March 4th - Discovery (#15)

Dan and I went for an afternoon paddle around Discovery. There was a brisk northerly wind and a bit of current. I was able to catch a few waves near Heritage Point. I found a couple of crab trap floats near seabird point on Discovery. There was a pretty stiff head wind for the way back across Baynes which slowed our progress somewhat! Great to get out for a few hours in the middle of a stretch of long work days!

click to enlarge

15 km, YTD 167 km

Feb 28th - Discovery (#14)

Dan and I went for an afternoon paddle after work. Conditions were pretty decent, with a steady north wind. The ride out and down was easy, but the wind picked up to 15+ knots on the way back which made for hard work crossing over from Chatham. As we were making our way back into Cadboro Bay, we saw a deer swimming with a dog chasing after it. The dog turned back after it saw us and then we shepherded the deer back to shore were it stood for a while shivering. eventually it was able to wander off into the ten mile point properties...

click to enlarge

16 km, YTD 152 km

February 22 - Discovery (#13)

Dan and I went for a morning paddle around Discovery. We went first to the channel between the Chathams where a seal carcass had been for a few weeks and the wolf had been lurking around. Neither the seal nor the wolf was to be seen. I picked up a crab trap float, and we saw a few young guys snorkelling for crab. the had some nice ones! We decided to make it a figure of eight. There were 3 California sea lions by commodore point as well as lots of seals and eagles. Plenty of surf scoters, buffleheads, hooded mergansers, black turnstones, common mergansers harlequin ducks and more. Though the day started with some wet snow falling and it was quite cool conditions were calm and we stayed warm enough.

click to enlarge

16 km, YTD 136 km

February 18th - Cadboro Bay (#12)

Dan and I set out on what was forecasted to be a windy afternoon to do some rolling in Loon Bay. The winds were from the S and W, so the bay was fairly protected and we were able to get some good practice in. I am still a bit rusty on some of the advanced rolls! After we had cooled down from the rolling we went for a short paddle around the bay, and I wanted to gather some more plankton for school. I trolled the plankton net from the yacht club to Flower Island. We had a wonderful rainbow on our way back to Loon Bay seen from the yacht club.

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

6 km, YTD 120 km

February 15th - Discovery (#11)

I cancelled a club paddle due to the forecast of 20-30 knots in in the Cadboro - Oak Bay region and went for an early morning paddle around Chatham and Discovery with Dan and Paulo.As it turned out those winds have yet to appear, though Discovery was recording between 10 and 20 most of the morning. We had some nice waves in Baynes and what seemed like around 10 knots for most of the trip. Monica wanted me to gather some plankton for school, so I dragged a small net across Rudlin Bay and a then a larger one in Cadboro Bay. The small net slowed me down a bit, but the large one slowed me down a lot! (you can see the segments on the track plot)
As we paddled up between the Chathams, we saw the wolf. I have not seen her in a while, and she looks to be in good health. She is quite unconcerned by us and watched us for a while.

click to enlarge

15 km, YTD 114 km

February 8th - Courtenay River (#10)

While four of us were staying at Courtenay River Cottage again, Bill and I took the two Tahes for a morning paddle in the Courtenay River. There was ice all around, the water was cold, but the air was not bad! We broke some ice here and there in the river backwaters and saw lots of small jellyfish in the river estuary. The cottage is handy since it backs onto the river.In the afternoon we went for a snowy hike up on the logging roads near Mt Washington. The next day we went snowshoeing in the same area and then today Monmioca and I went cross-country skiing at Mt Washington nordic - both sunshine and heavy snowfall in a short time period! A great weekend!

click to enlarge

6 km, YTD 99 km

Jan 28th - Discovery Island (#9)

I left work early and paddled out to Discovery to join Dan and Paulo, who had left earlier, for lunch. I was able to maintain a 4 knot average on my way out and then took a more relaxed route back to Caddy Bay. On our way beck, we stopped to check out a dead seal that was being fed on by an eagle. The skull, neck and shoulders were pretty much cleaned of flesh, and I wonder how much longer it will be before it is all clean. Currents were very mellow and there was virtually no wind.

click to enlarge

11 km, YTD 93 km

I wore the Runtastic heart monitor again and was pretty happy with the consistency of the results. The only problem I would like resolved is to be able to export the data to a decent GPX file, so that I can work with it using GPSVisualizer.

