February 22 - Discovery (#13)

Dan and I went for a morning paddle around Discovery. We went first to the channel between the Chathams where a seal carcass had been for a few weeks and the wolf had been lurking around. Neither the seal nor the wolf was to be seen. I picked up a crab trap float, and we saw a few young guys snorkelling for crab. the had some nice ones! We decided to make it a figure of eight. There were 3 California sea lions by commodore point as well as lots of seals and eagles. Plenty of surf scoters, buffleheads, hooded mergansers, black turnstones, common mergansers harlequin ducks and more. Though the day started with some wet snow falling and it was quite cool conditions were calm and we stayed warm enough.

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16 km, YTD 136 km

February 18th - Cadboro Bay (#12)

Dan and I set out on what was forecasted to be a windy afternoon to do some rolling in Loon Bay. The winds were from the S and W, so the bay was fairly protected and we were able to get some good practice in. I am still a bit rusty on some of the advanced rolls! After we had cooled down from the rolling we went for a short paddle around the bay, and I wanted to gather some more plankton for school. I trolled the plankton net from the yacht club to Flower Island. We had a wonderful rainbow on our way back to Loon Bay seen from the yacht club.

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6 km, YTD 120 km

February 15th - Discovery (#11)

I cancelled a club paddle due to the forecast of 20-30 knots in in the Cadboro - Oak Bay region and went for an early morning paddle around Chatham and Discovery with Dan and Paulo.As it turned out those winds have yet to appear, though Discovery was recording between 10 and 20 most of the morning. We had some nice waves in Baynes and what seemed like around 10 knots for most of the trip. Monica wanted me to gather some plankton for school, so I dragged a small net across Rudlin Bay and a then a larger one in Cadboro Bay. The small net slowed me down a bit, but the large one slowed me down a lot! (you can see the segments on the track plot)
As we paddled up between the Chathams, we saw the wolf. I have not seen her in a while, and she looks to be in good health. She is quite unconcerned by us and watched us for a while.

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15 km, YTD 114 km

February 8th - Courtenay River (#10)

While four of us were staying at Courtenay River Cottage again, Bill and I took the two Tahes for a morning paddle in the Courtenay River. There was ice all around, the water was cold, but the air was not bad! We broke some ice here and there in the river backwaters and saw lots of small jellyfish in the river estuary. The cottage is handy since it backs onto the river.In the afternoon we went for a snowy hike up on the logging roads near Mt Washington. The next day we went snowshoeing in the same area and then today Monmioca and I went cross-country skiing at Mt Washington nordic - both sunshine and heavy snowfall in a short time period! A great weekend!

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6 km, YTD 99 km