April 26th - Cadboro bay (#32)

Nice late morning paddle. I saw a lot of sailboats out as well as a group of 8 SUPers. The geese are pretty active. I may not have mentioned that last weekend I saw a pair of geese with two small goslings already! The pelagic cormorants have their white patches, the pigeon guillemots are in summer plumage and the rhinoceros auklets are busy feeding.

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8 km, YTD 200 km.

April 24th - Chatham Island (#31)

Jeff and I went for a socially distant paddle over to Chatham Island. We saw a good number of birds and, not surprisingly, spent a good deal of time talking natural history! During our paddle there were at least 8 EA-18G Growler take off (or landings) on Whidbey Island. They make an incredible noise to be so easily heard over here. Currents and winds were minimal which made for a very nice paddle.

Click to embiggen!

10 km, TYTD 192 km

April 20th - Cadboro Bay (#30)

I went out for a quick morning paddle on the surfski. Being out on the water allows one to think about things and observe nature.So many seabirds are "dressed" in black - the counter-shading gives them an advantage as predators of small fish! I was able to keep up a pretty good pace using my Greenland paddle. I stopped briefly to chat with Tim, who was out in his rowing boat.

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6 km, YTD 182 km

Paddling stats 2006 to 2019

I decided to update my paddling stats as I seem to have forgotten to do this for 2018 and 2019...

Since I returned from Antarctica in mid March, I have been doing well this year with 24 paddles in five weeks.

So here is the summary for all the paddles I have recorded in the blog:

Year #	Year	# paddles	km total	km per paddle
1	2006	77	1273	16.50
2	2007	66	1098	16.60
3	2008	75	1080	14.40
4	2009	116	1381	11.90
5	2010	124	1214	9.80
6	2011	105	1217	11.60
7	2012	87	1001	11.50
8	2013	92	1063	11.60
9	2014	98	911	9.30
10	2015	120	1025	8.50
11	2016	129	1076	8.30
12	2017	86	728	8.47
13	2018	69	548	7.94
14	2019	57	427	7.49
15	2020 YTD	29	176	6.07
	Totals	1330	14218	10.69

I am kind of amazed that the totals have added up to so much over the years. In the first 14 years I did over 1300 hundred paddles and over 14000 km - pretty much all of it GPS tracked and recorded in a screen shot. The average paddle length has decreased substantially. The first decrease was in 2009 when we moved to Killarney ad it was feasible and worthwhile to go for a short paddle in the bay and more recently as I have been busy doing more natural history trips. Natural history trips have also made an impact on how many times I get out to paddle as well!

April 19th - Chatham Island (#29)

I paddled over to Staines Island were I met up with Fraser and we headed across Baynes Channel to paddle around the Chatham Islands. Conditions were pretty good. The winds were around 10 knots when we started and closer to 5 knots when we finished. The current in Baynes was flooding fairly strongly as we crossed over and quite a bit weaker when we returned. we stopped and chatted with Ian on the south beach of Chatham. It was great to catch up with Fraser and show him some of the Islands.

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12 km, YTD 176 km

April 18th - Cadboro Point (#28)

Monica and I went for a morning paddle in lovely conditions. No wind, minimal current and a mid tide. We saw plenty of birds including Canada geese, harlequin ducks, rhinoceros auklets, black oystercatcher, northwestern crow, glaucous-winged gull.

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6 km, YTD 164 km.

April 16th - Cadboro Bay (#27)

I went for a morning paddle to start the day of well. I took the surf ski so that it was a bit more of a work out. You can see that the 10 knot northerly wind slowed me down a bit on the way back from Cattle Point.it feels good to have made it out 22 times since I got home a month ago!

(colourized by speed)click to enlarge

8 km, YTD 158 km

PS, I thought I could add two more plots colourized by heart rate and cadence...

colourized by heart rate (click to enlarge)

colourized by cadence (click to enlarge)

April 14th - Cadboro Bay (#26)

I made it out for another nice paddle this morning as the winds were not too strong and the forecast was for increasing winds. Conditions were good and a mid tide allowed me to poke into a few spots that have not been available at lower tides. On may way back from Cattle Point, I noodled my way along the shore.

