Feeding Frenzy

Victoria Harbor
I promise this is the last sunset picture for awhile - taken our last night in Barkey Sound, it seemed like a grand finale.
Yesterday was a long and eventful day. It began about three in the morning, when we were all awoken by sounds of splashing outside, and the occasional bump against hull or rudder. Our third crew member, Doug, spent time on deck and reported big shapes and little shapes, all magnified by the phosphorescence in the water, surfacing and diving around the boat. We guessed that the boat just happpened to be in the midst of a feeding frenzy, with salmon and seals snacking on a school of herring. No one got back to sleep.
We were up early anyway to leave Barkley Sound and make the seventy mile run down Vancouver Island's west coast. Currents, weather, and wind made it a fine journey. We coasted into the Juan de Fuca Strait with a rising wind behind us, and finished with gale force winds pushing us along with much reduced sail. We ducked into Sooke Harbor, a protected bay about twenty miles west of Victoria, in the late afternoon and found a place to tie up.
With secure anchorage in Sooke, we were able to achieve part two of our plan, and have dinner at the culinary mecca known as the Sooke Harbor House. While the wind continued to howl and the fog swirled, we sat inside and ate an elegant and rather elaborate dinner - another version of the feeding frenzy.
Now we are tied up in Victoria for a few days in order to catch up with our mail, news, and make plans.