Dan and I took our Greenland boats out to Chatham Island and did some rolling in the bay at the north end. Weather was excellent, though there was a bit of a wind. It was good to try these boats out in a bit of wind and for a longer paddle. The slip on skeg worked well and I am getting used to the tippiness of the Disko Bay boat.
There was a liveaboard boat up on shore that must have washed up there last night in the winds…
I went up to Ladysmith for the Paddlefest. Once again I did some clinics. This year I did one on Charts and Navigation in the morning and then a towing clinic in the afternoon. I managed to get around all the stalls during the time in between and ran into many friends! Managed to escape without buying anything except a couple of John Kimantas’ maps! I must give the Lightspeed boats a test drive again – I am intrigued by thier skeg/rudder system. While doing the towing clinic I was able to field test the highwayman hitch system of giving the towee a quick release – worked well. The weather held nicely – the wind was just picking up as I left around 3:15.
Dennis and I set off around 9:30 for a paddle around Chatham and Discovery Islands. Conditions were superb. An ebb to help us out and a flood to help us back! We were back by 1 PM and I then went off to help at the SMUS spring Fair. A magnificent day all around. We ran into george E on the way out to Flower Island and then Andy Jackson on Discovery. I paddled the F1 which performd very well.
I decided to paddle over to RVYC for my Oak bay Sea Rescue pager turnover instead of driving, biking or walking. It was a nice change. It is so quick and easy to get the F1 ready and dsown to the beach for a short paddle! Forgot the GPS today but traced the 1.5 km rout in Oziexplorer. Conditions in the bay were very nice.
Karsten, dan and I got together for a late afternoon paddle in Cadboro Bay. Karsten and I were in our skin on frame Cape Falcon F1s and Dan was in his sof boat. We had a nice paddle around the bay and went out to cadboro Point – the keel must have been recovered since it is no longer there. Karsten did a course with Brian a month or so after I did so we are now the two proud F1 owners in Victoria!
I went out for a “practice” paddle with the grade 11s who are going out into the gulf islands over the May long weekend. We are planning to paddle from Cedar to Sidney over 4 days and this was a chance to make sure everyone was OK in their boats and was able to do a rescue. I was only able to stay for the morning so we paddled over to Loon Bay and then came back to the area around my mooring and did rescues.
2 km, 1 NM, YTD 297 km
After finishing my long paddle from Pender I offered to give Claire and her friend Katrina a refresher paddle as they are on a paddling course/refresher on Sunday. We put the boats in at Cadboro Bay and paddled out to “Island 7” via Loon Bay and back. We practiced forward stroke, sweeps and general manouevering. It was fun watching all the RVYC boats milling around.
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.
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
I padled over to Oak Bay Marina to join 9 others for the annual VSKN Discovery Cleanup paddle, coordinated by Marvin. Conditions were excellent and we had a nice paddle over to Discovery where I landed on a beach on the south west side and picked up garbage for an hour or so. I ended up with a couple of big bits of foam as well as 2 garbage bags of miscellaneous junk. I paddled the CD expedition today to give it a “spring airing” as I have some camping plans in the near future and wanted to make sure all was operational!
Dan and I went for a “Greenland Paddle” to put our two Greenland boats through their paces. We both were in Greenland style SOF boats and were wearing tuiliks. We checked out my new mooring and added a pick up float to it. We then paddled over to Flower Island and back to see how the weathercoking was. Dan and I experimented with the removable skeg that Brian Shulz designed and built for my boat and it perfored well. It definitely reduced weathercocking and also was fairly easy to put on and take off – a successful test! We then went to look bay to practice braces and rolls. My new Greenland “Disko Bay” boat rolls and braces well. We then went over to the yacht club to see how the SMUS sailing intramural was going - and did some rolls for them.
5 km, 3 NM, YTD 212 km.
George and I went out for a morning paddle around Discovery. Conditions were excellent – little current, little wind. We had a nice paddle and stopped by my probable new mooring site to check it out. We also stopped by the keel at cadboro Point (see photo).
After the paddle I did a quick run back to the mooring to check the depth with a plumb line.
16 km, 9NM, YTD 207 km.
went for a really short paddle to check out buoys in the bay. I think I am getting this one… it is actually visible in the google earth image.
I snuck out for a quick one after getting home from work. I had to be back before 6 PM and only decided to go for a paddle at 4:30. As you can see from the track, I was able to maintain a steady 7.5 kph pace throughout the paddle in the F1. It is great living near Caddy Bay beach!
Posts
All Comments
