May 26 - Discovery island (#17)

Dan and I paddled out of Killarney to go around the islands. Conditions were excellent! No wind and very little current, so we made a good pace. we saw both the SALTS ships, Pacific Grace and Pacific Swift. swift was in Cadboro Bay and Grace was off Puget Cove on Chatham. It is a little hazy to the east - fire smoke? - and we could barely see Mt Baker. We did see both Steller Sea Lions and a California Sea lion male. The Steller's were on Brinn Rock and the California was swimming in the are and barking regularly!

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15 km, YTD 246 km.

May 21 - Telegraph Cove (#16)

Dave and I led a small group of SISKA paddlers on another intertidal exploration paddle. We originally planned to operate out of Willows Beach but we decided to move to Telegraph Cove due to the winds and the possibility of lumpy water. We had a beach talk about tides and intertidal life followed by an exploration of the low tide area by kayak. We ended up pretty much avoiding any significant wind and saw many seaweeds and marine invertebrates. A lovely day on the water!

We also saw a lot of purple "ochre stars" - more than I have seen around here in some time!

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4 km, YTD 231 km

May 17th - Discovery Island (#15)

I organized a "Wednesday group" paddle to go around the islands - 20 kayaks and 21 paddlers. We had great conditions. Lots of nice colours in the track. I decided to head out into the gap/Baynes early since there was a strong flood current and we had a nice push back into the bay. Nice coffee visit after at the Moka house.

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16 km, YTD 227 km

may 16th - Margaret Bay (#14)

I paddled out to Cadboro Point to meet Dan and Paulo, intending to paddle around the islands, but it was quite windy from the south, so we decided to paddle north instead. Conditions were great! :) On the way back I had the wind mostly at my back for the paddle into the bay which was nice!

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20 km, YTD 211 km.

May 14th - Discovery Island ((#13)

I paddled over to Staines Island to meet Fraser who is over from Vancouver for a paddle around the Islands. Conditions were excellent - sunny, not too much wind or current. As we paddled across Baynes Channel, I noticed that the VK cardinal buoy at Fulford Reef was gone. As we approached Seabird Point (1.6 NM to the SSW) we noticed a north cardinal buoy, paddled over to it and sure enough it was VK (Victor Kilo), so it has moved quite a bit in the past few weeks!  The navigational buoys around Victoria are usually prefaced with a V - one of my favourites is the VF buoy which is almost at the US-Canada border south of Race Rocks. I have been out there a few times fishing for coho! You can see where we paddled around the buoy at the easternmost part of the track.

We saw some Steller sea lions, harbour seals as well as surf scoter, rhinoceros auklet, pelagic and Brandt's cormorant, Canada goose (a few with small chicks), and pigeon guillemot.

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17 km, YTD 191 km

May 7th - Oak Bay (#12)

Dave and I led an "intertidal paddle" for SISKA. We began on the beach where we talked about how tides work and also how life handles the intertidal zone. We then set off to cruise along the shore looking at seaweeds and intertidal invertebrates. I use these handy ID guides. We had a low tide of 0.0 m in Oak Bay today! On my way home, I went over to Flower Island to do some ecological work. Just before we launched I saw a couple who had just built themselves Cape Falcon F1 kayaks - nice to see a couple more in Victoria! 

ID guides - click to enlarge

paddle route -click to enlarge

11 km, YTD 174 km (The club portion of the paddle was about 3 km!)