After an early dinner at the Canoe Brew Pub Marina and Restaurant, we walked back to the Parliament grounds to guard our grandstand seats for the 7:30PM symphony. This was our first Splash, so we didn’t know exactly how to do it. The families sitting on the lawn and on the harbor walkway did know the ropes {right behind the sailboat displaying their signal flags}. Since they were all there when we arrived in the harbor at 2:00PM we are guessing they must have come down not long after dawn to get those seats.
We asked one of the Parliament security guards, a charming lass, “how many people are here tonight?”. She said last year the papers reported about 40,000. All we can say is we have never seen so many people around the harbor — and we’ve visited Victoria about ten times since we first made landfall in Sitka, Alaska. Given the huge crowds, and our need to fetch a taxi back to Oak Bay {no buses on Sundays}, we opted to miss the finale fireworks, sigh…
Tomorrow we hope to berth ADAGIO right in the center of that photo, in front of Parliament, the Empress Hotel, and the Royal British Columbia Museum. Our idea is that the huge barge taking up two piers of dock space will move — briefly leaving an opening for us.
