December 3rd - Cadboro Bay (#69)

I took the surf ski out for a quick afternoon paddle. There was a brisk northerly wind, but the sky was clear and the visibility was great. I could see Mt Baker as well as Mt Rainier (the latter was spectacular at sunset!). I ran into several harbour seals as well as a typical assortment of a dozen birds: https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S50409122 .

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7 km, YTD 548 km

December 1st - cadboro Bay (#69)

I led a SISKA "President's paddle" this morning before the club Christmas party. Eleven of us ventured out on the first of December and faced very gentle conditions for this time of year. Winds were less than 10 knots from the north and we made our way out and around Jemmy Jones Island. Idid not see as many birds out as yesterday (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S50354058) but we had nice views of buffleheads, hooded mergansers and black turnstones.

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6km, YTD 541 km

November 30th - Discovery and Chatham islands (#67

I went for a late morning/luchtime paddle with Dan around the islands. The tide was especially high (high enough to cover the white lichens in some places), so we explored a few places that we usually don't go. We saw harbor seals and a Steller sea lion as well as at least 16 kinds of seabirds. https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S50329819 . The prickly pear cacti on "cactus islet" seem do be doing well in spite of some of them being occasionally covered by the tide
While paddling through the northern part of Chatham we found an aluminum flare canister that had been used by the military. It has now been reported to the military so they can clean it up.

click to embiggen!

16 km, YTD 535 km

November 23rd - Golden Gardens Park, Seattle (#66)

I joined Setsuko, David and Marc for a Greenland rolling/paddling session at Golden Gardens Park in Seattle. We did a bunch of rolls and had fun experimenting with a Greenland paddle. The park is right beside Shilshole Bay marina.

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3 km, YTD 519 km

November 12th - Chatham Island (#65)

A quick morning paddle with Olivier who was over from Salt Spring Island out to the islands. It was a bit windier than we expected, so much harder work that planned - especially on the return leg! :)
I managed to get a little surfing in by the sluice by Vantreight!

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11 km, YTD 516 km

November 11th - Cadboro Bay (#

I went for an afternoon birding paddle around the bay - this time I brought my good binoculars - what a difference! Other than the usual suspects, I saw a white winged scoter (immature) and a rhinoceros auklet that were new for this week. https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S49871145

The air was pretty clear and I could see both Mt Baker AND Mt Rainier (215 km away!)

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7 km, YTD 505 km
(made my revised annual goal! 😊 )

November 10th - Chatham Island (#63)

I went for a late morning paddle out to Chatham Island. I was focusing on birds again this time and got some different species than other days- western grebe and ancient murrelet - and a total of 18. Out at Cadboro Point I ran into David K and we paddled together, catching up, to the south end of Chatham. https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S49837989

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10 km, YTD 498 km
(I think the 500 km goal is within reach! :) )

November 9th - Cadboro Bay (#62)

I went for an afternoon paddle and focused on birds again. (I did see a few harbour seals!) It was a beautiful flat calm afternoon and I saw most of the usual suspects...
You should be able to view my bird checklist on ebird:

https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S49814035

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7 km, YTD 488 km

November 7th - Cadboro Bay (#61)

I went for a short morning paddle around the bay and did a bit more birding again: bald eagle, great blue heron, bufflehead, hooded and common mergansers, marbled murrelet, common murre, black oystercatcher, harlequin duck, greater yellowlegs, Bonaparte's gull, double crested cormorant, northwestern crow, and probably some more! Nice conditions and I ran into some friends who were paddling around ten-mile point. You can see my speed was slower heading into the northerly wind!

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7 km, YTD 481 km

November 5th - Oak Bay (#60)

I went for a mid day paddle over to Oak Bay. It was a little breezy from the SW, so I decided to hug the shore of Cadboro and Oak Bays.Lots of sea lettuce washed ashore by the fall winds. I saw a good number of birds, including: black oystercatcher, great blue heron, american wigeon, harlequin duck, hooded merganser, common merganser, a large murder of crows(!!)pelagic cormorant and double crested cormorant. I am also pretty sure that I saw some buffleheads, but they were too far away to be sure. Oh and I forgot the pesky Canada geese!

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9km, YTD 474
(looks like I might make it to 500 km this year instead of 1000! too much time travelling!)

