Olympic Twilight

My walks lately have taken me out near sunset. These early winter sunsets are around 4:30 or 5 pm here. In summer when sunsets are at 9 pm or later I am usually getting ready for bed. I like the photo above because it shows the Olympic Mountains across the Strait so clearly. Still not much snow up there. The large gray building in the foreground is the Ogden Point Cruise Ship Terminal. And the rocky bits even nearer are on Work Point, the western side of the Inner Harbour entrance.

Olympic Mountains

Today was one of those days when various photo ideas came to nothing so here's a photo from the archives, almost exactly five years ago to this day. Taken with a 300mm telephoto lens it shows the Olympic Mountains across the strait in their winter splendor.

Cloudy Weather

I'm posting this photo today mostly because it shows clearly the kind of weather we've been having for the last week or so. A second reason is that it nicely shows the mountains on the Olympic Peninsula across the water. Usually lately they have been invisible behind banks of low cloud. Lots of snow up there. The seaplane coming in for a landing is West Coast Air, one of several airlines offering flights from Vancouver to Victoria Harbour.

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.

Gonzales Beach

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

Urban Landscape 2

Here in Victoria, where the city is fairly hilly you can often be going along and when you hit a slight rise the Olympic Mountains just appear, magically. Not always of course, due to our ever shifting weather but when they do, wow. - Fern

Monochrome Mood

One of the satisfying aspects of living next to the ocean is the wide range of changes the seascape goes through, not just seasonally but daily and sometimes even hourly. The above is a fairly common winter mood, almost monochrome.

Floating Hotel

Victoria is now well into cruise ship season and between now and October we will see hundreds of these huge floating luxury hotels. The one pictured above is the Radiance of the Seas while it was making the turn to enter the Ogden Point Cruise Ship Terminal. The rocky point in the foreground on the right is Work Point, which marks the western side of the entrance to the Inner Harbour. Ogden Point is just off camera to the left. Click the name of the ship above for a virtual tour of its interior. These ships are quite extraordinary and are much removed from the ocean liner I boarded 50 years ago the first time I crossed the Atlantic. In those days an ocean liner was a means of transportation. Now it is a way of life. Some of these ships have been built as condominiums where the residents live aboard more or less permanently and decide collectively where to cruise, etc.

King George Terrace Lookout

On the way home from a friend's in Oak Bay I took the scenic route along the water and had to stop at the look out at the top of King George Terrace. From here you can see across the water to Port Angeles, WA and the Olympic Mountains. A beautiful spring day!
Author's note: For those of you who are regular visitors and leave such lovely comments, thank you! Benjamin Madison is still away but will be back in another week and a half. I'm enjoying being Victoria Daily Photo and hope I am meeting Benjamin's high standards.