November 27&28 - surge Narrows (#s 111 and 112)

I went up to Campbell River to spend a few days at Surge Narrows. This was an event that Alan had organized for the Nanaimo Paddlers. There were 6 of us on Friday and 9 on Saturday. The wave was good on both days and I was able to get my fill of paddling on the wave. I have some video clips that Alan took with his camera. I will post them on line eventually, but here is one short one of the wave at the end of the first day when I was tired and the  wave small again. https://vimeo.com/147157465
Two great days at Surge to start the season and good company as well. Thanks so much to Alan and Chris for hosting me. It was fun playing in the lumpy water behind the wave as well. I avoided getting sucked into any whirlpools! It is hard to describe how nice it is to feel the water rushing underneath your kayak while you virtually stay in one spot! A wildlife highlight was seeing a peregrine falcon chase a gull on the Saturday! I am looking forward to seeing some of David'd video as well.

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10 km, YTD 936 km.

November 25th - Discovery Island (#110)

After a nice lazy breakfast and coffee, I met Dan and we went for a morning paddle around Discovery. Conditions were good, sunny and 10-15 knots from the North. The bay was protected , so the only lumpy water was around the top end of Chatham. We had good chats and ran into Reale and some friends who were doing the same thing as us, only a couple of hours later.
I am at paddle #110 for the year and have only 74 km left to reach my goal, so it is looking promising! I still have all of December! Heading up to Campbell River and Quadra for the weekend.

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15 km, YTD 926 km.

November 14th - Discovery Island (#109)

Dennis, Olivier, Paulo and I went for a morning paddle out to Chatham and Discovery. When we launched from the beach we noticed that the beach was closed due to the needles and stuff that had washed off the derelict boat that had washed ashore on Wednesday. There was a good ebb current running so we decided to go around the islands counter-clockwise for a change. We ran into Lanny at the beach in Rudlin Bay and he joined us for the paddle back. We also ran into the lady who has been watching the wolf from her 16ft(?) Hourston. She and Olivier heard shots being fired on Chatham and we are a bit worried for the wolf.
You can see the effect of the ebb current running SE through Baynes channel on the track.

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16 km, YTD 911 km

November 12th - Victoria Harbour (#108)

I joined 4 of the "Thursday Paddlers" (Alan, Alex, John and Debbie) for a paddle in the gorge and Victoria Harbour. Winds were forecast to be substantial today, so it seemed sensible to paddle in protected waters. We launched from Esquimalt-Gorge Park a few minutes late since I got half way there and realized that I had forgotten my spray-deck! We made it down the gorge and into the inner harbour passing by several derelict live-aboard boats. We made our way under the Blue Bridge past the new bridge construction and over to take a look at MV Swell (the boat I was guiding on during the summer). We then made our way along the Songhees shoreline to West bay and then out to Ogden point where we stopped for lunch. The predicted winds did pick up around noon, but did not affect us much. We stopped for a coffee at the Spiral cafe on Craigflower and had a good chat. By the time we had finished the paddle, it had started to rain quite heavily.

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16 km, YTD 895 km

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You can see a wind record for the day for Trial Island and another one for Ogden point:

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By the time I made it home, Cadboro Bay was looking pretty wild and at least three boats had come aground!

November 11th - Cadboro Bay inner loop (#107)

I went for a short afternoon paddle, to make sure I got one in before the winds hit (gales due tomorrow!). Conditions were not bad with 5-15 knots in the bay. One powerboat is aground after last night's winds (35 kph from the SE at Ten Mile Point. I expect there may be a few more aground tomorrow...
On my way back, I saw a strange plane flying around the bay - basically a flying boat! It landed and dropped someone off on the beach and then took off again. I later discovered that it was a Lake amphibious seaplane. I had never seen a plane land in the bay, nor had I seen a seaplane like this one!
It is definitely getting cooler and I came home to make a fine pumpkin latte!

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5 km, YTD 789 km

November 5th - Cadboro Bay (#106)

I went for a morning solo tour around the bay in the F1. It was fun to watch the V of the kayak's bow slice through the water in front of me. While I was out I saw scoters, cormorants, loons and more. I was able to keep up a nice steady pace - 6.3 kph.

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8km, YTD 874 km

November 1st - Albert head (#105)

I joined James and 3 others for a day long Greenland paddling and rolling course. We did some paddling in the morning, including some fairly lumpy water. It was good to see everyone in the group using their GPs well. After lunch we went into the lee of the head to do a rolling session. James is a great instructor, clear about how things work and also good at spotting errors. The weather was fairly windy and rainy but we had a good, productive day. I was able to improve my forward finishing rolls.

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7 km, YTD 866 km