Desert Island?

This view always reminds me of what I might see on a desert island but it's actually the western side of Gonzales Beach, a lovely little beach right in the residential area of the city. We'll have a closer look at the beach proper tomorrow. Those mountains in the distance are on the Olympic Peninsula of our American neighbours.

Gonzales Bay, Ross Bay and Clover Point

This is the view from Gonzales Hill looking the same direction as Saturday's photo. In the foreground is Gonzales Bay and beyond that is Ross Bay, bounded by Clover Point. There were patches of the luscious purple Camas Lilies blooming in all the rock crevices atop the hill.

Above Gonzales Beach

Today was what I consider to be the "default" weather for Victoria in spring and summer - a nice sunny, blue-sky day - so I decided to try to get up above the city and have a look around. In this photo we are looking down on Gonzales Beach from Gonzales Hill. Gonzales Hill has interesting views in several directions and we'll spend a little more time up there next week.

Gonzales Beach

Another sure sign that September is here is that the dogs now rule the sandy shores around town. - Fern

Gonzales Observatory and Gonzales Bay

I am still engaged in another project but I also realized this morning that I have not fully exploited my sunrise trip to Gonzales Hill Park a few weeks ago. Above is another shot of the observatory that I like and below is a view of Gonzales Bay (directly below) with Clover Point further back. The background mountains (on the left) are the Olympic Peninsula in the USA. This view is almost identical to one I took about 15 months ago.

Gonzales Observatory III

The old observatory building itself is reason enough to visit Gonzales Hill but the views are also worth seeing. Here we are looking west with Gonzales Bay directly below. Gonzales Bay has a nice little sandy beach. The bay is at the bottom of Foul Bay Road. I think Foul Bay was the former name of this bay but this name is passing out of favour because the current meaning of foul is rotten or smelly. I suspect when the bay was first named it was from the nautical meaning describing a seafloor where it was difficult to anchor. Local historians will please correct me if I'm wrong.

Sunrise

Last year I missed the Swiftsure Sailing Races so this year I thought I'd get a real head start by being up at dawn and photographing the hundreds of sailboats from atop Gonzales Hill. I should have checked the time better because at that hour (around 6:30 am) there were no sailboats visible off Clover Point - the starting point of the races. It seems they don't gather until several hours later. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful morning and seeing the first rays of sun light up Foul Bay and the more distant Clover Point made it all worthwhile.

Gonzales Bay

Sixty-six meters below the observatory on Gonzales Hill (yesterday's post) is the small beach of Gonzales Bay. It's also known as Foul Bay. Even the color version of this photo looks monochrome since I was shooting directly into the Sunday's brilliant sun so I decided to go with black and white. But I promise, with all the spring flowers I've got some pretty colors for us tomorrow.