Trip to Victoria B.C. 9.5.2010

I recently took a day trip up to Victoria, its about a 2.5 hour trip from Seattle. I got up super early and was at the terminal around 6:30am, the boat left at 7:30 so I found a place in the pre-boarding area and sat down. I ended up talking to a nice man from England who was traveling with his wife around America and Canada. We ended up talking about food, Top Gear and the price of gas around the world. In England they are paying 3.50 pounds per gallon which translates to $5.40USD! He was shocked that I had only paid $3/gallon for gas that morning, he was really nice and I hope he had a great trip.

I took these as the boat was pulling out of Seattle:

The Clipper's Tail:

It was a pretty morning:

After docking in Victoria, I spent most of the day walking around shopping and wandering. I did end up going to the Maritime Museum of BC (http://mmbc.bc.ca/). It's a pretty informative place that covers the nautical history of the area. I got to ride in the oldest birdcage elevator in North America, installed in 1899 (http://mmbc.bc.ca/?page_id=118) it was pretty rad! (sorry for the crummy pic, I couldn't use my flash in the museum)

Argghhh:

A Big daddy before going to Rapture:

 

More from the Maritime Museum:

Money from Spain (around 1600ish I believe) that was kept in a trunk with a really intricate lock:

There was a section about women nurses in the World Wars, they had some displays of outfits, and pictures, but this one caught my eye:

                                                      Canadian Ninja Nuns!
I learned that after companies had almost drove some local seal populations to extinction, they decided start hunting whales! I was kinda sad for all the animals. At one point they were trying out different things to kill whales, they tried explosives strapped to harpoons, guns and tactics. One picture described how you should go after whale calves so you could get the protective mother out to get her too.
Whale gun:

I did find out that eventually every part of the whale was used, but they almost drove them to extinction also.

In addition to the otter, seals and whales, beavers were also hunted for money and fashion:

There was a lot of talk of rum in one area of the museum:

I bet American Sailors wish they had rum rations!

There was a room filled with model ships, these two were made by prisoners who saved bones from meals and other scraps to build the ships:

Other awesome nautical stuff:

                                                                    Compass

                                                                            Stop!

                                                               A pretty Lady

                                                      H.M.C.S RAINBOW 1968

                                                Electrical Cable Junction from 1910

After the museum I walked around and ended up going into this little basement shop called "Sam's Sideshow" The first thing I saw when I walked in was a record bowl filled with pretty hair bows! Then after squeeing out loud over how awesome it was I met Sam, we ended up talking for a good while all about vintage clothes, shoes, pillow cases, crows, aprons, zombie jesus shirts and just fun stuff in general. I bought this really pretty dress that has pansies all over it, plan on getting a cute black dress to go under it (and will be posted here eventually). Sam also does alterations, so if you find something in her shop you can have it fitted to you. She doesn't have an online store yet, but I found her blog thingie, and the address:
"Sam's Sideshow Boutique" located at 559 Johnson St, Victoria BC
http://samssideshow.blogspot.com

Some shots leaving Victoria:

I had a lot of fun, and on the way home ended up talking with Rex from Atlanta(well as he said Hotlanta!), he was traveling with his two friends in Seattle and Victoria and then were headed to Rhode Island so his friends could get married. (Why isn't gay marriage legal yet?) I told him where he could get some good eats in Seattle, and what gay bar to go for dancing. Rex told me that he was featured in "Designed to Sell" a show on HGTV. After a quick google search I found the episode description:
(http://www.hgtv.com/designed-to-sell). When the rocking of the boat got to be too much, we all had a good laugh when Rex pretended to use his Gucci bag as a designer sickness bag, he immediately put it on facebook :P. at one point we were out on the deck and I took these beautiful shots of the sun going down:

                                           It was a beautiful way to end the day!