New Year’s Resolution

I have decided to try to keep an on line journal of my paddling this year. And today seems like a good day to start!

Mike, Craig, Bill and I set out from Roberts bay (end of 5th St) to go play in the wind andwaves. The tide was high and there was already a strong southeasterly blowing. The forecast was for gale force winds strengthening to storm force in the afternoon.

We paddled out and into the wind for a while - it was a good work out and good fun in the waves. After a while we decided to head across the wind and then over to Ker Island. Before we got therer we decided to head downwind to Page Passage - I took the opportunity to try my spirit sail in a good wind and it was great. I scooted along at 4-6 knots, using my greenland padle to brace. It was probably the most fun sail I have had with the spirit sail. It was neat how the wind just spilled when it gusted too strong.

We played around a bit more around fernie Island and then headed back into the wind and waves. We had another downwind run and then across the wind (lots of weather cocking this time) and then stopped in a calm cove on Goudge Island. By the time we had finished the wind had strengthened (as promised!) to something in the area of 40 knots. We attempted to paddle back into this wind but none of us could make enough way against the wind, so we gave up and headed into Canoe Cove Marina to haul out. Called a taxi to go retrieve our cars and packed up after an exhilarating day on the water. The total distance paddled was about 7.25 nm (13.4 Km)

I am experimenting with track screenshots from various programs... Click on a thumbnail to view a larger image.

1) Screenshot from Oziexplorer, 2) Track screenshot from Memory Map Navigator, 3) Track screenshot from Google Earth (using ozi2googlearth), 4) Track screenshot from Memory map navigator, 5) Track visualization using GPSVisualizer, 6) better GPS Visualizer display using Canimage satellites
I like the last one best. Let me know what you think...

I was able to get the kelp reef wind data for the day: BTW BigwaveDave’s site is great for local weather and some webcams http://bigwavedave.ca

01 Jan 5:00 pm S 39G47
01 Jan 4:00 pm SSE 41G51
01 Jan 3:00 pm SSE 43G53 This is when the going got tough!
01 Jan 2:00 pm SSE 35G40
01 Jan 1:00 pm SSE 30
01 Jan 12:00 pm SE 33G43
01 Jan 11:00 am SE 32G39
01 Jan 10:00 am SE 33G43
01 Jan 9:00 am SE 33G40