Houseboats as we enter Victoria Harbour... 

  

We arrive at tea time, so it seemed appropriate to spoil the well-dressed world of tea at the Empress Hotel with our grubby shorts and hiking packs. Though I did put a shirt on...

 

The Empress and some hotel or other behind her...

Refreshed we explore the harbour area... Miche with the Government Buildings in the distance...

A little while later, shaky hands man takes another shot...

 

Suitably imbibed, I manage to hold the camera steady on the way back to the hotel... 

 

The next morning it's off whale watching... a plane overtakes us on the way out of the harbour...

 

Lots of Orca shots...

 

 

Apparently there are two types of killer whale in the area: Residents (R's) which we saw on the day and that eat fish & then there are the more menacing sounding Transients (T's) that eat mammals (seals, other whales, etc). There is a third type in the open ocean that eat sea birds, etc...

Swimming quite close to the shore where the currents mix and the Salmon are feeding...

Reef marker...

Lighthouse near the harbour...

 

Seal colony (Harbour I think)...

Re-entering the harbour...

Miche in front of our vessel, we went for a bigger beast in case the far more bouncy Zodiacs induced some involuntary chumming on my part...

 

Miche in the room at the Royal Scot Hotel...

An early morning stroll past the Government Buildings on the way to the bus station for the onward journey to Nanaimo and then Vancouver...

 

Looking out at the harbour from the Government Gardens...