July 25, 2020. Quarantine Cove to Victoria Inner Harbour via Esquimalt. 10.6 NM
It was a lively night in Quarantine Cove next to the prison. The gale continued to blow in the Juan de Fuca Strait, and a lot of the wind made it across the headland into Quarantine Cove. Monashee strained at her chain, hunting back and forth, eager to be back out on the water, flying on the wind. Inside the boat, every gust caused a new creak, and the water splashed at the hull all night long, while the wind howled in the rigging. It didn’t follow the usual pattern of settling down around 2000. Instead, the wind kept blowing until about 0500, when things finally started to ease off.
William Head Institution. Reminds me of the time we sailed past Guantanamo Bay…
By the morning, the wind had died to almost nothing, and the day dawned bright and sunny. With little sleep overnight, we slept in a bit. I was up by about 0730, and caught up on some work emails. Sara got up just after 0800, and we slowly sorted the boat out after our adventurous sail the day before. The anchor came up by 0930, and we set off to explore around Victoria a bit. We had decided to take it easy today, to make up for the last couple of long and tiring days.
We started by heading over to Esquimalt to check out the harbour. Soulstar and Bare Necessity had chosen to anchor at the shallow head of the harbour, and we wanted to see where they ended up last night. We chose the more exposed Quarantine Cove as it was simpler. Esquimalt Harbour is a major port for the Canadian Navy, and in addition to avoiding multiple warships, there isn’t a lot of depth to anchor at the head, so we didn’t want to be jockeying with several boats in the evening after a long day yesterday.
Sure enough, as we headed for the harbour, four military ships that had been moored outside headed in at the same time. We slowed to let them go ahead of us. As I studied the chart, I saw a note saying that we were to hail the Esquimalt Harbour Master as we entered between Fisgard Lighthouse and Duntze head, so we did that. He seemed relatively disinterested in our presence, but did warn us that we needed to stay 200 feet from any military vessel.
One of the military vessels heading into Esquimalt
Once inside, the four ships that had entered just in front of us began to maneuver to get on to a large dock. This took up a lot of available space, and it became apparent that it would be hard to stay 200 feet from them, so we just poked our nose in, then came back out and headed for the Victoria Inner Harbour.
It’s been a long time since we’ve navigated in a city setting, and it was unnerving to come into Victoria’s busy harbour after being in such unpopulated places all summer. We managed to stay in the appropriate traffic lane, and avoid the seaplanes, water taxis, ships and barges. We came around the corner to the Coast Hotel Marina, which we had selected more or less at random as a good place to stop. It was near downtown, but not too near, and looked promising. Victoria marks quite a milestone for us, bringing us back into civilization, and really ending our open coast adventure. It felt like time to celebrate a bit, with a trip into the big smoke.
A huge barge full of crushed cars passing a seaplane in Victoria’s busy inner harbour
We backed into our slip, to make for an easy departure tomorrow. The dock itself was a bit disappointing, with broken cleats, and an old rotting dock box right next to our boat. The marina is clearly an after thought to the hotel, and there is no gate, or dock hands, or anything to signify that is a going concern. All that was OK with us, as it made it easy to tie off the boat exactly where we wanted it. Once we were secured, we took advantage of the hot water from running the engines, and had showers, before heading up and checking in at the hotel lobby.
We then headed in to Victoria for lunch. We walked downtown, past the Empress, and headed up to the mall food fair to grab Edo. We were looking for something quick and easy, as it was getting late, and we were pretty hungry. Downtown Victoria was relatively quiet for mid-summer, especially compared to how busy Tofino had been. It was still and auditory assault, which is a bit hard to adjust to all of a sudden. When we left the boat, there was a screaming baby on the boat opposite. As we walked into town, we passed Harley’s with no muffler, then a classic muscle car club came by, again, all without mufflers. Police cars screamed by with sirens wailing (unrelated to the muscle cars, as far as I know). There was music playing as we ate, and it was all a bit overwhelming.
After lunch, we walked past all the downtown marinas, and decided if we ever were to come into Victoria again, we would probably try one of them instead. The docks are bigger, and there are gates, and more room to get in and out. It also looks like there is probably more depth at the other marinas.
We walked out to Fisherman’s Wharf, and had a quick look through there. It was quite busy, and is not built to allow appropriate social distancing, so we didn’t hang around long. We headed back to the boat, and I had a nap to make up for the poor sleep from last night.
Float houses at Fisherman’s Wharf
At 1800, we headed back downtown for dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. My wife has fancy tastes in dining establishments, and I do my best to make her happy. Once again, we were struck by how loud everything is. I feel 100 years old writing that, but it was the thing that really stood out.
After dinner, we walked up to Beacon Hill Park, then along Dallas Road back around past Fisherman’s Wharf. We’re now back on the boat, and looking forward to a good night’s sleep before we carry on around the bottom of the Island tomorrow.
Soundtrack: Better Together by Jack Johnson
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