Crossing waters

On board the Victoria Clipper, Strait of Juan de Fuca

I’m out in the middle of a big piece of water that seperates Vancouver Island from the Olympic Penisula.   Historically this strait is significant.   Many of the Europeans who arrived here in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries had a sense that this might be the Northwest Passage.   It is the first big opening in the coast that you reach coming north from San Franciso Bay, and it seems to head roughly the right way.   It didn’t take long for Europeans to discover that it is actually the entrance to the Salish Sea, encompassing the Strait of Georgia, Puget Sound and the inland archipelagos of islands that ie between Vancouver Island and the solid and inpenatrable North American continental mainland.

This is the first time I’ve crossed this body of water, and it’s dark and rainy this evening so there isn’t much to see.   The ferry itself is a catamaran, so the seating is more like a train than it is on our single hulled ships in BC.   Also the food is zipped up in a ton of plastic, but the wild salmon chunk was pretty good.   We are right now heading to Seattle where I will spend a few days before travelling south with the family to meet mates Tennesson Woolf, Teresa Posakiny and Roq Gareau for an Art of Hosting with our friends at the Navajo Nation health service.   It’s funny to think of this trip from here, in the rainy northwest, to the cold high desert of Navajo country.

[tags]Victoria clipper, juan de fuca strait[/tags]