July 31 - Discovery Island (#59)

Dan, Gordin, Paulo, George and I went for a morning paddle around Discovery. From Cadboro point on we were in the fog and the GPS definitely helped with the Baynes Channel crossing. It was cool for mid summer due to the fog and a bit of wind.

16 km, 9 NM, YTD 658 km

July 26 - Discovery (#58)

Dan and I went out for a morning paddle to Discovery - sqeezed in between errands! There was a good ebb running in Baynes so we stopped there to surf for a while and then caught the "freight train" over to Strongtide island. After that we did a nice paddle around Discovery and Chatham Islands. It was nice to get out for a longer paddle after a few weeks without much paddling.

16 km, 9 NM, YTD 642 km

July 22 - Caddy Bay (#57)

Evan and I went out for a short afternoon paddle in Caddy Bay. There was a good wind and a bit of chop so conditions were fun. So we went out "Island 7" and then over to Jemmy Jones and Flower Islands.

6 km, 3 NM, YTD 626 km

July 18 - Seydisfjoerdur (#56)

After looking at many wonderful looking kayaking locations in Iceland, I was finally able to get out for a short paddle in the West Fjords area. Thanks to Halldor and Helga I was able to borrow a Nordkapp for a couple of hours and paddle around Seydisfjoerdor. Conditions were excellent and the landscape stunning. I'll do another post on the whole Iceland trip soon with a link to photos of the stunning landscape...

The track in Seydisfjoerdor

zooming out a bit

and yet more.

9 km, 5 NM, YTD 620 km

Iceland report - day 4

Not a paddling report, though I wish it was! We have been blessed with magnificent weather for all but one day and most of that was at night.
So far we have seen a geothermal power station ( neat for a geoscience teacher!), a spectacular waterfall (Gulfoss), a spectacular geyser, all kinds of steam vents emanating from the ground, the rift where Europe and north America are splitting apart, and for the past day we have been on Heimaey island, the site of a dramatic eruption in 1973 which almost "swallowed" the town. The volcanic landscape here is magnificent, and we have also had great birding (our favourites are the puffins which are easy to see in many places). We head back to the mainland tomorrow and plan to head counter clockwise around Iceland.

Off to Iceland...

Back in a while - I hope to get out paddling at least once while I am there... I may get my SPOT messenger to send updates to the blog. If not you can follow us at the following link

July 6 - Rolling in Caddy bay again! (#55)

Dan and I went for an afternoon rolling session in the bay - both of us needed some practice - me especially since I don't know if I will get any paddling in Iceland...

Rolls worked well - the Tahe Greenland is such a dream to roll. We ran into Paula from KayakYak in her inflatable coming back from an unsuccessful "whale hunt". We chatted about the Gyro Park plans and then went over to Staines Island to look for Dan's mask (no luck).
3 km, 2 NM, YTD 611 km.

July 3rd - Cadboro Bay (#54)

I ran a PC level 1 course for Lanyy, Ann, Chirs and Liliana in Cadboro Bay. Our paddle this afternoon was short and was basically a chance to review strokes and practice  rescues.
2 km, 1 NM, YTD 608 km.

July 2nd - Caddy Bay (#53)

Dan and I went for a morning of rolling in Cadboro and Oak Bays. We both were in our Tahes and had fun rolling in several locations. We even experimented rolling with the seals in Oak Bay Marina! The seals were not impressed... On our way back we came across the Grey Whale that has been hanging around Oak and Cadboro Bays for the past week (I had seen it the night before while on sea rescue training). You can see from our track it was right off Landsdowne road. It came very close to us and was a neat sight!
10 km, 5 NM, YTD: 606 km

June 21 - rolling in Caddy bay (#52)

Dan and I went for a morning of rolling practice in Caddy bay. Some in Loon Bay, some by Staines Islet, some in Sheep cove and some back at Killarney. Wonderfully calm! I worked on getting my head back and could really tell the difference.
4 km, 2 NM, YTD 596 km.

June 20th - Chatham Islands (#51)

click to enlarge

I took Mary, Tim, Fraser and Charlotte for a paddle out to the Chatham Islands. Conditions were cool but calm and pleasant and we had a very nice paddle as well as a picnic in "no name"/"swing" bay. We saw guillemots, auklets, plent of geese, seals and herons.
11 km, 6 NM, YTD 592 km

June 17th - Caddy Bay (#50)

I went for a morning paddle with Holly, Rachel, Emily and Kelsey (from SMUS) around Caddy Bay. Conditions were decent and we had fun puttering along the north and south shores of Caddy Bay. We saw Black Oystercatchers, Great Blue Herons, River Otters, Rhinoceros Auklets and plenty of Canada Geese!
Happy to have the 50th paddle in before the year is half done!
8 KM, 4 NM, YTD 581 km.

June 12th - snowbirds (#49)

Dan, Dennis, Scott, Mark, Christine and I set out from McNeill Bay to paddle towards Royal Roads to view the navy ships and the snowbird show. The paddling was good and the show was spectacular. We had favourable currents both ways.

2010-06-12_snowbirds

17 km, 9 NM, YTD 575 km.

June 10 - Cadboro Bay and Elk Lake (#47 and 48)

I went for a short paddle over to Loon Bay with Steve who wanted to try out my Cape Falcon F1 and Disko Bay. He seemed to enjoy them both and had no problem paddling the Disko bay.
In the evening Dan and I went to Elk lake to do some rolling practice and coaching with SISKA.
2 km, 1 NM, YTD 558 km

June 1 to 8 - Broughton Archipelago (#s 42-46)

(click to enlarge)

I co led a school trip to the Broughton archipelago again with two other leaders and eight students. We had excellent conditions overall - favourable currents, little wind and a bit of rain on the first day.
We took a water taxi to Echo Bay (great visit to Billy Proctor's museum) and then made our way back to Telegrtaph Cove. We stopped in the Fox group and on Owl Island (I took an extra 10 km paddle around Owl by myself late one afternoon) as well as Mound and Hanson Islands. We also visited Village and Berry Islands.
74 km, 40 NM, YTD: 556 km