

Then we walked down to the Inner Harbor again and looked at some more tall ships!



My mother just died (did I spell that wrong?) and it was a little redder then she is used to, lets say, it matches the color of her face anyways!

The US Coast Guard had there Tall Ship Training Vessel up here. It was built in 1934. We have seen it a couple places before in our travels. NONE of the boats were as nice as Promenade though!

And walking over the bridge back after this marathon hike we saw colorful kayakers.

It was a good day! And just in case you have not seen a picture of Bazzas latest invention in the last couple days, he tells me that he is working on circuitry now... I just want to know where he is going to store it?

THen I found a few pictures assorted on the internet from recent guests that I really liked, so I am reproducing them here (Facebook, guys, you would not believe what you see on there!) I am just putting up tame ones!

A great picture of the boat anchored in the distance...


This is just a couple pretty pictures I liked that i had taken at the Boat show in May. I love all the different colors of the sail bags! Going on that theme, I am starting to see power boats tacking on hefty fuel surcharges, like a thousand dollars a week, what else can you do?
I have been watching a lot what the boats have been doing with prices and offerings in this economy and climate, and my prediction is that quite a few will go out of business in the coming year. Just like the airlines I guess@




And although I have my doubts on whether the people who are supposed to develop Beef Island are in too much of a hurry at the moment, I was given a few pictures of where they plan on putting in their "commercial centre" in Trellis Bay, whatever that is, but here is where it is supposed to go in!





That is my news for the weekend. Tuesday we start an exciting road trip, off to Edmonton to see kids and family, up to Northern Alberta where my mother was from, up to Northern BC eventually ending up taking the ferry down the interior of BC to Port Hardy on the North End of Vancouver Island, where I used to like about 35 years ago! Big trip in the RV with mom and dad!