July 26 - Discovery (#58)

Dan and I went out for a morning paddle to Discovery - sqeezed in between errands! There was a good ebb running in Baynes so we stopped there to surf for a while and then caught the "freight train" over to Strongtide island. After that we did a nice paddle around Discovery and Chatham Islands. It was nice to get out for a longer paddle after a few weeks without much paddling.

16 km, 9 NM, YTD 642 km

July 22 - Caddy Bay (#57)

Evan and I went out for a short afternoon paddle in Caddy Bay. There was a good wind and a bit of chop so conditions were fun. So we went out "Island 7" and then over to Jemmy Jones and Flower Islands.

6 km, 3 NM, YTD 626 km

July 18 - Seydisfjoerdur (#56)

After looking at many wonderful looking kayaking locations in Iceland, I was finally able to get out for a short paddle in the West Fjords area. Thanks to Halldor and Helga I was able to borrow a Nordkapp for a couple of hours and paddle around Seydisfjoerdor. Conditions were excellent and the landscape stunning. I'll do another post on the whole Iceland trip soon with a link to photos of the stunning landscape...

The track in Seydisfjoerdor

zooming out a bit

and yet more.

9 km, 5 NM, YTD 620 km

Iceland report - day 4

Not a paddling report, though I wish it was! We have been blessed with magnificent weather for all but one day and most of that was at night.
So far we have seen a geothermal power station ( neat for a geoscience teacher!), a spectacular waterfall (Gulfoss), a spectacular geyser, all kinds of steam vents emanating from the ground, the rift where Europe and north America are splitting apart, and for the past day we have been on Heimaey island, the site of a dramatic eruption in 1973 which almost "swallowed" the town. The volcanic landscape here is magnificent, and we have also had great birding (our favourites are the puffins which are easy to see in many places). We head back to the mainland tomorrow and plan to head counter clockwise around Iceland.

Off to Iceland...

Back in a while - I hope to get out paddling at least once while I am there... I may get my SPOT messenger to send updates to the blog. If not you can follow us at the following link

July 6 - Rolling in Caddy bay again! (#55)

Dan and I went for an afternoon rolling session in the bay - both of us needed some practice - me especially since I don't know if I will get any paddling in Iceland...

Rolls worked well - the Tahe Greenland is such a dream to roll. We ran into Paula from KayakYak in her inflatable coming back from an unsuccessful "whale hunt". We chatted about the Gyro Park plans and then went over to Staines Island to look for Dan's mask (no luck).
3 km, 2 NM, YTD 611 km.

July 3rd - Cadboro Bay (#54)

I ran a PC level 1 course for Lanyy, Ann, Chirs and Liliana in Cadboro Bay. Our paddle this afternoon was short and was basically a chance to review strokes and practice  rescues.
2 km, 1 NM, YTD 608 km.

July 2nd - Caddy Bay (#53)

Dan and I went for a morning of rolling in Cadboro and Oak Bays. We both were in our Tahes and had fun rolling in several locations. We even experimented rolling with the seals in Oak Bay Marina! The seals were not impressed... On our way back we came across the Grey Whale that has been hanging around Oak and Cadboro Bays for the past week (I had seen it the night before while on sea rescue training). You can see from our track it was right off Landsdowne road. It came very close to us and was a neat sight!
10 km, 5 NM, YTD: 606 km