July 24 and 26 - Gordon Bay (#s 63 and 64)

Monica and I went to Gordon bay to do some camping in the trailer and also make a trip to the Carmanah Valley. While at the provincial campground, we made a couple of short kayak excursions. On Sunday afternoon we went west and put up with lots of boat wakes, seadoos etc. On Tuesday morning it seemed like we had the lake to ourselves. It was a nice change to paddle in warm fresh water.

click to enlarge

14 km, YTD 608 km

July 22nd - Discovery Island (#62)

Dan and I went for an early morning paddle around the islands. There were strong winds in the forecast. There was not too much when we started, but it was definitely 15-20 kt by the time we returned. We found that the wind and current had made for some nice lumpy water on the way out across the channel and even better, lumpy and squirelly water on the way back. You can see by the track that the ebb current had taken us down to Jemmy Jones. At the Northeast corner of Chatham we saw the wolf again. He watched us for a while and then got up and moved towards us to watch us again as we rounded the NE corner. You can see the slow section of our track as we watched him (and vice versa!)

click to enlarge

15 km, YTD 594 km

July 19th - Cadboro Bay (#61)

I went for a morning "run" around the bay with my neighbour Dan's guest, Kenny. He paddled the F1 and I paddled the Tahe T and both of us used GPs. He was a quick study at using the GP and liked it. He has used surf skis and wing paddles a lot in Hawaii. Nice conditions, quite a low tide and still ebbing out at Cadboro Point. We kept up a good pace, 7.2 kph, and did not find any lumpy water.

click to enlarge

7 km, YTD 579 km

July 18th - Cadboro bay (#60)

I took the Hobie inflatable out for an after dinner peddle/paddle/sail in the bay. I had ordered a sail kit for the Hobie but was originally sent the wrong one. The correct one recently arrived, so this was a first test. The wind was in the 5-10 kph range so was good for testing but did not get things going too fast! When I combined pedalling and sailing, I was able to go reasonably fast.

click to enlarge

3km, YTD 572 km

July 15 and 17 - Mooring (#59)

I used the inflatable SUP to paddle to and from the mooring to get to Natural C-lection before and after a trip to Puget Sound. The SUP is handy to carry up and down the street and seems to be able to take a reasonable amount of cargo. It is definitely quite practical as a "tender"for one person.

click to enlarge

4x .3 km
1 km, YTD 569 km

July 13th - Discovery Island (#58)

Dan and I went for a morning paddle around the islands. Great conditions. Sunny, little wind and favourable currents - just a hint of lumpy water in Baynes Channel. We stopped on the east side of Chatham to chat with Cheryl and watch the wolf for a while. We also met a paddler called Dave on one of the islands between Chatham and Discovery. Looks like our track from Commodore Point back to Killarney was pretty straight!

click to enlarge

15 km, YTD 568 km

July 12th - Cadboro Bay and Atessa Yacht (#57)

I went for a late morning paddle with the surf ski and as i headed out towards Cattle Point, I saw a large yacht in Oak Bay and decided to paddle over to it. It turns out it was huge - 68.6m - has a helicopter and several dinghy's the size of my c-dory! The yacht is the Atessa which you can view on MarineTraffic and here on superyachts
Quite impressive! Anyway the weather was sunny and clam and I had a 7.8 km paddle where I averaged 7.8 kph!

click to enlarge

8 km, YTD 553 km

July 10th - Cadboro Point (#56)

Monica and I went for an afternoon paddle out to Cadboro Point. Monica was in her Whisky 16 and I was in the F1. There was a light breeze and it was sunny. Nice to be back in home waters. We saw over 100 Canada geese on the paddle!

click to enlarge

6 km, YTD 545 km

June 26-July 7 Haida Gwaii (#s 51-55)

I was up in Gwaii Hanaas working as the naturalist on board MV Swelll with Maple Leaf Adventures again this year. Over two weeks, I managed to get out for five short paddles

overview

#51- June 26 - Skaat Harbour - 2 km
I went for a short paddle with the group in Skaat Harbour befoire heading off to Burnaby Narrows later in the day.

Skaat Harbour - click to enlarge

#52 - June 29 - Anna Inlet - 1 km
Another short paddle. A few seals

Anna Inlet - click to enlarge

June 30th - Cumshewa Head - 1 km
I went for a last short paddle of the trip in a bay by Cumshewa Head. We saw some river otters.

Cumshewa head - click to enlarge

July 4th - Burnaby Narrows - 3 km
After a wonderful shore trip at Burnaby Narrows we went for a paddle in the bay near Bag harbour. Though we had seen several bears earlier, we did not see any paddling! I went over to the kayak camp to say hi to Sarah who was leading a multi-day paddling trip.

Burnaby Narrows - click to enlarge

July 7th - Anna Inlet - 3 km
For my last paddle of the trip we went to the mouth of Anna Inlet. The walls are steep here and have great intertidal life. Lots of sea cucumbers, urchins, turban snails and some yellow dorid nudibranchs.

Anna Inlet - click to enlarge

Total for th 5 trips 10 km, YTD 539