May 9&10 - Saltspring island (#30 &31)

I went to Saltspring island for the weekend to participate in the SKGABC guides exchange. I went for a nice evening paddle on Friday with the group to Chocolate beach. On Saturday I participated in a rescues session in Cusheon Lake with Rick and was able to practice exits and entries from both the F1 and the Tahe Greenland LC. Both were easier to rescue and reenter than I thought! In the afternoon James, Lisa and I led a rolling session also in Cusheon Lake. It was great meeting new guiding colleagues as well as several old friends and also exploring the Ganges area. We had a great presentation about travelling from the Coast to the Tar Sands called Northern Grease. It was an excellent movie that I plan to show my students.

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9 km combined, YTD 308 km

June 30th - Discovery Island (#47)

I paddled out to Maynard Cove to meet up with Dan and Gordin, and we then proceeded around Chatham and Discovery Islands. The weather was superb! Sunshine and calm, but not too hot. There were also minimal currents, so no hard work! It was good to paddle again with Gordin as I have not done so in a while.We saw quite a few paddlers while out there including the Discovery Shuttle group.

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16 km, YTD 626 km

June 13th - Cadboro Bay (#39)

Peter and I went for a short afternoon paddle in Cadboro Bay so that he could test drive the Tahe Greenland T. Conditions were great, and we had a nice paddle. Peter left with a nice new Tahe on his roof as well as a Northern Light Greenland paddle!

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4 km, YTD 413 km

May 11 - Discovery Island (#31)

Dan, paulo and I went for a morning paddle around Discovery. There was a good ebb in Baynes, so we caught a bit of a ride down to Heritage point (as you can see from the grey section of track >10 kph). Conditions were nice, though the air was a bit hazy. We stopped for a break at Boathouse bay and saw the wolf on a beach on the north side of Discovery! The tide was pretty low so we decided not to try and make our way up between the Chathams.

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15 km, YTD 343 km

July 21 - Discovery (#51)

Paulo and I went for a paddle around Chatham and Discovery Islands. It was a cool, cloudy morning which finally cleared up by the time we returned. We ran into Yves who was doing a currents class with Mark and Robin over by Vantreight and Strongtide islands. The tide was low and there was lots of kelp to paddle through! It was good to get out again after almost 3 weeks without paddling. Monica and I are off to Europe on Tuesday for three weeks but are taking the Feathercrafts!

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15 km, YTD 604

July 19th - Elk Lake (#50)

Paulo and I went for a short evening paddle at Elk Lake to practice our rolls in warm water. A beutiful evening. I watched a couple of double sculls capsize and recover which was neat to see.

Elk lake relative to home

the elk lake track

3 km, YTD 589 km

May 11th - Cadboro Bay (#36)

Dan, James and I went for an afternoon paddle out in the bay to do some rolling practice. The water is warming up as was evidenced by the algal bloom that was starting. We had to paddle to the next bay after loon bay to find clear water. James helped me work on my forward finishing butterfly/brace recovery and it was neat how a couple of good pointers made it happen consistently! I now have a reliable forward finishing recovery from a face down static brace. We also worked on my elbow roll and that too showed progress... Time to get back into the rolling habit!

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3km, YTD 445 km

May 6th - Oak Bay (#35)

I paddled over to willows Beach to help lead a SISKA relaxed paddle to look at intertidal and subtidal life with Dave G and Jennie. Conditions were nice, though there were a few ripples that made viewing a bit harder. In spite of that, we had great luck sighting lots of seaweeds and creatures. I was able to find a couple of nudibranchs - probably orange sea lemons.

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You can see my paddle to and from Caddy bay was a bit faster than the intertidal "browse". On the way back with David A, I ran into Dennis, Sue, Lyn and Morely who were returning from an overnight on Discovery.
9 km, YTD 442 km

April 29th - Brentwood Bay (#34)

Monica, Bill, Sharon, Heather and I went for a nice relaxed paddle into Tod Inlet. Conditions were overcast but nice and calm and we had a great "family" paddle. Sharon had one of my Wispers and Heather had the F1. We did some harpoon practice with a Scotty pump masquerading as a seal target... I need to practice a bit more to get some range. We also discovered a weird phenomenon whereby Heather was able to move both boats forward by pushing back and forth on my tahe... not quite sure why we were able to make progress!