October 16th - Discovery Island (#59)

I went for an early morning paddle with Dan, joining Paulo out at Cadboro Point, and went for a trip around the Islands. Paulo and Dan have seen the wolf recently, but I have not. I saw lots of familiar birds: bald eagle, great blue heron, black oystercatcher, black turnstone, yellow legs (not sure which!), harlequin duck, marbled murrelet as well as a steller  sea lion and many harbour seals.

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15 km, YTD 465 km
(note: I will be lucky to reach 500 km this year, let alone 1000!)

October 6th - Campania Island (#58)

On my second trip we managed to get out for a lovely morning paddle in McMicking Inlet on Campania Island. Conditions were beautiful and we were joined by eagles and seals. In the zoomed in picture, note the "bog forest" behind the rim of conifers at the waters edge. Lots of cool plants there like Labrador tea, clubmoss, juniper and sundew!

zoomed out a bit - click to enlarge

zoomed in - click to enlarge

really zoomed out to show the whole area - click to enlarge

5 km, YTD 450 km

September 27th - Khutze Inlet (#57)

While I was on a Maple Leaf Adventures trip in the Great Bear Rainforest this fall I took some guests on a short paddle up the Khutze Inlet Estuary. The tide was quite low, so we could not get up too far! Later in the day we had great views of grizzly bears.

close up - click to enlarge

zoomed out a bit - click to enlarge

6 km, YTD 445 km

September 20th - Chatham Island (#56)

I went for a morning paddle with Dan arouund Chatham only as I did not have as much time as usual! Conditions were nice with a steady flood current. The sky was cool looking with rays around the sun!

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11 km, YTD 439km

September 15th - Gorge waterway (#55)

I went for an afternoon paddle in the Gorge to participate in the Victoria Canoe and Kayak Club's 50th anniversary celebrations. I launched at Kinsmen Park and paddled up to the Craigflower bridge. On the way back, we paddled as a mixed flotilla of paddle craft to the VCKC clubhouse.

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5 km, YTD 428 km

September 15th - Discovery Island (#54)

Dan and I went for a morning paddle around Discovery Island. Conditions were very calm with little current. There was a light rain throughout which was a nice change after the dryness of the Arctic! It was great to be out and getting a good paddle in!

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15 km, YTD 423 km

August 2018 - Baffin and Ellesmere Islands (#52 and 53)

While I was in the Canadian Arctic with Lindblad/National Geographic as a naturalist this summer, I managed to get out for two nice short paddles. One was in Buchan Gulf on Baffin Island and the other was in Muskox Fiord on Ellesmere Island. paddling in the high Arctic was pretty spectacular (as was travelling around the area!). The landscape is starkly beautiful and the lack of vegetation makes it easy to see the geology!

Buchan Gulf paddle (no GPS) (3 km)

Northern Baffin Island

Muskox Fiord (3 km)

southern Ellesmere Island

6 km, YTD 408 km

July 18th - Cadboro Bay (#51)

I went for a quick morning paddle, hoping to beat the wind, but it was fairly strong from the south and I decided to turn around at "island 7". I got in a little extra distance by touring the RVYC marina!
I also got to catch some nice waves coming back into the bay!

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6 km, YTD 402 km

July 13th - Buttle Lake (#50)

After spending three nights at Ralph River Campground in Buttle lake we stopped at the Buttle Lake boat launch and I went for a short paddle through the narrows. Conditions were very nice and I had fun exploring some of the islets. I could easily have spent more time, but we were on our way back home! Nice to have made it to 50 paddles in the year! I don't expect to make it to 1000 km or 100 paddles this year as I will be away travelling quite a bit!

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7 km, YTD 396 km

July 9th - Discovery Island (#49)

I went for an early morning (before breakfast!) paddle out around the Islands. It was nice and calm and there was not too much current. It was nice being out so early - very few others out other than a few sport fishing boats in Plumper passage. Lots of rhinoceros auklets around, and I saw some with fish in their beaks.

