North to Vancouver Island..........

 ........this time on our van aboard the Coho Ferry to Victoria. It was a really fun week visiting old cruising friends and for Jim to see old haunts from his time living in Victoria (many years ago).

The Coho ferry leaves Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula and arrives in downtown Victoria in one and a half hours:

We drove up the west side of Vancouver Island then cut across to a wonderful Provincial Campground on Gordon Bay on a beautiful lake. The Provincial Campgrounds are big and very well maintained.

From Gordon Bay Campground we headed to Nanaimo to hook up with Bob and Gisele Coffey (s/v Relax) where we spent the night. We did a lot of catching up, took a couple of walks around the ponds surrounding their neighborhood and then headed up to another BIG and Beautiful Provincial Park:Rathtrevor Provincial Park about one hour north of Nanaimo. We spent two nights "buddy vanning".

.

From there we drove (along with Coffeys) down to Shawnigan Lake to visit Ian and Diane (s/v Salish Sea). Unfortunately Ian was helping a friend deliver a boat from SE Alaska to Lake Union (Seattle) and he wasn't able to join us, but Diane was quite the hostess. So fun to see her and their home and gardens are wonderful.

Getting ready to leave Shawnigan Lake -

Coffey's headed north to Nanaimo and we

headed south to Victoria.

We got in line for the 3PM Coho back to Port Angeles and had 

some time to wander around Victoria and go to

Red Fish, Blue Fish for fish and chips!

We arrived in Port Angeles and headed to Sequim to spend the night at the campground in the Dungeness Wild Life Refuge.

The next day was a perfect day to walk the spit - clear skies and no wind!

We arrived home the following afternoon.

So fun to connect with old cruising buddies!