Bon Voyage!

Here goes the MV Coho on it's last trip across to Port Angeles. - Fern

Inversion

This is a kind of weather we see often. Here we are looking at the Coho, a car ferry, as it exits the Inner Harbour on one of its trips to Port Angeles, hidden beneath that cloud bank on the horizon. Poking up above the clouds are the peaks of the Olympic Peninsula. I'm happy to say that this kind of weather usually stays over there on the other side of the strait. Victoria is relatively flat and it seems these low level clouds either stay on the US side or blow over us to Vancouver where the mountains bring them up short again. That's my personal theory for why Victoria gets so many more hours of sunshine every year than its neighbours. Anyway, this kind of low cloud is called an inversion because it is the opposite (the inverse) of what we normally see - clouds up in the sky and clear air near the ground. On the left of this photo you can see the Ogden Point Breakwater.

Port Angeles Underground

Here's a last glimpse of Port Angeles, a large mural that depicts an extraordinary engineering feat a hundred years ago. Early Port Angeles was built on tidal flats and this led to sanitary problems and flooding as the town grew. It began to look like the only solution was to tear down all the buildings in the downtown core and rebuild them on higher ground. The city government, however, came up with an ambitious plan to simply raise the level of the city as much as 15 feet in some areas. They did this by spraying high pressure jets of water onto hillsides above the town and channeling the river of mud that resulted down the streets of the town where it settled. There it was contained between concrete walls. Roadways and sidewalks were built on top of the mud when it had settled and dried and most of the ground floors of downtown buildings became basements. Our Heritage Tour took us underground into some of the eerie, echoing spaces that still exist beneath the buildings and sidewalks. These spaces are now empty but initially they had some strange tenants, including a miniature underground golf course.

Port Angeles Kalakala Mural

Port Angeles has several fine murals of the history of the city but the most extraordinary is the one pictured above. It was painted by Cory Ench in 1995 and depicts the Kalakala, a ferry that served many routes in the Puget Sound Area including the Port Angeles - Victoria route for some years. The Kalakala was launched in 1935 and its futuristic design made it world famous shortly thereafter. The Kalakala (a Chinook Jargon word meaning "Flying Bird") still exists and is being restored though I gather that the work is somewhat mired in controversy. You can read about the fascinating history of this extraordinary Art Deco ship and see some photographs and video on its website by clicking HERE.

Day Trip - Port Angeles, Washington, USA

Though I've traveled around the world a couple of times there are still places within a day's journey from Victoria that I've never visited. One of these places is the lovely little city of Port Angeles, Washington. My brother and I boarded the MV Coho yesterday morning for the 90 minute crossing to Port Angeles. We arrived at noon and walked from the terminal up into the town for lunch. In the afternoon we experienced some of the unusual history of Port Angeles under the guidance of Mr. Don Perry, a local historian who has done much to collect and preserve the city's history. He led us on a tour that took us beneath the city and then above its shops and storefronts and exposed some of the fascinating history that is embodied in the heritage buildings of Port Angeles. I'll share a little more about this city over the next few days.

M.V. Coho

Since Victoria is on an island, you have either to take a plane or a boat to get here. The BC Ferries Corporation operates ferries to Vancouver and the Gulf islands from their Swartz Bay terminal about forty minutes drive north of Victoria. However, you can come by boat directly to the Inner Harbor from Port Angeles, on the Olympic Peninsula, on the ship that is pictured here, the M. V. Coho. It's a car ferry that travels back and forth twice daily. There is another regular ferry for passengers only called the Clipper that travels between Victoria's Inner Harbor and Seattle. Above we see the Coho leaving Victoria Harbor on its last trip for the day.