After spending the last five years in Tacoma, there really is no viable excuse for this, but, for whatever reason, this is my first day in Victoria, BC. I should not have waited so long. This city is fantastic! It's located right on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, so there's plenty of great walks and views. It has a significantly thriving downtown, packed mostly with independent stores There's lots of bookstores, each specializing in one thing or the other (Wells' for instance has a penchant for nautical texts, and I found a great map made by Magellan? of Vancouver Island, complete with sea serpents licking the coast). I hope to return here one day with more time to spare.

For the moment, I managed to find a place called Caddy Tours (.com) that specializes in ferrying tourists around the surrounding bay and its islands. Alas, today was too windy to sail, so tomorrow I'm going to talk to the operating manager about the business, which appears to be relatively new. Judging from its website, it's definitely the most lake-monster related company I've come across yet. No luck yet on finding the authors of Cadborosaurus, unfortunately.

Internet is rather expensive out here, so I'm going to wait until Argentina to post pictures (sorry!)

Last night, I sat in front of a globe here at the hostel and remarked at all of the places we Watson fellows have begun exploring. I only know of a fraction of us, yet even in that magnitude, we're beginning such a collectively ambitious undertaking that I'm proud to be a part of. So it goes.

All things are said for now.