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 7 km, YTD 433 km

April 22nd - Discovery (#33)

Dan Paulo and I went for a quick Sunday jaunt around Discovery. I think our average speed was close to 4 knots (pretty much all blue on the track plot). We went round the "opposite" way for a change...
Another nice day on the water!

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15 km, YTD 426 km

April 21 - Trial Island (#32)

This weekend was the SKGABC guides exchange and it was hosted in Victoria by Ocean River Sports, so I was able to attend and participate. I did my CPR-C recert on Friday PM and then led a rolling session on Saturday AM in Cadboro Bay with Gerhardt. We had about a dozen participants who all worked on improving their rolls.
In the afternoon I joined a group of 9 that was going to paddle around Trial Island. The original plan was to leave from Oak Bay, so I figured I would paddle from home and meet in Oak Bay. Once at Cattle Point, I discovered that we were meeting in McNeill Bay. So I had a nice extra paddle! There were some nice currents swirling here and there and we saw an elephant seal!

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18 km, YTD 411 km

April 14th - Portland Island (#31)

I decided to make a quick visit to the Westcoastpaddler.com campout on Portland Island after a day spent up at UVic with particle physics! I left Swartz head at 4:30 and was at Arbutus point in an hour. I spend a nice 3 and a half hours chatting with folks and then, after waiting for the International Space Station to fly over, set off back for Swartz head at around 9 PM. The bio-luminescence was neat and it was a nice change to do a night paddle. It was great to meat up with many friends as well as to meet new friends and very worthwhile the trip out!

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14 km, YTD 393 km

April 7th - Discovery (#30)

Paulo and I went out for a quick afternoon run around Discovery. We finished the 15 km in 2 hrs and 10 minutes for an average of almost 7 kph over the trip. Nice to be paddling in home waters again!

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15 km, YTD 379 km.

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 23rd - Seymour Narrows (#25)

Alan and I went for a "run with the tides" paddle down Discovery Passage. WE woke up to a couple of inches of snow and then made our way to launch our kayaks across from Cape Mudge. We then paddled out into the tidal stream and then rode the ebb all the way to Brown's Bay where we stopped for lunch and the tide to turn. We caught the flood back to our launch site and then I made my way to the Quadra ferry so as to go over to Discovery Islands Lodge for the weekend. If you look at the track plots you will see one using my normal speed scale - most of the trip is over the usual max 10 kph! The second plot is scaled from 10 to 20 kph. Our moving average for the day's paddle was around 11 kph! It was great to cover so much ground so easily! And thanks to Alan for hosting me and planning the paddle times so perfectly!

click to enlarge - normal 0-10 skphcale

Click to enlarge - 10-20 kph scale!

48 km, YTD 297 km

March 19th - Discovery Island (#24)

Dan and I went for a brisk paced midday paddle over to Discovery Island. I just realized that I went from paddling the Discovery Islands on the weekend to Discovery island today! There was a stiff SE wind at 15 knots that had set up some good waves on the East and South side of Discovery. The waves at the SE corner of Discovery were fun and were probably 2-3 metres high. You can definitely see the speed difference in our outbound and return track.

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15 km, YTD 249 km

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 10th - Currents Clinic (#20)

I helped Gary lead a currents clinic for SISKA. We were four instructors and 11 students and we had fun learning about eddy lines, ferrying and more. It was great to see smiles on faces when they felt their first good eddy turn!

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10 km, YTD 213 km

March 3rd - Oak Bay Marina (#18

Tom, Dan and I went for a morning paddle to Oak Bay Marina. There was a strong south-westerly blowing so we decided to keep in the lee and follow the shore to Oak Bay. Tom was trying out my Tahe Greenland and I was paddling the Delphin. As you can see from the track back, we had a nice tailwind push across Oak bay!

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9 km, YTD 195 km

March 1st - Discovery (#17)

Dan and I went for an afternoon paddle around Discovery. Conditions were nice with a good ebb when we started that had dissipated by the time we came back.  Dan had some trouble with his skeg, so we stopped for a while near Commodore Point.

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15 km, YTD 185 km