November 28th - Cadboro Bay (#53)

I went for a 1 hour afternoon paddle around the bay. The winds had died down a bit and since they were from the north, the bay was quite protected. I had nice views of Mt. Rainier and Mt. Baker. As I went past Cadboro Point, I encountered some lumpy water and decided to take it easy and went back to the bay! I saw most of the usual birds, including buffleheads, hooded and common mergansers, Canada gees, bald eagle, great blue heron, glaucous-winged gull, harlequin duck and pelagic and double-crested cormorants.

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7 km, YTD 385 km.

November 23rd - Cadboro Bay (#52)

I joined 11 others on a SISKA club paddle. The intent was to head up the coast to Glencoe Cove for lunch and then come back. However the wind and waves were strong enough around Ten Mile Point that we decided that the prudent option was to head back across Cadboro  and Oak bays to Willows Beach where we stopped for lunch.When we left the beach, we could see Mt. Rainier poking its summit above the Seattle clouds. I always like it when I can see that far away (~215 km)! There were plenty of birds around, including buffleheads, hooded mergansers, black oystercatchers, pigeon Guillemots, double crested and pelagic cormorants and a couple of bald eagles.

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12 km, YTD 378 km

November 21st - Jordan river (#51)

I went for a surfing paddle out at Jordan River. Conditions were nice with very few people on the water and waves that were just big enough for me to have fun but not so big as to be a challenge for me. A great first surf paddle in a while!

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2 km, YTD 366 km

November 19th - looking for the buoy (#50)

I went searching for my mooring buoy which seems to have disappeared since Friday or Saturday. No sign of it on the water or on the beach... :( I liked having the buoy there even though I did not use it much.

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2 km, YTD 364 km

November 19th - Ten Mile Point (#49)

I went for a morning paddle out to Ten Mile Point. Quite a bit of new construction along the shoreline! The usual birds and lots of them! There must be a decent amount of feed in the bay.

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9km, YTD 362 km (7 paddles in 7 days!)

November 18th - Cadboro Point and Jemmy Jones (#48)

I went for a late morning paddle in the F1. It was rainy but calm and there were quite a few birds around: bufleheads, hooded mergansers, bald eagle, pelagic and double-crested cormorants, marbled murrelet, pigeon guillemot and more. I noticed that my track back from Jemmy Jones was pretty straight and made an almost perfect right angle with the track from Cadboro Point!

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6 km, YTD 353 km
(six times in six days! :) )

November 17th - Flower Island (#47)

I went for a quick sunset (literally) paddle as I thought it would be good to paddle 5x in 5 days! :)
It was reasonably windy (around 10kt from the SSW) which slowed me down a bit crossing the bay!

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5 km, YTD 347 km

November 16th - Ten Mile Point (#46)

I went for a surf ski paddle with Greg (an old student of mine) who also has a Think Big Eze. It was raining lightly and winds were around 10 knots from the SE - made a bit of a chop. We saw many of the usual birds, including buffleheads and a group of bald eagles.

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9 km, YTD 342 km

November 15th - Cadboro Bay (#45)

I went for a nice afternoon paddle. It was sunny with an 8 knot SW wind and a high tide - which allowed me to check out channels I don't usually get to. Birding was good: bufflehead, hooded merganser, black oystercatcher, great blue heron, pelagic and double-crested cormorants, rhinoceros auklet, and more!

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8 km, YTD 333km

November 14th - Cadboro Bay- Flower Island (#44)

I went for a morning SUP around the Bay and made it out to Flower Island. It is interesting to me that the SUP is just over half as fast as the surf ski (not sure how much of that is the vessel and how much is the paddler!). The first birds I saw on the water were buffleheads, but I also saw hooded mergansers, belted kingfisher, great blue heron, Canada geese and more.

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4 km, YTD 325 km.
PS, looks like I could easily make my 50 paddles/year goal, but not so sure about 500 km this year!

November 13th - Cadboro Bay (#43)

I went for a nice afternoon paddle on the surf ski. Conditions were nice and I saw a good number of birds including harlequin duck, black oystercatcher, hooded merganser and pigeon guillemot in winter plumage. It was good to be back on the water!

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8 km, YTD 321 km