We would pass through Vancouver twice on our 11 day West Coast cruise aboard the Holland America cruise ship MS Zaandam. The first pass through would only be for only 7 hours, while the second visit would be for three days.

Dark skies in the early morning above the Lions Gate Bridge which serves as the entrance to the Vancouver Harbour. The bridge reminded me of the Golden Gate bridge as both are single span suspension bridges. Later that day we crossed the bridge which has an interesting feature of changing the traffic flow direction of the middle lane up to 20 times on a weekday on the three lane bridge.

Our excursion for the one day stop in Vancouver was the the Capilano Suspension Bridge over the Capilano River in Upper Capilano. The bridge seems quite sturdy, but with many visitors, it had a tendency to tilt back and forth quite noticeably.

Capilano Suspension Bridge Park also feature the Cliffwalk which is walkway bolted into the side of a cliff. I enjoyed it more than the bridge as it wasn’t as crowded, and it had spots along the way to take a break or picture without holding up EVERYONE.

The dark skies and photographing during the blue hour cause the lights of the Canada Place cruise terminal and the Port of Vancouver cargo terminal to pop against the night sky.

I was out early one morning to capture the early morning sunlight on Vancouver. A little Google research informed me that this photo includes the Coal Harbour Public Dock, the Seawall Water Walk, the Coal Harbour Seaside Park ( the trees ), and the Coal Harbour Marina.

I watched this Crow dive bomb the Bald Eagle atop the sail support of Canada Place at least 30 times. Most times the Bald Eagle would turn to watch, but other times, it was like, ” hey Crow, you really don’t want a piece of this” and not even bother to look at the crow. After a while the Crow gave up, and then the Bald Eagle flew away content with the day’s activities.

Just by chance, our visit to the Vancouver Lookout was on the clearest day of our stay. The Lookout offers a 360 degree view of Vancouver with quite clean windows to photograph through. While there I noticed the contraption they use to clean the outside of the windows.

A view of the Harbour and the Canada Place cruise ship terminal.

The lighted trees in front of the Fairmont Waterfront and the overhang of the Pan Pacific Vancouver hotel give a Christmas feel to this evening in early May.

A clear morning sunrise over Vancouver Harbour and the Canada Place Cruise ship Terminal. The cross directional light highlights the unique design of the five white sails atop the terminal building.

After several, or more likely many landings in the Vancouver Harbour, you did get accustomed to load roar of the Harbour Air Seaplanes taking off and landing up to 300 times a day, according to their website.

The Royal Caribbean Radiance of the Seas returns to Vancouver BC, Canada after repairs were made to the propulsion system which caused an already shortened week long cruise to be cancelled several days early.