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8 km, YTD 150 km

April 13th - Oak Bay Marina (#25)

Jeff and I went for an afternoon paddle over to Oak bay Marina and back. great conditions with clear views of Mt. Baker and Mt. Rainier. Ran into David (a colleague from SMUS) at Oak bay marina and had a chat and then ran into Rina and Curran who were out on their SUP boards with their kids. Its a small world out there on the water! Spotted some marbled murrelets! :)

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9 km, YTD 142 km

April 12th - Oak and Cadboro bays (#24)

I went for an afternoon "run" around the bays and checked out the marina at Oak Bay. Conditions were very nice starting with a very low tide. I realize that in the 4 weeks since I got back, I have managed to get out paddling 19 times! Not too bad! Nice view of Mt. Rainier in the clear sky.

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10 km, YTD 133 km

April 11th - Brentwood Bay (#23)

Monica and I joined Bill and Sharon (on their OC-1s) for a paddle around Brentwood Bay and Tod Inlet. conditions were great and it was wonderful to chat with friends! There were lots of moon jellies in Tod inlet!

click to enlarge

7 km, YTD 123 km

April 10th - Ten Mile Point (#22)

Jeff joined me for a paddle out to Ten Mile point and back this afternoon. the tide was fully out when we started, but the flood had started out by Cadboro Point. WE saw lots of nice seaweeds and had some fun negotiating the current. I had not seen Jeff since we returned from Antarctica, so it was good to catch up.

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7 km, YTD 116 km

April 7th - Cadboro Bay (#21)

I went for a morning "run" around the bay on the surf ski. Conditions were perfect and I had some good views of long-tailed ducks, rhinoceros auklets, pelagic cormorants, pigeon guillemots, black oystercatchers and more.

click to enlarge

8 km, YTD 109 km

April 6th - Cadboro Bay (#20)

Monica and I went for an afternoon paddle. Monica was in the F1 and I was in the Trident. We paddled most of the way to Cadboro Point before turning back and checking and retrieving the  traps. We had 6 nice legal crab between us which was very nice! We saw oystercatchers, rhinoceros auklets, harlequin ducks and I was able to make out Mt Rainier in the distance - just! We also saw a moving buoy which turned out to be a diver positioning a mooring! You can see where the traps were by the slow sections on the track where I was drifting!

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5 km, YTD 101 km

April 5th - Evans Rock and Loon bay (#s18&19)

I went out in the afternoon to check the crab traps (enough for dinner!) and went around Evans rock. there were a few black turnstones on Evans Rock which is the first time I have seen them this year. After I got back I decide to head out again for a SUP paddle and went over to Loon Bay. Conditions were nice for both paddles with a light(10-15 kph) northerly wind.

click to enlarge

6 km, YTD 96 km

April 3rd - Jemmy Jones (#17)

Pete and I went out for a paddle around the bay. We were able to keep a good distance from each other but still have an opportunity to chat and catch up. There was a fairly stiff SW wind which gave us a nice push over to Jemmy Jones, but slowed us down somewhat on the way back into the bay! This is quite visible on the track. It was great to chat and I hope we can get out again.

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7 km, YTD 90 km

April 2nd - Crabbing (#16)

I went out to check the crab traps. Kept 3 nice male Dungeness. Saw rhinoceros auklets and surf scoters. Chatted with dean on Caddy Boy again.

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3 km, YTD 83 km

April 1st - Cadboro Point (#15)

This afternoon I went out for a nice paddle to Cadboro Point. The tide was pretty low but it was nice and sunny with a cool north wind. On my way out I chatted with Dean on CaddyBoy who was out crabbing. On my way back I chatted with Leah and Morgan who were heading out on their paddle-boards. The usual birds were seen as well as a belted kingfisher.

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7 km, YTD 80 km