Our trip began on Saturday, June 10, 2006.  After flying into Seattle and spending the night, we headed to Pier 69 for an early morning ferry ride to Victoria.  The Victoria Clipper is a high-speed catamaran that runs between Seattle and Victoria in just about three hours.  While the ride can be rough, both of our trips were smooth as silk.

The Victoria Clipper is a passenger-only ferry with two levels.  You can sit wherever you want, eat snacks at tables, enjoy the view or snooze.  Our trip to Victoria was made through thick fog, so sightseeing was out.  

We arrived in the Great White North.

Our boat broke through the fog just as we entered Victoria Harbor. 

The Victoria waterfront is a very beautiful place.  It's also a very busy place with ships coming and going, seaplanes constantly taking off and landing, and water taxis chugging everywhere. 

Here is a better view of the Empress Hotel; one of Victoria's landmarks. 

As soon as we hit shore, we took off on a bus tour of Victoria.  The first stop was the world famous Butchart Gardens.  These gardens are simply spectacular.

This is a great view of the Sunken Garden.  At one time, this was a rock quarry, but was transformed into an amazing flower garden.

Sixty gardeners are needed to maintain the Gardens.

After our bus tour, we took a tour up "The Gorge", saw some sights and learned some Victoria history.  The boats were great.

After our Sunday tours, we checked into our hotel; the Bedford Regency.  This is a boutique hotel in downtown Victoria.  They gave us the best room in the hotel.

From the fourth floor, we had a wonderful view of Victoria's Inner Harbor.

We killed quite a bit of time just walking around Victoria checking out the interesting buildings and shops.

Here is Roger's Chocolates.  We did quite a bit of business with this hundred year old business.

This building was near our hotel and was typical of the types of buildings in Victoria.

On Monday morning, we bought a couple of 'day passes' for the B.C. bus system.  We took a city bus up to Craigdarroch Castle.  This old home was built by the Dunsmuir family in the 1800s and occupied by that family until the 1930s.

After a stint as a college and veterans hospital, it has been fully restored and opened for tourism.

A view up through four flights of stairs.

All of the original woodwork has been retained.

On Monday afternoon, we hopped on another bus to head to the small coastal town of Sidney.  This town is filled with bookstores and gave us a reprieve from the hustle and bustle of Victoria.

But, the real reason we made the trip to Sidney was to meet Paul Gartside.  Paul graciously invited us for a tour of his shop.  After tracking us down in front of "The Haunted Bookstore", all three of us squeezed into his small pickup for the ride to his shop.

Here is the 24' Cutter "Caber Feidh" that Paul is building. 

Here is traditional boat building at its finest.  Cedar planks on bent oak frames.

4,000 pound lead keel.

This is what the boat will look like when completed.  The build time will be about 15 months.

Paul gave us a quick Sidney tour and recommended this waterside restaurant for dinner.  The food was great and view was even better.  Our bus trip home took us through many highways and byways before depositing us back in Victoria.

Our last day in Victoria was Tuesday.  We spent the morning visiting local shops.  I picked up a new Tilley sailing hat (the best sailing hat in the world) and we browsed through shops of Irish linen, English tweed, mountains of wool sweaters and Scottish tartan.  Our last meal in Victoria was at this Irish pub.  Tandy had crab cakes and I had a brie and bacon burger.  Yes, the food was wonderful.

On Tuesday evening, we left on the Victoria Clipper for our trip back to Seattle.  This time, there was no fog and the scenery was great.

Approaching Seattle.

This was the end of our anniversary trip.  The sun setting on the Seattle skyline made a nice memory and end to our adventure.