January 3&4 - Surge Narrows (#2&3)

I joined Alan and Craig for two days of paddling the wave at Surge Narrows. On the first day I paddled a borrowed Sterling Progression which did not suit me very well, so I had a pretty slow day of paddling. On the second day I paddled my familiar Hammer  and paddled until I was tired! :)
The GPS battery ran out on day 1, so the track is an estimate after I arrived at the wave. It is amazing to watch and listen as the wave develops and the current sped rises to around 7 knots!

Day 1 - click to enlarge

day 2 - click to enlarge

7 km, YTD 23 km

January 13/14 - Surge narrows (#s 4&5)

I went up to Campbell River to paddle Surge Narrows with Alan and Craig. Friday the 13th was not a great one for me as I had brought the wrong spray deck and had left the spare at Alan's house. Craig lent me his deck for a while and I had some good rides early on. I then tried his delphin surf and had a couple of good rides followed by a capsize and a swim! I managed a cowboy self rescue in the rapids, but I had not zipped up the Peak leg zip drysuit enough so had a wet left foot for the rest of the day. On Saturday the wave was not easy for me to stay on as it seemed to want to throw me off to the left. I did get some good rides, but I think my confidence had been shaken by my swim the day before. I need to edge much more agressively.

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8 km, YTD 38 km

November 26&27 - Surge Narrows (#s 113&114)

I went up to Campbell River to stay with Alan and spend two days paddling the wave at Surge Narrows. On Saturday we with Walter and on Sunday Walter and Craig. The 3 or 4 of us had he wave to ourselves, and the wave was pretty friendly throughout our time there. I learned a few more things about staying on the wave and had some wonderful rides. I figured out that a 5 minute ride at 6 knots is like riding a surfing wave for 1 km! Conditions were pretty good with very little wind and some light rain. A Steller sea lion checked us out at one point and gave us a look that made me think we were hogging his wave! You can see the current was still fast as we returned from the wave both days, but the tide had risen to the point where the wave had flattened out. Hope to head back up again soon!

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8 km, YTD 968 km

February 6th - surge Narrows (#9)

I joined Alan, Brad, Walter, Gerhardt and Michael for a day's paddle at Surge Narrows. The wave was very friendly. Big enough to be fun but not too big. Much of the time it was wide enough for two of us. I got to try Michael's Sterling Reflection for a few runs. It performed nicely! This was a great day on the wave!

Alan's video edit from the trip. I am in the green reflection at the start.

Surge Narrows Surfing Feb 6 2016 from alyak on Vimeo.

The track - click to enlarge

zoomed into the wave area - click to enlarge

5 km, YTD 108 km 

November 27&28 - surge Narrows (#s 111 and 112)

I went up to Campbell River to spend a few days at Surge Narrows. This was an event that Alan had organized for the Nanaimo Paddlers. There were 6 of us on Friday and 9 on Saturday. The wave was good on both days and I was able to get my fill of paddling on the wave. I have some video clips that Alan took with his camera. I will post them on line eventually, but here is one short one of the wave at the end of the first day when I was tired and the  wave small again. https://vimeo.com/147157465
Two great days at Surge to start the season and good company as well. Thanks so much to Alan and Chris for hosting me. It was fun playing in the lumpy water behind the wave as well. I avoided getting sucked into any whirlpools! It is hard to describe how nice it is to feel the water rushing underneath your kayak while you virtually stay in one spot! A wildlife highlight was seeing a peregrine falcon chase a gull on the Saturday! I am looking forward to seeing some of David'd video as well.

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10 km, YTD 936 km.

