Surfing the Surge

This is a nice clip of me surfing the wave at Surge Narrows on March 18th. The clip was made by Alan, using a shore based camera on a tripod.

March 25th - Whiterock Passage (#27)

Carey, Paulo, Gerhardt, Shannon and I paddled over to Whiterock passage to take advantage of another wonderful day on the water. On our way back we had some fun in the currents in amongst the Settler's Group.
Once we were back it was sadly time to pack everything up and head back home after a wonderful stay at the lodge.

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12 km, YTD 335 km

March 24th - Octopus Islands and Surge Narrows (#26)

I went up to the wonderful Discovery Islands  lodge again, this time with Pautik and Coast&Kayak magazine. I was joined by Walter, Reale and Gloria again as well as John, Gerhardt, Shannon, Sheila, Dorothea, Taver, Richard and Carey. Paulo camped nearby and joined us for the paddles. We had a great day paddle up to the Octopus Islands and then made our way back to the narrows to wait for the flood current to subside enough to paddle the wave. We had gorgeous sunny weather and it was neat to sit over the rapids and watch as the 9 or 10 knot current powered through making waves, whirlpools and overfalls. While at Surge Narrows we ran into regulars Brent and Jonathan who gave me more tips on how to make my Delphin behave on the wave. An all around great day with great people. It was impressive to see the narrows with such tidal current activity.

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26 km, YTD 323 km

March 23rd - Seymour Narrows (#25)

Alan and I went for a "run with the tides" paddle down Discovery Passage. WE woke up to a couple of inches of snow and then made our way to launch our kayaks across from Cape Mudge. We then paddled out into the tidal stream and then rode the ebb all the way to Brown's Bay where we stopped for lunch and the tide to turn. We caught the flood back to our launch site and then I made my way to the Quadra ferry so as to go over to Discovery Islands Lodge for the weekend. If you look at the track plots you will see one using my normal speed scale - most of the trip is over the usual max 10 kph! The second plot is scaled from 10 to 20 kph. Our moving average for the day's paddle was around 11 kph! It was great to cover so much ground so easily! And thanks to Alan for hosting me and planning the paddle times so perfectly!

click to enlarge - normal 0-10 skphcale

Click to enlarge - 10-20 kph scale!

48 km, YTD 297 km

Video from Surge Narrows

Dave N shot some nice video of the wave at surge. Gives a nice idea of what it was like on the wave...

March 19th - Discovery Island (#24)

Dan and I went for a brisk paced midday paddle over to Discovery Island. I just realized that I went from paddling the Discovery Islands on the weekend to Discovery island today! There was a stiff SE wind at 15 knots that had set up some good waves on the East and South side of Discovery. The waves at the SE corner of Discovery were fun and were probably 2-3 metres high. You can definitely see the speed difference in our outbound and return track.

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15 km, YTD 249 km

March 18th - Surge Narrows (#23)

I went up to Surge Narrows again with the group and had a wonderful morning on the "wave". It was fun watching it gradually build from 9AM until almost noon when I left. I really felt that I had got the hang of the Delphin on that wave by the time I finished the morning. We met up with Jonathan, Alan and Brent who gave me some good tips. By the time I finished I was staying on the wave and moving around on it as well - great fun!

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5 km, YTD 234 km.

zoom into surge narrows

It was a great St. Patrick's weekend spent with Monica, Reale, Gloria, Dave and Alison, Kevin, John, Walter and Huw!

March 17th - Settler's Group (#22)

I went for an afternoon paddle with the group over to the waterfall on Maurelle Island. The current was now ebbing fairly strongly which made for many interesting crossings.

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10 km, YTD 229 km

March 17th- Surge Narrows (#21)

Monica and I went up to Discovery Islands Lodge with a wonderful bunch from Duncan and Nanaimo for the weekend. I managed to get up to the narrows for some tide race fun on the first morning. I had fun getting to know how my Delphin and the Shuna paddle worked together. We also ran into Brent there.

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6 km, YTD 219 km

March 10th - Currents Clinic (#20)

I helped Gary lead a currents clinic for SISKA. We were four instructors and 11 students and we had fun learning about eddy lines, ferrying and more. It was great to see smiles on faces when they felt their first good eddy turn!

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10 km, YTD 213 km

March 4th - Jordan River (#19)

I joined Zyoji, Dom, Justin, Ryan and Ted to go surfing at JR. Zyoji and Justin were on SUPs and Dom, Ryan and Ted were on regular boards while I was in the Delphin. The Delpin performed well though the waves were not quite pushy enough to be perfect! I got some nice rides and had to do a couple of combat rolls. I was wearing my new Comfort Paddling Tuilik which is sized to fit a larger cockpit. It was nice to wear a bib and tuilik instead of a dry suit!

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9 km, YTD 203 km

March 3rd - Oak Bay Marina (#18

Tom, Dan and I went for a morning paddle to Oak Bay Marina. There was a strong south-westerly blowing so we decided to keep in the lee and follow the shore to Oak Bay. Tom was trying out my Tahe Greenland and I was paddling the Delphin. As you can see from the track back, we had a nice tailwind push across Oak bay!

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9 km, YTD 195 km

March 1st - Discovery (#17)

Dan and I went for an afternoon paddle around Discovery. Conditions were nice with a good ebb when we started that had dissipated by the time we came back.  Dan had some trouble with his skeg, so we stopped for a while near Commodore Point.

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15 km, YTD 185 km