August 19th-20th Royal Victoria Yacht Club

Tide Rip Yee Haw!

August 19^th-20^th Royal Victoria Yacht Club    Up here if you can’t have the wind in your favor you can at least play with the currents.  This morning’s currents are great for time and we clock 10.1 knots along the way.  This comes to almost a screeching halt at the rip tide transition from Georgia Strait currents to currents from Juan de Fuca Straits, and we slow, very briefly to about 3.3 knots.  Average knots for the day were 7.7 so generally high for us.   

One of the perks of being members of Rose City Yacht Club is that we have reciprocal moorage agreements with numerous other yacht clubs and marinas.  One of these we discover is the Royal Victoria Yacht Club.  It is nicely located in Cadboro Bay, away from the hustle and bustle of Victoria.  The RVYC hosts the Swiftsure Race that some of our club members participate in yearly.  They also have a very busy small boat yard where members work on their boats.  There is a small fleet of sailing dinghies and Olympic Qualifier Laser boats.  They will also host the Melges 24 World Championship next year and have a few of these sleek, turbo charged light weight planing hull.

We receive help putting ExTerra in our slip and chat with the two members.  Then we hop on the local bus and head into Victoria.   

Dragon Boat Races

We have seen many of the sites of Victoria on previous land visits but we are in search of “Solar Eclipse” glasses.  Alas we do not find any (all sold out for weeks!).  We walk the waterfront and enjoy watching some of the Dragon Races since this is Dragon Boat Festival.  We of course have ice cream cones and even take in a movie!  Are we starting to slowly immerse ourselves back into land life?  

The next day we hike to the tiny Cadboro Bay community, through very nice neighborhoods with tree lined streets and remnant giant oaks from when this area was nearly entirely covered with oak savannah type vegetation.  We get to see the front runners in the Tour de Victoria as the zoom past us on their bikes.  We continue to see participants for hours as we hike, go to the beach, enjoy another pub burger and hike back.  This “Tour” has three levels, the Experienced Cyclists 140 kilometer (roughly 79 mile) ride, Cycling Enthusiast (90 KM) and the Entry-level Cyclist for 45 km, which explains why we continue to see riders for the few hours that we are out and about.

Leaders of the Pack Tour de Victoria

Returning to the boat we continue our transitioning chores.  We have stowed the crab pots and shrimp pots.  We have rinsed and stowed the fishing gear.  Now we are washing the dinghy so it can dry well and then be stowed for our offshore trek in a few days.  Now we are drying the sheets in the sun as we forgot to close the pullman hatches while we rinsed the dinghy.  Sigh.  This evening we will have crab in the cockpit for dinner then we will don our finest duds and have a drink at the bar “just because.”  No hats allowed Gents!

Gyro Park Sand Sculptures