May 22nd - Bewell Harbour (#39)

I took the SUP ATX paddleboard for a short trip in Bedwell Harbour while we were staying at Ainslie Point Cottage with Jack and Mary. I went from the dock out to the beach by the parks campsite. The wind was quite strong in my face on the way out, making it slow progress, but by the time I was on my way back the wind had dropped so I did not get the advantage of a push! No batteries in the GPS as I accidentally left it on, so the track is created manually...

Click to enlarge

3 km, YTD 401 km

April 17 and 18 - Pender (#s 29 and 30)

Dan and I set out from Amherst in Sidney to paddle over to the Westcoast Paddler (http://www.westcoastpaddler.com/) campout on Pender Island. The 18 km paddle over to Bedwell Harbour was blessed by good conditions, a favourable current and several porpoise and auklet sightings.

We had a nice evening visiting with the WCP campout group and then set out at 0830 on Sunday to paddle 38 km back to Victoria. We could not have asked for more favourable conditions! Light winds and an ebb current for the whole trip! You can see that our speed was boosted for virtually the whole trip with a big boost right after D’Arcy Islands. We ran across several porpoises, many rhinoceros auklet pairs, crossed into US waters, avoided freighters and ferries, and passed a few halibut fishermen on the flats south of D’Arcy.

 56 km combined, 30 NM, YTD 423 km

April 25 - Pender to Victoria - (#26)

After a pleasant evening with the WCP group I set off after an early breakfast (7:45 AM) to paddle back to Victoria. The current atlas indicated favourable currents until about noon. The paaddle to Run Island was fast and I maintained a pace ofr 10 kph with the current boost for much of the way. The wind was unfortunately still from the SW and eventually SE, so again no sailing. Between Rum and Sidney Island, the current boost lessened and from Darcy on it was no longer helping me. I made a dog leg in Haro strait to ask a halibut fisherman to call home and letthe family know my progress (my cell phone was not working properly on Darcy when I stopped there. My two stops were at Darcy and Gordon head. I decided to follow the Gordon Head coast line in the hopes of catching some back eddies as well as need a break. I made it back to the beach at Cadboro Bay around 2 45 - about 6 hours of paddling and an hour of stops. In hindsight, I should have been up an at it an hour earlier and also sped up my breakfasting and packing so as to catch the strongest ebb current. As I made it back to Cadboro Bay the RVYC was having a sail past with what looked like nearly 100 yachts all dressed up with pennants on the rigging, music and cannons! HMCS Oriole was there too.

41 km, 22 NM, YTD 291 km

April 24 - Sidney to Pender Island (#25)

I decided to paddle over to Pender from Sidney to join the West Coast Paddler camp out at Beaumont marine park on Pender. I headed up to Sidney after work and was on the water shortly after 5 PM. I had a fairly uneventful but pleasant paddle. Conditions were decent, though what wind there was was from the SE (as opposed to the predicted SW which would have been a nice sailing wind), so no sailing. I think there was a gentle current in my favour as I made good time arriving at the destination just before 8 PMThe wild life highlight was watching a pair of rhinoceros auklets mate in the middle of the strait between Moresby and Pender Islands.

18 KM, 10 NM, YTD 250 km