Here in Victoria the inner harbor is buzzing with a bunch of festival activities, organized around the Dragon boat races. Adagio is berthed in front of the Empress Hotel, so we are right at the race finish line {fuzzy image on the webcam just to the right of the foreground trees}. You can see the results of Saturdays races and the Sunday semi-final race grid here. The finals begin at 1:00pm this afternoon.
We have posted so far seven new photos galleries in our British Columbia section — two days of racing, lion dancing, Aikido, and some of the many cultural exhibitions. The related galleries are as follows:
Victoria: Dragon Boat Festival
Victoria moonrise
Victoria: Dragon Boat Racing – Day 1
Victoria: Dragon Boat Racing – Day 2
Victoria: Lion Dancing
Victoria: Moondance Arts
Victoria: Ocean Rain Chinese Arts Academy
Victoria: SanShuKan Aikikai Dojo
Wow! I was just saying to Dorothy that I should get the Canon SLR out of the bag and set it where we could grab it. Then, Huge Noise as the Canadian Air Force Snowbirds flew right over ADAGIO’s masthead! Click here for our photo gallery — or as usual, just click the thumbnail at left.
As I write this we are listening to Dal Richards’ superb jazz ensemble on the festival main stage in front of Parliament. And tonight we’ll put our captain’s chairs on the coachroof for the Sarah McLachlan concert.
For the next three weeks or so you can catch a fuzzy image of ADAGIO on the BC Royal Museum webcam.
After an early dinner at the Canoe Brew Pub Marina and Restaurant, we walked back to the Parliament grounds to guard our grandstand seats for the 7:30PM symphony. This was our first Splash, so we didn’t know exactly how to do it. The families sitting on the lawn and on the harbor walkway did know the ropes {right behind the sailboat displaying their signal flags}. Since they were all there when we arrived in the harbor at 2:00PM we are guessing they must have come down not long after dawn to get those seats.
We asked one of the Parliament security guards, a charming lass, “how many people are here tonight?”. She said last year the papers reported about 40,000. All we can say is we have never seen so many people around the harbor — and we’ve visited Victoria about ten times since we first made landfall in Sitka, Alaska. Given the huge crowds, and our need to fetch a taxi back to Oak Bay {no buses on Sundays}, we opted to miss the finale fireworks, sigh…
Tomorrow we hope to berth ADAGIO right in the center of that photo, in front of Parliament, the Empress Hotel, and the Royal British Columbia Museum. Our idea is that the huge barge taking up two piers of dock space will move — briefly leaving an opening for us.
We sailed into Victoria just in time for the “BC 150″, the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the founding of British Columbia. What a hoot! The Victoria inner harbor is always a lot of fun — but with the BC 150 Years Festival the city has gone all out. We’ll try to cover just some of the highlights. First is a remarkable collection of 70 pieces of vintage fire fighting gear. Enthusiasts from all over brought their collections to show off. Some of the most impressive antiques were hauled all the way from Portland Oregon.
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