Sonya's Blog - Day 330 - Sea Kayaking

Sonya’s Blog - Day 330 - May 17th - Sea Kayaking

It was our day for sea kayaking, which is pretty exciting. I haven’t been in a kayak for a long time, since my last summer camp at Camp Chestermere (I was probably 12). They are pretty easy to manoeuvre, so I wasn’t too concerned. Blake would be sharing a double kayak with Isaac (he was too young to go solo) and Natasha and I would have our own. Our booking was for 10 AM and we could walk there in less than 5 minutes. So, of course, we were rushing to make it on time.

It took about 40 minutes to go through all the paperwork and safety equipment. Luckily, the owner didn’t start the clock on our 2 hour purchase until we were in the water. The weather was very favourable to us this morning, the sun was shining and the water was super calm. We wanted to head out of the harbour and check out Seal Island and the coastline that way. We could have gone around Victoria Harbour, but we had already seen that when we were walking around, plus it is a very busy harbour. Seal Island sounded more interesting and it is a maternity ward right now. The seals have one more month to go and then it will be a nursery. The kayaks were super easy to paddle and move around. Sea kayaks are equipped with a rudder, to make steering easier, and you operate this with your feet. It took me a bit to get used to this, but it wasn’t that difficult. Natasha preferred to steer without her rudder, so she flipped it up. The kayaks glided smoothly through the water and we covered quite a bit of distance without too much effort on the paddles. We went a nice speed, so that we could enjoy the views while we were going. We had to be careful of rocks just below the surface of the water, because we didn’t want to scrape the kayaks, we had a couple of close calls but managed to avoid any scrapes. Seal Island had a few seals hanging around. Three or four were in the water, but one was sunning herself on the rocks with her big belly. She was so sleepy! We went out for a bit more, past Seal Island. We always stayed near the shore, because you are supposed to, plus you really don’t want to be in the path of a large boat or a landing float plane. We went quite far along the coast, but then the water started to get pretty choppy, as we left the safety of the harbour, so we decided to turn around after a bit. We had also been out for an hour at this point, so we needed to turn around so that we wouldn’t be late on our return.

You can see the seal on the island behind Natasha, on the very left hand rock that juts out:

On the way back in, we saw bird houses that are built on the pier posts (I assume old ones). I guess the Purple Martin migrates here in the summer from Brazil. I tried to get a picture of them, but the light was not great. I guess the Purple Martin is the largest swallow in North America, but they are still a small bird.

We also saw an otter swimming around in West Bay. At one point she popped up right near my kayak, but disappeared pretty quickly. She was too fast for me to get a picture of her.

We returned right when our two hours were up and then spent 10 minutes getting the kayaks out of the water and up onto the deck. We had a great time sea kayaking, I would highly recommend it. It is certainly one of may favourite activities from this whole trip.

We went back and had lunch, as we were all starving. Once we had some sustenance, we were ready to head out again. We had seen some Comic Book Stores, just across the Esquilmalt Bridge, near Chinatown. There were three stores on the same street, so we said he could stop in. He is looking for the next book in his Injustice series. We found parking without a problem and he popped inside. We then went to check out a bit of Chinatown, we really wanted to see Fan Tan Alley:

There were just some shops down there, but it was neat to walk through. We then got a picture at the grand arch entrance:

Our next stop was the University of Victoria. Natasha wanted to see the campus. We have gone to quite a few University Campuses on our trip, so Natasha can take a look and get an idea of what they are like. It might help her make up her mind in four years when she is choosing a school to attend. We drove around the campus twice (because I missed the turn to exit the circle). It really is a beautiful campus.

Our next stop was Beacon Hill Park. I thought the kids would enjoy walking around there, but they had a small fight while we were in Chinatown and were both still pouting. I should have probably just gone back, but I wanted to wander around the park. It was just as beautiful as I remembered it being and there were lots of peacocks around. We walked around the park and up to the beach overlook.

This is a Giant Sequoia, it is just a baby at 1000 years old. Some early settlers planted them in the park area:

We then got in the truck and went to find Mile 0 of the Trans-Canada highway, it is on the corner of Douglas Street and Dallas Road in the corner of Beacon Hill Park. I wanted to get a picture of it, since we have now been from one end of the Trans-Canada Highway to the other:

Terry Fox would have ended his run here, Steve Fonyo did years later:

We were hungry by this time, so we headed back to camp to have supper. We also did a bit of cleaning up, since we have to move tomorrow. When I booked this campground, I couldn’t get it for our full time in Victoria. We had to move for one night and then we catch the ferry to Vancouver on Thursday. It is kind of a hassle, but that’s the way it goes.

Sonya