May 30th - Discovery Island (#49)

Dan, George and I went for a morning paddle out to the islands. There was a steady 10-15 kt SW wind which made things more interesting. Nice sunny morning and a good paddle. By the time we returned, there was a solid ebb.

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15 km, YTD 410 km.

May 29th - kaboat test (#48)

I took the new Kaboat 396 (12ft) inflatable out for a row and paddle in the bay. I brought a short paddle so ended up mostly rowing. The boat moves nicely and will work well as a tender for Natural C-lection.
I also think that it will be paddleable with one of my longer paddles.

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1 km, YTD 395 km

May 23rd - Breton Islands (#47)

I went up to Quadra Island to participate in the annual Pautik campout, an informal gathering of Greenland paddlers. WE camped on Rebecca Spit and had a leisurely morning of rolling practice and instruction. I spent some time working on my forward-forward norsaq roll which has been eluding me for some time. After spending some time with Alan coaching me, I made some good progress to the point that I got several double norsaq forward finishing rolls. I need to keep working on this as it now seems close! I estimate that I paddled 1 km in total, but decided not to count it!
In the afternoon I went for a paddle over to the Breton Islands with Andrew and Alan. The main  (south) Breton island  has a very nice campsite. I also saw several the Ochre sea stars (Pisaster sp) which have virtually disappeared around Victoria
It was good to see Andrew who had come all the way from Olympia to join us. It was also nice to meet up with several others of the "pautik clan".

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10 km, YTD 394 km.

May 20th - Cadboro Bay (#46

I went for an after dinner run around Cadboro Bay on the surf ski. A beautiful evening. I ran into Curran, SUPing with his dog, dropped by Heliomare to see if anyone was home and then zig-zagged around the bay a bit.

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6 km, YTD 384 km

May 17/18 - Clark and Sucia Islands (#45)

Monica and Jenny and I went over to the San Juans for the weekend and used the Scamper II inflatable to go to and from the shore and the C-dory. I figured that I clocked about a total of 2 km as each run usually required two trips to get the three of us ashore or aboard! Fantastic weather and the Scamper works quite well as a tender/dinghy for the c-dory.
2 km, YTD 378 km

May 12th _ Cadboro Bay Greenland clinic (#44)

I led an evening clinic for 7 SISKA paddlers to introduce them to the Greenland paddle and provide tips on using it. The favourite paddle was the Superior Carbon - it just feels great to paddle! key tips included blade cant and getting the whole paddle wet (pinky in the water!). I forgot to turn the GPS on, so no track and an estimated paddle distance!
 2km, YTD 376 km

May 8-10 Cowichan Lake (#s 40-43)

I went up to Gordon Bay for the weekend to test out the new to us travel trailer (Keystone outback LE 21) and do some paddling. I went out once for a short paddle on the inflatable SUP and then had 3 really nice paddles on the lake in the Trak 1600. I have had the TRAK for a year but had not assembled it! It was easy to assemble and performed well. I was able to keep up a decent pace in it and it maneuvered well. The first trip was to the north and west and i dropped by Youbou, the second was a shorter one to check out Goat Island, and for the third one I went east to Bear Lake.
The travel trailer worked well, except that the batteries were shot and need replacing.

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the travel trailer and the TRAK 1600

39 km, YTD 374 km

May 7 - RVYC (#39)

Jenny and I went out for a quick before work SUP paddle out to to the yacht club and back. The new dock layout makes it tricky to get around at anything but the highest tides!

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2 km, YTD 335 km

May 5th - Towing clinic in Cadboro Bay (#38)

I led an evening towing clinic for 3 SISKA members. We talked about various towing options and then spent some time meandering around the bay putting things into practice. I am 1/3 of the way to my annual goal of 1000 km...

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3 km, YTD 333 km

May 4th - Willows Beach (#37)

I paddled over to the yacht club where I met David and then we paddled over to Willows Beach where I was acting as a naturalist with David as trip leader for a SISKA intertidal exploration paddle.
Conditions were great, though the wind was just strong enough to ripple the surface making it harder to see beneath the waves. We had a good beach session and then paddled over to Mary Todd (Jimmy Chicken) Islet where we looked at sea cucumbers, a few sea stars, a few nudibranchs and more.

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11 km, YTD 330 km

May 2nd - Discovery Island (#36)

I paddled out to Cadboro Point to meet with Dan and Paulo for a quick trip around the islands. Nice sunny calm morning! Saw a few sea lions and lots of the usual birds.

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15 km, YTD 319 km.