Festivals are erupting all over the island, and Nanaimo is in the middle of it all. This is the one that I'm really looking forward to.
Blues, Blues, and more Blues.
Meanwhile, we went out yesterday afternoon to have an early dinner at the Lighthouse Bistro and wait for the beginning of the Snowbirds' flyover. I thought perhaps this was part of one of the festivals, but it seems not. It was a fundraiser for a group working to combat Crohn's Disease.
Whatever the reason for the flyover, the atmosphere downtown was certainly festive. I took this shot of the top of the bistro, just after we went outside (at five minutes to six - perfect timing).
Within a minute, we heard the planes approaching. I tried in vain to take some film of the show. My camera isn't really up to following planes across the sky - or I'm not - so the result was less than satisfactory, and I settled for still photos.These guys were the warm-up act. I photographed them after they finished their flyover.
I realized as I uploaded the photos to my computer just now that I had taken 54 shots. It's a wonder I saw any of the show at all.
A few minutes into the performance, I glanced back up at the bistro's cupola, and this is what I saw:
Apparently somebody has friends in high places.
The performance went on for, maybe, twenty minutes. I could see people lined up along the rail, all the way around the harbour. I did take some photos, but it occured to me that folks might object to having their photos blogged without their permission (and I have no idea who they are, so permission is out of the question.) Thus, you'll have to take my word for it. The walkway around the harbour was full of people. It was really quite summery and fun. I remarked to Robin that it was great to see folks out walking around, all with one happy purpose - to see this lovely and impressive show. There was lots going on in the sky, but in between passes, I took one shot of the water below the bistro, because it was shiny and I love shiny stuff.
When it was all over, we made our way through crowds of pedestrians to our car, then through more crowds of both pedestrians and crawling vehicles to get home. It's probably just as well we don't have festivals every day. Nobody would ever get anywhere.
As I couldn't film the Snowbirds, I found a You Tube film to demonstrate their performance. Very exciting stuff. I'll make that the finale of this post. Happy Festival Season, everybody.
