Victoria: Jaunty Clipper ride puts city at your feet

With 250 passengers safely onboard, Capt. Jim Scancella fired up the powerful twin diesel engines of the Victoria Clipper, then maneuvered the 127-foot-long passenger boat away from its Pier 69 moorage, swung it around and headed north through Elliott Bay into Puget Sound toward Victoria, British Columbia.

One problem. She forgot her camera in a pocket of her coat back in one of the boat's cabins.

"I was so excited when I heard we could walk out on the outside deck, I just forgot," she said. The Victoria trip was a birthday gift from her mother, with whom she was traveling. The two were scheduled to spend three days at the famed Fairmont Empress Hotel in Victoria.

"I just can't believe it. I'm so looking forward to high tea in the Empress on Friday. What a treat," she said.

With its familiar Union Jack paint scheme, the Victoria Clipper has been a Seattle waterfront fixture for almost 16 years. At a cruising speed of 30 knots, the clipper can reach Victoria in about 2 1/2 hours. With its fleet of three catamaran-style boats, the company offers four round-trip sailings a day to Victoria during the peak summer travel period: three morning departures at 7:30, 7:45 (this one stops at Friday Harbor on the way) and 8:45, and one afternoon departure at 3:15.

The boats are configured with aft- and forward-facing seats on two cabin levels and can hold close to 300 passengers. Some of the seats are at tables and some have fold-down trays. Aircraft-style snacks are served, and the boats have duty-free stores.

"We get a lot of passengers who have never even seen saltwater before," said Capt. Scancella. "So if luck has it and we encounter an orca pod en route," he added, "it just makes for an incredible experience."

Depending on the weather, tides and other boat and ship traffic, the experience can be a little bumpy, and passengers are forewarned.

High tea is served in the Fairmont Empress Hotel's Bengal Lounge. During the peak tourist season, the hotel serves high tea to 800 guests daily. (JEFF LARSEN / SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER)

During my return trip to Seattle, the vessel plowed into a huge wake generated by a passing container ship, throwing water over the bow and jostling passengers. The captain promptly throttled back the engines to ride out the wake and quickly informed the passengers about what was happening. Other than a few spilled drinks, no harm was done.

Scancella said some wakes are more apparent than others and they never know what kind of wake a passing container ship might generate. He said every once in a while they get a surprise like that.

It also can get a little bumpy during customs and immigration checks at both ends of the trip, if you aren't properly prepared. If you are a U.S.-born citizen, a valid driver's license is usually adequate identification, as long as you don't have any DUI arrests or felony convictions. However, because of heightened border security these days, it's a good idea to carry a passport, and naturalized citizens will need their naturalization papers.

On my trip, passengers at both ends seemed to move smoothly through customs and immigration checkpoints. Once passengers cleared customs in Victoria, they quickly blended in with the hundreds of other visitors to one of Canada's most important tourist towns.

Victoria has long been a vacation destination for local as well as world travelers. The British Columbian capital has a population of almost 300,000.

Visually stunning, with the Fairmont Empress Hotel and the Parliament building lording over it, Victoria's Inner Harbour is the center of most of the tourist activities and where the Clipper docks.

If you're doing a day trip, the Inner Harbour area is a good starting point for a six-hour layover. Tip: Wear good walking shoes and swing by the well-marked visitor center for some helpful information and brochures. There are clean restrooms and shower facilities on the lower level, almost directly underneath the center.

One nifty way to get around the Inner Harbour itself is by a Victoria Harbour Ferry tour boat. Every 12 to 30 minutes, one of the funky little craft -- looking like they are right out of a Disneyland ride -- departs from its Inner Harbour dock. The company operates nine boats, each carrying up to 12 passengers. You can take either the 45-minute harbor tour or a 55-minute tour up the Gorge Waterway (under the Johnson Street Bridge to the Upper Harbour, then into the Selkirk Waterway and past Gorge Park.)

To tour Victoria, you can crowd onto a bus with 50 other tourists (and get banged up by all the binoculars and cameras), hire a van, walk, take a cab, rent a scooter or rent a horse-drawn carriage -- or ride with Larry Fletcher's tour company.

A Victoria native, Fletcher had what he considers a stroke of genius. He figured that since the weather usually is predictable, a convertible-car touring service might be the ticket. Thus -- after two years of licensing hassles -- Classic Car Tours blossomed . Fletcher drives a cherry 1965 Pontiac Parisienne convertible (Canadian version of the Bonneville) while his partner, Wes Falconer, shepherds people around in a 1969 Buick Wildcat ragtop. In June, Fletcher plans to introduce a 1926 Model T Ford and a 1954 Ford Sunliner to his fleet.

It's a fun way to take a tour of Butchart Gardens during the short stay in Victoria ... if it's not raining. (Classic Car Tours operates rain or shine, but clearly it's not quite the same experience with the top up.)

Another slick way to tour Victoria during a short layover is by air. Cooper Air is based at the Inner Harbour, at the Victoria Marine Adventure Center, where you can rent anything from a kayak to a luxury cruiser. Cooper offers 30-minute aerial tours by seaplane for $93 Canadian (about $65 U.S.). The dock is below the gaudy whale-watching billboard ... you can't miss it. Take your camera and be sure to call ahead for reservations.

OK, if all went well since the Clipper docked, you toured Butchart Gardens in a vintage convertible, motored around the harbor in a Disneyland lookalike boat, and toured the city by air.

If you timed all that tourist stuff right, you should be ready for a late lunch, that is if you can still afford it. Hopefully, it's early afternoon, when you are able to dodge the bulk of the lunchtime crowds.

The Wharfside Eatery, close to the Adventure Center dock and Bastion Square, is convenient, with outdoor dining (plastic chairs) and pretty good food and beverage service.

Sticking with the day's nautical theme -- and since the restaurant brags about its seafood -- I had the grilled salmon steak with Pernod sauce and coffee ($16.95 U.S.). It was good but not memorable.

Then it was time for a little maritime culture.

In the middle of Bastion Square, which is just off the Inner Harbour, is the Maritime Museum of British Columbia. The square itself, which runs from the waterfront to Government Street, is a colorful walkway where local artisans sell their wares, kind of like a Seattle-style street fair every day.

The classy-looking museum galleries in the historic 1889 provincial law courts building focus on six major themes on two floors: exploration, commerce, adventure, passenger travel, government fleets and B.C. Ferries. For example, the commerce section addresses how the development of Fort Victoria impacted all the maritime industries. The museum is well worth the $6 (Canadian) admission.

Not only is the Fairmont Empress Hotel a popular place to stay, it's also a historical icon in Victoria. It opened in 1908, was saved from the wrecking ball in 1966, and subsequently was refurbished to meet the demands of modern travelers. Today it serves high tea to more than 800 guests per day (reservations required) in the peak season, and is a tourist hub for the Inner Harbour and the city.

If you didn't make high tea reservations when you booked your Victoria Clipper cruise, it's still OK to walk through the hotel and check it out. In fact, if you visit the Maritime Museum, the hotel is on your way back to the Victoria Clipper dock.

Also on the way back to the Clipper, swing by the lower causeway across from the hotel where First Nations and other ethnic artisans demonstrate and sell their products. There are some fascinating examples of traditional native artistry.

Once back on the boat, take your shoes off, put your head back and relax. Next stop Seattle.

If you go to Victoria