January 29th - Discovery Island (#5)

Dan and I went for a morning paddle around the islands - my last chance for a few weeks, as I am of on a trip again soon. Conditions were nice and sunny with a reasonable ebb current and a fairly strong northerly wind (10-15 kt). We saw lots of birds (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S52184390) including 26 bald eagles around Discovery!
We decided to go counter clockwise this time. The track to Commodore point on Discovery was pretty straight! You can see that the outward journey was a lot faster than the return! We managed to swing north and not get carried too far downstream by the ebb current in Baynes.

click to embiggen!

15 km, YTD 46 km

January 26th - Discovery Island (#4)

Dan and I went for a morning paddle around the islands. Conditions were great - sunny and calm -  though with a strong ebb current. We saw lots of birds including 22 bald eagles on Discovery island - most around Rudlin Bay. https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S52068414
The ebb current carried us downstream as we returned across Baynes channel!

click to enlarge

16 km, YTD 31 km

January 24th - Port Renfrew (#3)

I was up at the cottages in Renfrew doing some maintenance and managed to get out for a nice play in the surf by the San Juan rivermouth. The waves were not too big but still gave me some great rides! The Hammer is fun in surf! :)
There were some nice birds around as well including surf scoter, pacific loon, common merganser, bald eagle and more.

click to enlarge

5 km, YTD 15 km

January 20 - Cadboro Bay (#2)

I made it out for a solo paddle on Sunday morning the day after returning from my Galapagos and Antarctic experience. Great to be out on home waters. Buffleheads, hooded mergansers, bald eagles, pelagic cormorants, common mergansers, Canada goose, and more.

click to enlarge

8 km, YTD 10 km

January 3rd - Devil Island, Antarctica (#1)

I managed to get out for a short paddle at Devil Island in the Weddell Sea off the eastern tip of the Antarctic peninsula and realize a dream of paddling in the Antarctic. I have now been able to paddle in both the Arctic and the Antarctic within the span of a year! It was great to paddle amongst icebergs and penguins!

click to enlarge the paddling area

showing the location in the Weddell Sea

2 km, YTD 2 km

December 12th - Espumilla beach James Bay (#72)

I was able to get out for another paddle early in the morning and paddled between Espumilla beach and Cerro Cowan. I saw a few hammerhead sharks while paddling! :)

click to enlarge

3 km. YTD 556 km

I guess I did not make the 100 paddles or 1000 km goal this year due to having too much fun on trips around the world... Next year's goal will be revised down to 50 paddles and 500 km!

December 11th - Tagus cove (#s 70&71)

I managed to get out for a kayak and a SUP paddle while on board National Geographic Endeavour II as a guest lecturer. It was nice to be out paddling amongst Galapagos penguins, flightless cormorants and green sea turtles!

the kayak trip 3 km

the SUP trip 2 km

5 km, YTD 553 km