Fish, Bugs, and Automobiles

We went to downtown Victoria to visit Pacific Undersea Gardens and the Victoria Bug Zoo.

Victoria sure is a beautiful city.

There's an interesting monument by the harbour that describes the treaties between Russia and Canada (well, Britain at the time) in regards to Alaska and the northern BC coastline. These agreements pre-date the American purchase of Alaska from Russia.

We arrived at Pacific Undersea Gardens.

Pacific Undersea Gardens takes you under the surface of the harbour.

We saw a really ugly eel, starfish, and some other odd critters.

These fish were just hanging out, almost motionless, waiting for feeding time or something. The Gardens are cut off from the rest of the harbour and stocked like a zoo.

This is why submarines don't have windshields. They'd have to pull over at service stations now and then to get out and squeegee the octopi off.

Next stop: the Bug Zoo.

Donnie got interactive with a walking stick bug.

I can't remember what this thing is, but it's the largest critter in the Zoo. Here it was laying an egg into the soil.

Here's one of the eggs, covered in soil. You get an idea of how big the mom is.

This is a relative of the scorpions... Uncle Bob, I think. Instead of a stinger it has a long tail that it uses to squirt acetic acid.

Calvin handled a millipede.

Donnie tried one on (click to see the movie).

And when she was done colouring, I showed Baby the Mexican red-knee tarantula. She thought it was pretty cool.

Botanical Beach

Many things live in the potholes, which is where the beach got its name.

We've been here before when they boys were younger and Baby was a baby.

The weather was much nicer this time; they don't call the area Port Rainfrew for nothing.

We saw small crabs...

... sea urchins, fish, and the shells of many dead creatures.

If you touched the sea anemones, they'd close over and attempt to digest your finger like in a '50s horror movie.

Attack of the 3-inch Sea Anemone!

I don't think it did that well at the box office.

This really brought back memories of the endless games my friends and I played on the shores of the Columbia River.

We watched the hermit crabs attacking each other, trying to take over each other's shells.

They'd get into a scrap and tumble to the bottom of the potholes. Over and over and over again.

Reminds me of my brothers when they were teenagers. Always getting into scraps. Living in shells. Eating algae. Revelstoke is a cool place now, but in the '80s there was about as much to do there as there is in a pothole on an island. At least the hermit crabs don't have mullets.

Calvin brought the boomerang toy he got for his birthday in case he got bored. There was no danger of that, though.

A hermit crab walks into a French bar with a snail on its shell. The bartender tells the crab to leave as they don't serve his kind. "Do you serve snails?" asks the crab, but as the bartender doesn't speak English a fine opportunity for a punchline is lost. The crab leaves with the snail still on its shell, walking into the cruel night to ponder its existence. Fin.

The boys found the remains of a couple of sea urchins, which made for a smelly trip back to Calgary.

Info about the critters we'd seen.

Time to head back.

Unfortunately, we didn't realize until much later that Calvin had left his boomerang at a pothole. But at least now the hermit crabs have something else to do.

The Hike to Botanical Beach

The hike to Botanical Beach took us through forest and along the ocean.

Signs along the trails describe the geology of the area.

About half way there, we left the trail and headed out onto the shore.

There's Botany Bay behind us, off in the distance.

Around this corner we found our first potholes. You may be wondering why we came to BC to see potholes. Surely we've seen our fair share in Calgary.

Well, yeah, but not like these.

When the tide goes out it leaves behind these pools, ground into the sandstone over the millenia by tides and waves pushing and pulling on the rocks.

Purple sea urchins live in hollows in the rock.

We arrived at the main part of Botanical Beach.

Botany Bay

We made a trip up to the Port Renfrew area on the Pacific coast.

At the Botanical Beach Provincial Park parking lot we left the van and hiked down to Botany Bay.

It's a bit of a hike, but all downhill...

... and the bay itself is pretty rewarding.

While the rest of us were looking at the sea life in the tidal pools...

I kept an eye on Calvin who was off in his own world.

Looking off to the northwest towards the Pacific.

The beach itself is gravelly but quite nice.

Interesting geological formations.

This is a cool place, but mainly we came here for the potholes.