Friday, May 5, 2017

Fisherman's Wharf

On our one day of adventure time in Victoria, we started out walking to Fisherman's Wharf.  I read Ben Madison's great blog, Victoria Daily Photo, and he had mentioned this spot a few posts back.  It turned out to be an interesting and funky place, apparently popular with both locals and tourists, but slightly off the beaten track from downtown shopping, which suited us fine.

Fisherman's Wharf is the old fishing dock in the Middle Harbour, in part still a commercial fishermens' dock.  But now it also has pleasure boats and a small village of floating homes, along with a few restaurants.  A neat place to visit.

You know I love maps, and I spotted this one at a harbour ferry stop.  It shows the Inner, Middle and Outar Harbours on this convoluted waterway, as well as part of the very long Gorge Waterway that extends up into the heart of Victoria.  The big rectangular cruise ship docks show up in the lower left,  Our hotel was near the label 'Steamship Terminal', and there was a public walkway right around the shoreline to Fisherman's Wharf near the centre of the map (just left of  the red 'You Are Here' circle).

There are two piers of these colourful floating homes when you get there.  Obviously there's some sort of regulation that everyone has to use a different colour of paint!

I'm sure this is an interesting and funky little social community too.  And I'm sure that they get fed up with tourists at times!

Between the piers two or three sleepy looking young Harbour Seals were surfacing.  We were told by a local that they were begging for food, but feeding had been banned two weeks before after a child fell into the water.  I think I would have spoken to the parents!

There are several restaurants with interesting cuisine, all seafood of some sort (appropriately), and we eventually had lunch in one of them.

Most homes looked like houses on floats, but a few looked like converted old boats or barges.

They were certainly colourful, and I'm sure an interesting lifestyle!

Tomorrow, the working end of the wharf.

Meanwhile, it's raining cats and dogs here, and only about 3° above freezing - about the worst weather you can imagine for early May, and it's supposed to be the same tomorrow.

14 comments:

  1. It's headed this way! Watch out for an old guy building a boat with the measurements in cubits!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very, very nice set of photos of a beautiful place.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is a great place to walk around, it appears. Love the boats and wonder what those people do for a living.

    ReplyDelete
  4. My favorite was the purple houseboat, but all these homes looked quite colorful and certainly very unique. Too bad the weather wasn't more cooperative.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Those seals are quite a sight to see!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Love the colourful pictures you took there, sure sounds like and funky place to visit.
    We have lotsa cats and dogs falling from the skies here as well. Hopefully it will stop someday soon.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This looks very fun! Those house boats are charming!

    ReplyDelete
  8. We had a day in the high 70's and it even hit 80°F here in Bellingham on Thursday. Today we will be lucky to see the mid-50s. Strange weather! I love the pictures of the houseboats. What an interesting way of life it would be. Great photos! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  9. I love the colorful houseboats! We have lots of houseboats in Portland too but they're not nearly as bright and colorful.

    ReplyDelete
  10. What an interesting and fun little village to visit. Nice and colorful and a real delight to see the pictures.
    Great shot of the seal popping his head out of the water.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Lovely looking place I do love all the colours very much like Newfoundland and Labradors houses and house boats . Lovely photos of them all to . It has been rainy damp and freaking chilly down here to but sunshine and warmer temps start tomorrow for us through out the week as well so I am happy about that . Thanks for sharing , Have a good weekend !

    ReplyDelete
  12. oh wow, i LOVE this place!! the homes are so colorful and fun and also the sign at the entrance. i could wander around a place like this forever - your pictures of the area are awesome!!

    you got some great captures of the seals, nice to be able to see them up close!!

    a GREAT post, i really enjoyed this!!!

    ReplyDelete
  13. I love all the color in these!

    ReplyDelete