May 23rd - Breton Islands (#47)

I went up to Quadra Island to participate in the annual Pautik campout, an informal gathering of Greenland paddlers. WE camped on Rebecca Spit and had a leisurely morning of rolling practice and instruction. I spent some time working on my forward-forward norsaq roll which has been eluding me for some time. After spending some time with Alan coaching me, I made some good progress to the point that I got several double norsaq forward finishing rolls. I need to keep working on this as it now seems close! I estimate that I paddled 1 km in total, but decided not to count it!
In the afternoon I went for a paddle over to the Breton Islands with Andrew and Alan. The main  (south) Breton island  has a very nice campsite. I also saw several the Ochre sea stars (Pisaster sp) which have virtually disappeared around Victoria
It was good to see Andrew who had come all the way from Olympia to join us. It was also nice to meet up with several others of the "pautik clan".

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10 km, YTD 394 km.

March 31st and April 1st (#s 24 & 25)

I went up to Campbell River to visit with Alan and spend a couple of days paddling Surge Narrows. This time I was paddling my own P&H Hammer and it performed very well. All had the whole time on Video, so I will have to grab some clips. One highligt for me was when Alan and I were together on the wave for 16 minutes! While we were there we met Michael and Doug from Nanaimo Paddlers and enjoyed paddling with them. The wave was really good to me on both days! Thanks again to Alan and Chris (and Nootka!) for hosting me

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10 km, YTD 227 km

November 9&10 - Surge Narrows (#s 91& 92)

George and I went up to Campbell River on Saturday evening to visit Alan and then we went to Surge Narrows for two days in a row. The wave was very nice both days, but it was best (and least crowded!) on Monday. I borrowed Jeff's P&H Hammer which performed wonderfully on the wave... I may have to swap out my Delphin! I had one good swim on Sunday and found myself in a whirlpool which felt a bit weird! Fortunately JF pulled me out!

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11 km, YTD 878 km

January 18/19 - Surge Narrows (#6&7)

George and I went up to Campbell River for the weekend to visit Alan and paddle Surge Narrows again. On Saturday we were joined by Jonathan and Brent and on Sunday by Brad. Weather conditions were excellent for paddling at this time of year with no precipitation. The wave was good on both days, though on Sunday it never developed as well as on Saturday and was hard to get on to at times. As always I learned more about Linux from Alan as well as some great weather sites. The Delphin and Werner Shuna combination worked well for me this time.

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11 km, YTD 67 km

November 16 and 17 - Surge Narrows (#80&81)

Olivier, George and I went up to Campbell River for the weekend to paddle Surge Narrows with Alan. We stayed with Alan and went over to Quadra each day. Brent was there on both days and on Sunday we also saw Jonathan, Ken and Peter. The wave was very nice each day (best on Sunday) with the current maxing at just over 7 knots. For me the sweet spot was between 4 and 6 knots, I think, as I found it hard to get on and stay on when it was  around 7. It was George's first exposure to the narrows, and he got a few good rides. George also got some good video I think, and I got some good rolling and rescue practice.
On Sunday I got to paddle Brent's Gemini SP which performed very nicely in the wave. Despite being mid November, we had sunshine for much of both days!

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15 km (probably more since I did not record my time in the Gemini), YTD 945 km

April 6&7 - Surge Narrows (#25&26)

I joined drove up to Quadra with Olivier to stay at Discovery Islands Lodge with Dorothea, Scott, Mike, Paulo, Dan and Walter for a weekend at Surge. Alan and Brent joined us on Saturday, and we had good paddling on both days. I managed to get some great rides on both days. The wave was pretty tricky during max flood, but became very nice as the tide rose and the current dropped a bit. We had a great pot luck at the lodge on Saturday evening. On Sunday we met John, Mike, and Paul as well as Brent.

