Gonzales Beach

When I was young I loved to lie under a hot sun on a sandy beach and dip in and out of the water for hours on end. Well, those days are long past but if they weren't I would probably be spending a lot of time on Gonzales Beach. It's a very nice quiet, neighborhoody kind of beach. The bay is called Foul Bay but I think that just refers to its qualities as an anchorage because there's nothing foul about it otherwise. This is what it looked like yesterday afternoon when the temperature climbed to the high 20s.

Beaches 5 - Gonzales Beach

While not quite as large as the beaches mentioned earlier, Gonzales Beach is very popular. It's easy to miss as you drive along Victoria's coastline since it is only slightly visible from the road. Gonzales Bay is also known as Foul Bay, its original name. Nowadays we generally understand the word "foul" to mean bad smelling or rotten. But this bay was named Foul Bay in the 1790s by Captain Vancouver because its bottom offered no good holding ground for a ship's anchor so it was "foul" in the nautical sense. Whatever its name it's a lovely little beach that has a very comfortable, neighbourhoody feel about it.

King of the Castle

To round out a beachy week here's another shot from a recent afternoon at Gonzales Beach. Like goats, kids always like to climb to the top to see what there is to be seen.

Sand Castles 1

As adults we often forget that "play" can be deeply serious and satisfying. It's not only running and jumping and giggling, important though those are. Play may involve deep concentration that is a kind of practice for the most important work we will do later in our lives. One of the most fascinating aspects of beach-watching is to see how often this environment induces this profound level of contemplation and purposeful activity in children.

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.