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15 km, YTD 390 km

July 8th - Catlle point (#48)

I went out for an evening SUP paddle to Cattle point and back. It was a gorgeous calm sunny evening with very few people on the water. I could see both Mt. Rainier and Mt Baker in the distance. Along the shore there were several large schools of tiny (one to three inches long)baitfish. One school was rippling the surface for 50 m and about 5 m across! I can't imagine how many thousand fish were in that school. There is a nice big sailing yacht moored in the bay - Tristan from Newport Beach, CA.
I saw a couple of black oystercatchers, a single marbled murrelet, a single great blue heron (if I ignore the ones across the street!) and a bunch of Canada geese. It was a nice change to go a bit slower (the SUP seems to cruise comfortably at about 4.5 kph, compared to 6.5 for a sea kayak and over 7.5 for the surf ski)

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5 km, YTD 375 km

July 7 - MEC paddlefest Willows Beach (#47)

I spent the day around Willows beach instructing three clinics for the MEC paddlefest. conditions were pretty good and I had a good time - I forgot to reapply sunscreen in the afternoon...
The clinics were: intermediate edging, intro to rolling, and an intro to Greenland-style paddling.

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4 km, YTD 370 km

July 6th - Chatham and Discovery Islands (#46)

Dan and I went for a morning paddle around the islands. Great conditions again with calm waters, sunshine and little current. On our way out we saw a fire on Chatham and eventually discovered that it was from a beach fire on the beach at Puget Cove - probably the result of a boat party last night. It had spread through the logs on the beach. There was a guy from C-Tow using a pump to put water on the fire and he blamed the fire on "irresponsible kayakers", which did not sit well with Dan or me. We continued our way around the islands and ran into Cheryl and had a good chat. We also met Mike B who is a regular visitor to the islands. On our way back across Pumper Passgae/Baynes Channel, we saw the SISKA group heading over for the campout. We made a short detour to chat with them too!

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16 km, YTD 365 km

July 5th - Cadboro Bay (#45)

I went for a quick morning paddle around the bay. Fabulous conditions! Calm, sunny and a little current. I sawthe usual suspects again: rhinoceros auklets, marbled murrelets, pigeon guillemots, pelagic cormorant, bald eagles, great blue herons and many Canada geese! Some nice yachts moored in front of Uplands...

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7 km, YTD 349 km.

July 2nd - Discovery Island (#44)

Dan and I went for a morning paddle around the islands - the first time in quite a while it seems. It was great to get out. Conditions were good and there were a lot of power boats out and about! I saw Canada geese, rhinoceros auklets, pigeon guillemots, pelagic cormorants, bald eagles, marbled murrelets, harlequin ducks and great blue herons.

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15 km, YTD 342 km

June 18-28 Haida Gwaii (#s 41-43)

While on board MV Swell as naturalist for Maple Leaf Adventures, I managed to get out for 3 paddles. One in Hutton Inlet on the first trip, one in De La Beche Inlet in the second trip and one at Moresby camp in the evening of our changeover day. 3 nice little paddles in a beautiful area!

Hutton inlet - 3 km - click to enlarge

De La Beche Inlet - 5 km - click to enlarge

Moresby Camp - 4 km - click to enlarge

South Moresby Island overview - click to enlarge

12 km, YTD 327 km

June 6th - Chatham Island (#40)

Dan and I went out for a morning paddle out to the Islands. We have not paddled together for a while since Dan was in Scandinavia for 6 or 7 weeks, so it was good to catch up. The weather was great - sunshine and light winds - and the only lumpy water we found was the wake of the V2V ferry!

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11 km, YTD 315 km

June 3rd - SISKA Intertidal Paddle (#39)

Though we normally do this paddle out of Willows Beach, we decided to do it in Caddy Bay this time to avoid conflict with the Oak Bay Tea Party! The weather was a bit cool and occasionally rainy, but we still had a great time exploring the intertidal and shallow subtidal zones. Highlights included a white lined dirona nudibranch as well as a bunch of mussels, worms, sponges and sea squirts that were living on my mooring buoy - it was a good excuse to clean it!
We made it as far as Spoon Bay for lunch and had fun exploring the RVYC breakwater and Loon Bay. Dave G and I were acting as the naturalist resource people and Debbie L was the paddle leader. A nice coffee was had afterwards at Olive Olio's

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4 km, YTD 304 Km

June 2nd - SISKA Picnic (#38)

I joined the gang at the SISKA picnic for the day and managed to get out for a short paddle in the afternoon. Though the track is only 0.5 km, I estimate that I actually went about 2 km as the GPS was not on for a good part of the time! We spent some time playing kayak games which involved races, stealing pool noodles from others' kayaks and various other crazy/fun antics!

