November 19th - Discovery Island (#109)

Dan, Paulo and I went out for an afternoon run around Discovery. There was a brisk north wind and a nice bit of chop in Baynes and around the outside of discovery. The water and air were definitely a bit cooler today!
We stopped in by Ten mile point to do some rolling - the water was cool enough that I got an ice cream headache after a few rolls! Paddling and rolling felt good to do after a week of work!

15.5 km, 8 NM, YTD 1063 km.

Nov 14th - D'Arcy Island (#108)

I joined 11 others on a SISKA energizer paddle led by Michael E. to D'Arcy Island. It was a foggy day but nice and calm and the GPS was handy for navigation! 22 kms was a good work out after many shorter paddles!

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23 km, 12 NM, YTD 1048 km

November 12th - Chatham Island again! (#107)

Gordin, Paulo and I went for a morning paddle out to Chatham again. We wanted to give Gordin a chance to get out and back before having to go to work! Almost the same route as yesterday, though we took a shortcut through the gap by Vantreight that is only doable at high tide. Gordin and Paulo were both wearing Goretex Tuiliks that Paulo had made - mine is in the works! The Goretex Tuilik will be very comfortable for paddling most of the year.

9 km, 5 NM, YTD 1025 km

November 12th - Chatham Island (#106)

George and I went for an afternoon paddle. We went over to look at some moorings and then made our way to Cadboro Point and then over to the Chatham group. The air was definitely cooler and we made it back just before dark! I was test paddling the Kayak Kaboose (unladen)with just a tow rope behind the F1 and it seemed to handle quite well. I think this could be very handy for camping with a low volume boat such as the Tahe Greenland or Feathercraft Wisper and also for comfortable base camping with a group.

11 KM, 6 NM, YTD 1016 km

Nov 9th - Jemmy Jones - wind, waves and 1000 km! (#105)

Dan and I went for an afternoon paddle in Cadboro Bay. The wind was strong, mostly 50 kph gusting 60 at 10 mile point. We went over to loon bay for a short rolling session and then made our way slowly (see track plot) to Jemmy Jones Island - it was a slog! Landing and launching were interesting given the SE winds and waves...

While we were out there someone thought we were in trouble and called the coast guard. Fortunately we got in and spoke to them quickly and they called off the "rescue"! Between Jemmy Jones and Flower the waves were quite big - at least six feet at times.

I made my 1000 km of paddling today which was nice - averaging around 10 km per paddle...

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6 km, 3 NM, YTD 1005 km

Nov 6&7 - Lake Samamish (#104)

Monica and I drove down to Issaquah for the weekend so that I could participate in the 2010 Greenland Week event put on by Kayak Academy on Lake Samamish. It was a great weekend meeting fellow Greenland paddlers. I watched the start and the finish of the 10 km race and practiced harpoon throwing on Saturday (going round and round a practice throwing route - see track!). On Sunday I competed in the rolling competition and came fourth with 120 points which made me very happy! All in all it was a great weekend. Duane Strosaker was the well-deserved champion of the event.
photos and video to come...

2 km, 1 NM, YTD 999 km...

November 3rd - Cadboro bay (#103)

Dan and I went out for an afternoon paddle in the bay. I wanted to practice my rolls again and they went well. I had one failure on a second try of a cross arm roll but other than that everything went smoothly. I did two sets of the sequence I should do on Sunday in Seattle. We ran into Steve while we were out there and paddled with him for a while. After that we went out round 10 mile point to play in some waves. Nice sunny afternoon!

8 km, 4 NM, YTD 997 km - 3 km to go!

Oct 28 - Cadboro Bay (#102)

I went for a quick run out to the mooring to check on it and the boat that is on it. All seemed well.

1 km, 0.5 NM YTD 989 km

October 24 - Chatham (#101)

Pete and I went for a quick paddle out to Chatham. We went and checked out the power boat that had come ashore during the night and then went over to my mooring buoy to discover that the boat had been on my buoy and had attached their chain to the top ring (a well know no no) and the ring on my buoy was broken open! :(
Now I have to track down the owner of Sea Fever IV to see if he/she will repair/replace my buoy!
Pete and I went through the yacht club were we ran into Nick who was giving a course and then made our way over to the "sluice" between Vantreight and Chatham islands to play in the current. Water and air are definitely getting colder...

10 km, 5 NM, YTD 988 km.

October 23rd - Coal and Piers Islands (#100)

For my 100th paddle of the year I joined a  SISKA paddle led by Dan. The 15 of us were going to go to Rum Island but, based on the forecast, decided to stay more in the lee and decided to go to Coal and then Piers Islands. As it turned out the wind did not get too strong until we were well off the water, but we had a great paddle in good conditions. I guess only 22 km to go for my unofficial 1000 km goal...
As I write the wind is blowing hard, gust of up to 58 kph at 10 mile point . Winds defintely picked up around 4 PM!

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17 km, 9 NM, YTD 978 km.

October 15th - Jemmy Jones Island (#99)

I got home to a beautiful fall evening and decided that I should get out for a quick paddle before I head off to Bamfield for 4 days on a field trip. Conditions were fabulous! Sunny and calm. I began by doing my rolling sequence including the brick roll (with a 8 lb brick this time) and then did a fast (looks like I was able to maintain 4 knots+ throughout the paddle) paddle out to Jemmy Jones and back. A wonderful way to make use of the last couple of hours of sunshine... my 99th paddle of the year!

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5 km, 3 NM, YTD: 961 km.

October 10th - Finnerty Cove (#98)

I led a SISKA relaxed paddle (with 15 participants) from Cadboro Bay around to Finnerty Cove and back. There was a bit of a SW wind all day so, after we had made it out to Cadboro Point, we decided to continue on north instead of back across to Cattle Point as planned. Once we rounded Cadboro point, the wind was calm and the sun came out! We had a delightful paddle along the shoreline and stopped for lunch in Telegraph Bay.

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13 km, 7 NM, YTD 956 km

Oct 8th - Chatham (#97)

George and I went out for a paddle to do some rolling in Loon Bay and then went over to Chatham to clear out some cobwebs. George was paddling his new Seaward Chinook and I the usual Tahe! I decided to do a test run of the Greenland rolling competition and I was able to complete all the rolls I can do in 7 minutes... so I should not have a problem with the 15 minute time limit! George took some video which I will try to upload...

12 km, 7 NM, YTD 943 km

Oct 5th - Loon Bay (#96)

Dan and I paddled over to Loon Bay for a rolling session. We decided to work through the Greenland Roll list and see how many points we could rack up...(http://www.qajaqusa.org/QK/rolls/rolls.html). Doing just one side as per the plan for the Seattle Greenland week (http://www.kayakacademy.com/pages/lessons/courses/greenland_week.aspx) we figured that we could rack up over 50 points. If I could pull off a brick roll (#31)(9 pts) and an elbow roll (#32)(10 pts), I could bring that up to a total of 70!

2 km, 1 nm, YTD 931 km

October 3rd - Discovery Island (#95)

Dan and I went for a nice morning paddle around Discovery. On the way we saw a few other paddlers, a group of canoe campers in Rudlin bay and we ran into the Gray whale again in Rudlin Bay. I managed to forget to turn the GPS on for the first half hour or so until we were at the top end of Chatham. As I enter month # 10 of the year, I think that my chances of reaching my goal of 100 paddles and 1000 km look pretty good - 5 paddles and 71 km! No close encounters with seal pups this time...

15 km, 8 NM, YTD 929 km.