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17 km, YTD 264 km

Feb 23 and 24 - Surge Narrows (#9 &10)

I went up island with Olivier to stay with Alan and Chris for the weekend and to paddle Surge Narrows. We had a good trip up Island (I managed to sneak a quick peek at the Boat and Outdoor show on the way!) and had a nice sunny day on the wave on Saturday. Sunday was a bit windier and cooler but the rain did not start until we were on our way back. Unfortunately for us, the wind was much stronger in Discovery passage and the ferry back to Campbell River was cancelled 4 sailings in a row, resulting in us not getting across until 8:30 PM. We decided that it made sense to stay another night at Alan's and leave early on Monday! Sunday's wave was "interesting" in that it was very hard to stay on until our last hour when it became good fun!
A couple of photos of yours truly on the wave: https://plus.google.com/photos/107085608707498595852/albums/5849146691822213745

the whole track - click to enlarge

Just the narrows... click to enlarge

13 km, YTD 106 km

November 24 & 25 - Surge Narrows (#s 79 &80)

James and I drove up to Campbell River on Friday evening and stayed with Alan at his place. On Saturday we went over to the narrows  and had a great few hours on the wave together with Brent and James (#2) and Jaime. We came back to CR and had a nice dinner at the Coachman pub! We went back again on Sunday, this time accompanied by Jaime, Phil and Sam and had a second great day on the wave. Al did a great job of predicting fun yet friendly wave heights! Hopefully Jaime has some nice shots of us playing!

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13 km, YTD 928 km

November 11th - surge Narrows (#76)

I went up to Campbell River on Saturday evening and spent the night at Alan and Chris' so that Alan and I could go over to Quadra Island and spend some time at Surge Narrows. We met Brent up there and had a good time on the wave in spite of a nasty weather forecast. I had trouble staying on the wave when it was at max, but had some good rides before and after the current got too strong with me. i need to work on strengthening my maneuvering strokes! I am planning to head back up there again on the weekend of Nov 24/25...

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6 km, YTD 895 km

Surfing the Surge

This is a nice clip of me surfing the wave at Surge Narrows on March 18th. The clip was made by Alan, using a shore based camera on a tripod.

March 25th - Whiterock Passage (#27)

Carey, Paulo, Gerhardt, Shannon and I paddled over to Whiterock passage to take advantage of another wonderful day on the water. On our way back we had some fun in the currents in amongst the Settler's Group.
Once we were back it was sadly time to pack everything up and head back home after a wonderful stay at the lodge.

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12 km, YTD 335 km

March 24th - Octopus Islands and Surge Narrows (#26)

I went up to the wonderful Discovery Islands  lodge again, this time with Pautik and Coast&Kayak magazine. I was joined by Walter, Reale and Gloria again as well as John, Gerhardt, Shannon, Sheila, Dorothea, Taver, Richard and Carey. Paulo camped nearby and joined us for the paddles. We had a great day paddle up to the Octopus Islands and then made our way back to the narrows to wait for the flood current to subside enough to paddle the wave. We had gorgeous sunny weather and it was neat to sit over the rapids and watch as the 9 or 10 knot current powered through making waves, whirlpools and overfalls. While at Surge Narrows we ran into regulars Brent and Jonathan who gave me more tips on how to make my Delphin behave on the wave. An all around great day with great people. It was impressive to see the narrows with such tidal current activity.

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26 km, YTD 323 km

March 18th - Surge Narrows (#23)

I went up to Surge Narrows again with the group and had a wonderful morning on the "wave". It was fun watching it gradually build from 9AM until almost noon when I left. I really felt that I had got the hang of the Delphin on that wave by the time I finished the morning. We met up with Jonathan, Alan and Brent who gave me some good tips. By the time I finished I was staying on the wave and moving around on it as well - great fun!

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5 km, YTD 234 km.

zoom into surge narrows

It was a great St. Patrick's weekend spent with Monica, Reale, Gloria, Dave and Alison, Kevin, John, Walter and Huw!

March 17th - Settler's Group (#22)

I went for an afternoon paddle with the group over to the waterfall on Maurelle Island. The current was now ebbing fairly strongly which made for many interesting crossings.

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10 km, YTD 229 km

March 17th- Surge Narrows (#21)

Monica and I went up to Discovery Islands Lodge with a wonderful bunch from Duncan and Nanaimo for the weekend. I managed to get up to the narrows for some tide race fun on the first morning. I had fun getting to know how my Delphin and the Shuna paddle worked together. We also ran into Brent there.

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6 km, YTD 219 km