Endeavour Entering Victoria
August '99
In August '99 the two Johns took a little trip to Victoria,
British Columbia, in Canada, to greet H. M. Bark Endeavour. We rented
a convertible in Seattle and spent the evening sightseeing before driving
to Port Angeles to catch a ferry the next day. Needless to say we didn't
quite get to Port Angeles, we had to stop near the Hood Canal. Our scheme
to save money at cheap hotels failed us as we had to pop $80 bucks American
to stay in a luxury "resort." We overslept, after all we were on vacation,
and missed the first ferry by about 10 cars. This meant a four hour wait
in rainy Port Angeles, with nothing to do. Eventually we got to Canada,
and drove to Sooke to try to stow away on Endeavour. We couldn't of course,
so we settled for a few drinks with the crew at a nearby bar. We headed
back to our really cheap hotel, the Backpacker Inn (a hostel) where the
private room was, shall we say, barely adequate. At least we weren't in
the dorm section.
The
next day we went sightseeing before renting a little boat to welcome Endeavour
to Victoria. The two Johns both had GPS receivers and headed out into the
foggy waters of Prince William Sound to find the tall ship. The GPS did
no good, we found Endeavour by the sound of her cannon. A flotilla of boats
rode in with the bark, but we were the only ones who knew the crew by name.
The video has a cannon fired right at us. Blank, of course.
We
knew that once in port Endeavour would be a madhouse of activity so after
returning our rental (one on the water warning from the Harbour
Police) we cut out in the convertible for the highlands of Vancouver Island.
These pictures show Endeavour entering Victoria, British Columbia.
Here's John W. about to climb the futtock shrouds for the first time.
We got to sleep on board, in hammocks, in exchange for watching
the ship for a few hours each night. I did this in Newport, R.I. too. So
we stayed in downtown Victoria for free. We had the days to ourselves to
go hiking, and checked out the Air Museum, each evening we checked in at
about 7, made the rounds during our watch, and sacked out till the next
day. During the day tourists toured the ship and we stayed away.
Later we visited the suspension bridge at xxxxxxxx, there are two,
this is the free one.
We also visited Vancouver proper, but after Victoria we had to agree
with Steve Francis - get me outta here!
More Endeavour shots coming soon!