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2 km, YTD 300 km

May 26th - Tod Inlet (#37)

Bill and I went for a quick paddle to Tod Inlet and gave each other a chance to try each others' boats. I had my Think Beg Eze surfski and Bill had his OC-1canoe. Boith are light weight and fast and fun! I managed not to flip the OC-1 and Bill did the same with the surf ski. It feels wierd to only paddle on one side at a time! :)

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7 km, YTD 298 km

May 23 - Clinic with Blair Doyle (#36)

I joined Blair from NS to help with a SISKA workshop on "on water scenarios". Blair kept us busy all day with a variety of interesting and testing scenarios and I think we all learned a lot!
Alan sent me a "Relive" version of our paddle which is fun to watch! (my GPS turned off at one point so the track across Baynes in interpolated!)

my track - click to enlarge

11 km, YTD 291 km

May 18-20 - TRAK Surf camp (#s 32-35)

I went to Wya Point Resort for a 4 day TRAK kayak surf and coastal paddling camp. It was really neat to meet a wonderful group of TRAK owners and also to paddle in a "one design" group where everyone was paddling the same kayak!
We did our first day of training paddling in Wya Bay working on skills. Our second day was a coastal journey from Wya Bay to Wickininnish on Long Beach, and the third day was a surf session at Long Beach.

Day 1 - click to enlarge - AM + PM paddles

Day 2 - Wya to Wick journey - click to enlarge

Day 3 - surf at Long Beach- Click to enlarge

Paddle 32 May 18 AM 4 km
Paddle 33 May 18 PM 4 km
Paddle 34 May 19 - 14 km
Paddle 35 May 20 - 2 km

YTD 280 km

May 12th - Oak Bay and Chatham birding paddle (#31)

I paddled over to Turkey Head beach to join a SISKA birding paddle guided by Daniel and led by Jennie. Conditions were excellent and we saw a nice variety of shore and sea-birds. Due to paddling over to the starting point and back it was a nice long paddle for me! I was able to get a better handle on identifying our three species of cormorant (pelagic, Brandt's and double-crested). Plenty of rhinoceros auklets and pigeon guillemots around.

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22 km, YTD 256 km

May 6th - Oak Bay intertidal paddle (#30)

I paddled over to Willows Beach to join a group of SISKA paddlers to help lead an intertidal exploration paddle. My paddle was 7 km and the club paddle was 3 km! You can see a difference in my pace getting to the group and back vs the actual exploration paddle! I saw a few Canada geese and pelagic cormorants on my paddle and we also saw some black oystercatchers. An intertidal highlight for me was seeing some small individuals of the "pretty red sponge nudibranch " (Rostanga pulchra). Conditions were outstanding when we were out looking beneath the water's surface as there was no wind for a while and the water was quite clear. No lumpy water to interfere with viewing!

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10 km, YTD 234 km

May 5th - Cadboro Bay (#29)

I went for a quick morning paddle on the surfski and enjoyed sunny weather and a decent northerly wind. You can see it slowed me back on the return leg of the trip. Saw Jennie and Edgar doing a SISKA PC level 1 class on the beach as I was returning.

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8 km, YTD 224 km

May 2nd - Cadboro Bay (#28)

I joined Jennie at Gyro Park to lead a SISKA clinic on forward stroke for sea kayaking. We had a dozen participants and all showed a much improved stoke by the time the sun went down - the clinic started at 6 PM!

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2 km, YTD 216 km

April 28th - Caboro Bay RVYC opening day and crabbing (#26 and 27)

I paddled out to join four other paddlers and many other sail and motor boats in the sailpast for the RVYC opening day. It was fun to be part of the event. After I had done the "sail past", following HMCS Grizzly,  I went out to look at my crab traps and determined that there were crabs in the traps! This resulted in a later trip... There are quite a few marbled murrelets and rhinoceros auklets around now!

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6 km, YTD 211 KM

After the earlier paddle I decided to take the fishing kayak (trident angler) which is stable enough to allow me to retrieve crab traps! (the whisky 16 was not so!). I came back with 3 nice Dungeness crab. You can see rom the track this was a pretty focussed trip!

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3 km, YDT 214 km

April 22nd - Caddy Bay (#25)

After going for a walk on the beach, I decided that I had to go out for a paddle! So I grabbed the Oarboard Adventure and went for a spin around the bay. A few buffleheads, mnergansers and a couple of great bluer herons out. Stopped by Natural C-lection to check on it! :)
Beautiful day for Earth Day. You can really see the difference in speed between the SUP and the surfski when you compare today's track with last Fridays!

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4 km, YTD 205 km