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Published: August 22nd 2013
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Victoria, BC
Leaving Canada behind August 19, 2003 – From Victoria, BC, Canada to Sekiu, WA, USA (Olympic Peninsula Park)
I can definitely recommend the Royal Scot Hotel in Victoria. Good value, excellent location, great rooms, a good pool and games room and they let us check out at 1pm! Excellent, as the ferry to the States (the Coho, Black Ball Transport) leaves at 3pm and as this is a border crossing they need us to be there at least 90 minutes before. Which means we can leave the car parked in the hotel car park and the luggage in our room while we explore Victoria one last time and then drive straight to the terminal (one block away). We then have to sit in the car for 90 minutes!
Because unfortunately this isn’t 90 minutes of wandering around a nice little terminal (insert ‘Tsawwassen” here). It’s 90 minutes of waiting in your car for a scary US Customs guy (or gal) to interrogate you. Sorry, did I say ‘interrogate’? I meant ‘terrorize’, whoops – sorry again, ‘chat to you’.
It has to be said that Customs and Immigration officers are the most intimidating of all. I guess it’s the fear of saying
or doing something that makes them suspicious. They rarely have a sense of humour and if they do it is unlikely to be on the same wavelength as yours. So be warned; you’re ok if you’re Canadian, you’re extra ok if you’re American (then you can even expect a nice little cosy conversation, light banter, a laugh or two) but anything else and expect to hang around a long time waiting for some miserable official who seems to be under the impression you’ve messed up their day somehow.
We once wanted to visit Mount Baker from Vancouver for just the day and spent half of it sitting in the customs office at the border having our finger prints taken. We’re a British family with two young children. Are we really that much of a threat? Do they really have nothing else better to do or anyone more worthy of their time to hassle?
We even tried to meet them half way this time and presented two Canadian passports and two completed visa waiver forms for the boys but apparently that wasn’t enough to avoid being sent to the back of the queue in a pokey little portacabin like
US or Canada?
Have we crossed the line yet? some naughty little school kid until the Canadians and Americans had had their turn. (Just Steve and an Australian family going through the same palaver). Still, at least the 90 mins wasn’t wasted doing nothing, although depends on your definition of ‘wasted’ but personally I wasn’t even able to concentrate on reading because, as the Coho Ferry sailed in and unloaded cars and passengers, I sat there terrified that the boys and I would be sitting alone in a car park while every other bugger drove around us and onto the ferry! Us and the RV belonging to the Aussies. And you can bet the Customs guys wouldn’t have given two hoots if we missed the ferry altogether.
I couldn’t help wondering why we’d bothered to come across to the States at this point in our trip at all. We’ll be coming back this way at the end of September anyway and this Saturday we’ll be driving back up into BC again. But as we pulled out of Safeway in Port Angeles , WA, (having stocked up well as suggested by the hosts of our next accommodation) and onto the Route 112 coast road we felt much more positive.
A Room with a View
The view from our cabin!! Near Sekiu The road ran along the beautiful rocky coast for much of the way and then, once we’d found our cosy little cabin just west of Sekiu right on the very water (I can hear the ocean as I type this!) we knew it was all so very worth it. (And besides, the visa waiver will last for our trip down to San Fran and to New York at the end so had to be done anyway).
112 W Cowan Road is just a mobile home really but it’s fantastic! We have everything we need (including the vital WiFi!) and the most incredible views ever! The kind of view you find it virtually impossible to tear your eyes away from. One that makes even reading a book difficult. (Typing this entry is taking forever! I’m unable to keep my eyes off the view for long enough to type more than a few words at a time!)
We hadn’t eaten when we arrived at gone 7pm but despite our hunger the beach beckoned. And so glad it did! Very soon after descending the many moss covered wooden steps to the beach we spotted a creature about 30 metres out that
we quickly realized, with the aid of binoculars, was a sea otter. If you ever see a river otter out to sea (which is more likely - we did a few days ago from Botanical Beach) it’s easy to assume you’ve seen a sea otter; after all, you naively ask yourself, what would a river otter be doing in the sea?! But once you’ve seen both the difference is significant. For starters the sea otter is much bigger than the river otter and instead of a slick, smallish head the sea otter’s head is bigger and, well, fluffier! This little fellow was swimming on its back, over a metre in length with its big furry head bobbing up and down at one end and his webbed feet sticking out of the water at the other. He’d bring his little paws up to wash his face and then disappear under the surrounding kelp, popping up again close by.
Researching up on sea otters makes me realize how lucky we’ve been to see one at all. Most sightings in this area apparently turn out to be river otters. We had binoculars for an excellent view but with the fading light we
Near Sekiu, WA
Our shared stretch of beach! just weren’t really close enough for a decent photo.
That night, with the window open a little, we fell asleep to the sounds of the ocean lapping onto the shore, dreaming of sea otters and whales.
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