Sonya's Blog - Day 329 - I Was Mauled by a Seagull

Sonya’s Blog - Day 329 - May 16th - I was Mauled by a Seagull

This morning, while walking Kizmet to the dog park, Blake booked our sea-kayaking adventure for tomorrow morning at 10 AM. We have never been sea-kayaking, but the bay is very calm, so we should be okay. Kizmet at the dog park:

Karen (Jeremy's Mum) told me that we could feed the seals at Oak Bay Marina, so we decided to head over there and check it out. Oak Bay Marina is beautiful, so we had a walk around before heading to the gift store to buy some fish. The seals hang out in the harbour, as close to the gift store as they can get (they know where the food is coming from). The gift stores sells chopped up herring for $3 a bag, we bought a bag and headed out into the marina. There were several seals and they hang out on either side of one dock. We arrived, just as a couple finished feeding the seals. Some of the seals will clap their flippers, one was splashing water at the lady to get her to feed him. One of the seals hangs out upside down, another one plays dead and the cutest one hangs out just below the surface and looks at you with the saddest face imaginable. So lots of personalities. We tried to feed all of them, but it is difficult. The really fat ones are bullies and will take the fish that was intended for another. Furthermore, the seagulls are super aggressive, and I found this out the hard way:

The one at the back of this group, has his tail in the air. Spent the whole time upside down like this, unless you threw him food:

Took it right out of may hand, as I was about to throw it. When we were done with our bag, another couple of ladies came down with their bags, then a family (these are well fed seals). I warned them about the seagulls and went to wash my hands.

I wanted to get some antibiotic cream onto my cuts right away, so we stopped at a drug store in Oak Bay. Oak Bay has a super cute town centre and we decided to walk around for a bit, once my cuts were attended to. We decided to pop into Oaks Restaurant & Tea Room to have something to eat. They had some choices for tea, at very reasonable prices. Even though I said I would never go out for tea again, here we were. Isaac really wanted the light tea ( a couple of sandwiches and scones, plus tea for only $12 - which is a great price). I split it with him and was pleasantly surprised. The scones were perfect and the sandwiches were good. Blake got the tea and scone (only $6) and Natasha just wanted a drink. If I came back to Victoria and wanted to go out for tea, I would certainly come back here.

In Oak Bay, after I had bandaged up my finger:

Our next stop was Russell Books, on Fort Street in downtown Victoria, another recommendation from Karen. It is supposed to be the greatest used book store ever, so we had to check it out, as we love used book stores. Russell Books did not disappoint. It is very well organized and is a massive store, with an upstairs and downstairs. I keep saying that we aren’t going to buy anymore books, but then we see neat used book stores and always ended up making a purchase. We each found something to buy, but the prices were really good, so that was my justification. We just love books so much.

It was time for supper, so we headed back. It was a lovely night, so we just spent the night lounging around and enjoying the harbour. A family of Canadian Geese went for a little swim right behind our campground. It was funny to watch them walk their little ones to the water, wait for them all to jump in and then herd them out and get them in a line. It was fantastic.

Sonya