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

April 20th - Cadboro Bay tour (#24)

I went for a short afternoon spin around the bay to get some fresh air (reprieve from doing taxes!). It was flat calm and overcast and a low tide (1.6ft). Not too much in the way of birds around. A few Canada geese and a couple of small flocks of buffleheads and mergansers. I did see a couple of great blue herons and a river otter (in the sea!).

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7 km, YTD 201 km

April 15th - Victoria Harbour (#23)

After the guides' exchange was officially over I went for a short paddle around the upper harbour on a multi-person SUP with Olympian Simon Whitfield and several others. A 4 person, 22 ft long SUP goes quite fast (though not as fast as a good kayak!). I did not have my GPS for this one.
After that I went for a paddle in one of the ORS rental fleet a CD Prana (very nice kayak!) and made my way down to the Fort Street docks. I paddled past a boat that is on its way to Galapagos (Pacific Coaster, soon to be Cachalote Explorer) and then under the catamaran Village (soon to be Cascadia). The Cascadia catamaran has a neat "tunnel" underneath! It was also my first paddle under the new Johnson Street bridge!

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2 km, YTD 194 km

April 14th - Sooke rock Gardens (#22)

I assisted Scot and Jordie in leading a "rock garden" class for 8 SKGABC guides as part of the guides' exchange. We had perfect conditions - no wind and just enough swell to make it interesting but not so much as to make it too "exciting". The participants all finished the day with big smiles, so I think the class was a success.

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6 km, YTD 192 km

April 6th - Cattle Point (#21)

I decided to go for a quick paddle while the power was out and I could not work! :) I had a fairly relaxed paddle out to the cattle point marker and back. On my way, I checked out the sunken sailboat, my mooring buoy and my C-dory in the yacht club. I saw courting mergansers as well as a bunch of Canada geese who looked like they were about to nest...

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5 km, YTD 186 km (I am way behind schedule for my 1000 km goal!)

March 17-27 - California trip (#s 16-20

Monica and I spent two and a half weeks travelling down the California Coast from crescent City to Monterey this March break and I managed to get out paddling five times! I saw many places I would love to paddle more - next time!

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March 17th - Big Lagoon (near Trinidad) (#16)

I went for a morning paddle around this lagoon which is the southernmost of three lagoons making up Humboldt Lagoons State park. It was neat to see the open ocean on the other side of the beach. At the north end of the lagoon there were quite a few seals and cormorants near the outflow. The lagoon is pretty shallow in many parts.

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13 km

March 19th - Mackerricher State Park (#17)

We really liked this State Park and I managed to find a protected place to launch amongst the rocks. There was a fair bit of swell in places and not too many landing options. I saw a few grey whales as well as seals.

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5 km

March 24th - Elkhorn Slough (#18)

We went to Elkhorn Slough on Brad's recommendation and were not disappointed. I have never seen so many sea otters up so close. In addition the seals and shorebirds were remarkably non-skittish. This was one of the most amazing paddles I have done from a wildlife point of view. We saw lots of sea otters and seals as well as: marbled godwit, willet, whimbrel, egrets, herons, avocets and more! I was kicking myself that I did not have a longer lens or binoculars with me!

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8 km

March 27th - Monterey's waterfront (#19)

I went for a morning paddle along the waterfront while Monica went for a nice bike ride. There were lots of sea lions and courting Brandt's cormorants on the seawall. Sea otteras and seals were scattered throughout the kelp beds and it was neat to see the area we had walked a couple of days earlier from the sea.

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8 km

March 27th - Elhorn Slough (#20)

Our first visit to Elkhorn Slough was so amazing that we had to go back - this time we brought cameras with longer lenses as well as binoculars. The wildlife was just as amazing as before and we had another great paddle and got lots of photographs... Timing the paddle around low tide seems to be good.

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6 km

40 km total for the five paddles, YTD 181 km