A Day Walking in Victoria, Part 2--HFF and much more! (+9 insets!)

(+ 9 insets)

Trip Talk: No candid people photography this trip! We chose to just enjoy wandering around...

When I thought about visiting Victoria, I hoped to work on my skills of candid people pictures. However, I have to be in the right mood for this sort of sneaky photography and as it turned out, I just didn't feel like it. Any time a camera is aimed in the direction of a person (even if the camera is down low and obscured), there's potential to be glared at or even aggressively approached. Steve and I just wanted to walk around without thinking about anything but enjoying the sights. It would turn out that during the entire trip, I never did feel like working on people-oriented street photography. Funny how it works out like that sometimes. A shame because I really do enjoy how these turn out but I'll have plenty of opportunities in the future.

We love the modern, clean streets of Victoria and we also appreciated that most of the city's "must-see" destinations are all within a reasonable walking distance—it worked out to be about 5-7 miles to get from downtown to the harbor and then to the far side and back again. You also couldn't have asked for better weather. It was a lovely, sunny and warm day with the perfect breeze. Steve and I were so happy!

Today's Pictures

My main picture today celebrates Happy Fence Friday! This substantial metal post and rusty chain are doing their job to hold back the throngs of visitors to Victoria's beautiful harbor district. The boat you see is the MS Coho, an enormous passenger and vehicle-carrying ferry which travels back and forth between Victoria and Port Angeles, Washington (the boat we took from Anacortes to Sidney, north Victoria was the 1981 MS Chelan.) Steve and I were surprised to see that when this ferry left dock, it backed up a very long way so that it could tuck its back end into another wide channel and then turn around. We were both totally fascinated at the speed it went backwards and also how quickly it was able to turn around and head out.

The rest of my second Victoria presentation includes more harbor images and some of the fun things I saw as we enjoyed this lovely day!

Inset 1: The MS Coho, built and put into service in 1959, is shown here backing up in preparation to turn around and head back to Port Angeles, Washington. This ship typically makes the two-hour trip twice each way every day!

Inset 2: As Steve and headed out to the water's edge at the Victoria harbor, I found this wonderful mural that shows a very similar scene to my main image the other day!

Inset 3: I saw this mural on the side of a building near the harbor and did my best to get a good picture. I only noticed later that Robert Wyland himself had painted it in 1987, one of dozens of his "Whaling Walls" found around the world. (You can see Wyland's signature on the lower left of the mural)

Inset 4: I just loved the awesome design of this artistic, creative bench!

Inset 5: At one point we walked through a park where we found a shady bench to have a seat (not the one shown in Inset 5!). There we looked out on the bay and saw this pretty view.

Inset 6: Seated at the park bench, we saw a group of Canada Geese floating through colorful reflections on the water.

Inset 7: We also saw this huge orange tour boat, complete with tourists adorned in matching life jackets!

Inset 8: On our walk we visited Victoria's wharf and I couldn't help taking a picture of the wonderful sign that welcomed everyone passing by.

Inset 9: This gentleman was very busy selling his day's catch of crabs. We were surprised at the fair price (going rate: $25 per crab)--we figured they'd be offered at a ripoff for tourists.


Pam, have you ever been on a big ferry like the one here? I am in total awe of these monster ships and it was just incredible to have our truck and RV on one, with so much room for dozens of other vehicles. Another thing that's fascinating is that even underway, there is very little motion detectable. Of course this would change if there was a storm but for the most part you hardly knew the boat was moving along at quite a fast clip! Well, I hope you are having a good day...my thoughts are with you! *BIG HUGS* from southern Oregon...oh, and I apologize for not including a note to you in my last post! I was in such a hurry to get the presentation together that it slipped my mind! UGH! :P

Explored on 9/21/19; highest placement #8.