How I Spent My 35th Birthday

   Yesterday, Feb. 8th, was my 35th Birthday. Normally I'd mark the anniversary of my birth by writing out a rambling blog about what I've done or learned in the past year and how I feel about getting older, but not this year. This year I decided to just get out of the house and go for a walk along Victoria's waterfront, specifically the Dallas Road and Ogden Point area. It's been a while since I've been down there, and you know, I didn't even care that it rained.

   My old compact camera doesn't take photos as well as today's fancy cameras, but I did get a few nice shots along my walk that I'd like to share with you. I'll write brief descriptions below each image.

The view from Dallas Road looking roughly South by Southeast. Contrast and brightness have been edited. The ship on the horizon is one of Canada's Kingston class coastal defense ships, likely crewed by Naval Reserve officers and eager young cadets, on a routine training cruise. Any given day there could be several of these little ships out there. It's fun to watch them do rescue drills and play hide-and-seek with submarines.

A wider view looking Southeast from Dallas Rd. That little ship is now just a dot on  the horizon.

The Ogden Point Breakwater.

The lighthouse at the end of the breakwater.

This is the MV Dry Beam. She limped into Victoria this past weekend after suffering damage from a rogue wave on her port (left) side while on her way to Asia.

A closer look at the ship's damaged port side. Note the bent vertical support beams and shifted load of logs. The news report said the ship was in the open Pacific just outside of Vancouver Island and that the wave was 10 to 15 meters tall. Basically Mother Nature just bitch-slapped this ship and there was nothing the crew could do the prevent it. Fortunately nobody was hurt. The huge, black white and red Seaspan cranes towering over the ship's grey cranes are on a barge docked next to the ship and are in the process of transferring the logs off the ship.

Just as I was about to leave Ogden Point, this rainbow appeared over the harbour. What a nice way to end my walk!

And that was how I spent my 35th Birthday.

The Wandering Oak