Runtastic outward track -Click to enlarge

Runtastic return track - click to enlarge

January 26th - Race Rocks (#8)

Dan, Dennis, George and I gathered at 0730 at Killarney Kayak Base to load up the truck with our 4 kayaks and head out to Pedder Bay. We were on the water just before 9 and out at Race Rocks by 10. It was pretty foggy when we started, but it was lifting as we paddled out. By the time we left Rocky Point we could easily see the lighthouse. There were lots of Steller sea lions and a few California sea lions on the southernmost of the Race Rocks group, and we gave them a nice wide berth as we did not want to disturb them. We then saw the northern elephant seals on the islet between Great Race and West Race rocks. I am not sure if we saw the family with the new pup, but there was a huge male at the water's edge and then a largish female or younger male as well as a good sized pup - perhaps last year's?
We managed to time the paddle for slack tide (thanks Dennis!) and made our way back over to Bentinck Island and back to Pedder Bay where we stopped in for delicious Thai chicken soup or chili - both excellent!
Today was also the day I tried out my new 200 weight fleece hoodie made by Paulo of Comfort Paddling. It was so comfortable and warm - just right for today's cool January weather!
A great winter's day paddle!

click to elarge

15 km, YTD 82 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.

click to enlarge

11 km, YTD 67 km

January 12th - Great Chain Islet (#5)

Strong SSE winds were forecast again today, so Dennis and I decided to make our way along the shore towards Oak Bay, but decided to head out towards the Chain Islets once we got to Cattle Point. Winds were ranging from 10 -20 knots during the paddle, decreasing over the course of the paddle. we had a good workout making our way out past Tod, Fiddle and Lewis Rocks to Great Chain Islet. You can see the slow progress we made on the way out and the speedy progress on the way back. On the way back we watched a sailing race and checked out a DFO/Coast Guard boat that was anchored in the bay for a while.
On our way we encountered a SUPer and noticed that he was falling in a lot, but when we spoke to him, he said he was fine and having fun. Once again I forgot to turn the GPS on until I had paddle past the yacht club!

click to enlarge

I decided to go back to the original Runtastic app and it recorded reliable results:

heart rate and speed graph vs time - click to enlarge

speed map from app - click to enlarge

heart rate zone map - I guess we did not work that hard! - click to enlarge

heart rate map - click to enlarge

10 km, YTD 66 km

January 11th - Chatham Island (#4)

Dan, Paulo and I went for a morning paddle, hoping to avoid the worst of the forecast winds. We worked hard paddling against the wind as we made our way to Jemmy Jones and then to Chatham. The winds were probably in the 15 to 20 knot range so we had a good workout getting there. We then paddled around west Chatham and surfed our way back from Heritage Point.You can see a dramatic difference in the track speeds for the way out and back.
I was still experimenting with heart rate monitors and the app I was using did not work that well. it allowed me to accidentally pause recording while it was in a dry bag... I also forgot to turn the gps on for the first few hundred metres!

click to enlarge

10 km, YTD 56 km

January 3rd - Glencoe Cove (#3)

I led a SISKA paddle from Cadboro Bay to Glencoe Cove. There were 18 of us in all and we had good conditions. There was a reasonably strong ebb around ten mile and Cadboro points that slowed us down , but made for a good "energizer" paddle. Winds were a little stronger than originally forecast - 5 to 10 knots instead of 0 to 5 - but nothing untoward. Glencoe cove was a perfect spot to lunch at since it faced south to the sun and was in the lee of the wind. I was able to share some background of some of the local place names like Glencoe, Finnerty, ten mile, Cadboro, Staines etc with the group. I had gleaned the info from the wonderful raincoast place names book by Andrew Scott. I continued to test the heart rate monitor, but I seem to have had some trouble getting it to connect properly (and then I think I forgot to unpause it after lunch!) - the jury is still out on the device! On our way back I stopped to check my crab traps. There was one nice big red rock crab in one of the traps. When I reached the beach I ran into a past student of mine, Fraser, and we had a good chat.

click to enlarge

16 km, YTD 46 km.

Mike's 2013 paddling year in review

I thought I would post some stats for my 2013 paddling year...

92 paddles, 1063 km, (742 paddles logged and 9327 km!)

My eighth year of the paddling blog. I have managed to go over the 1000 km goal each year.

Year	Paddles	Distance (km)
2013	92	1063
2012	87	1001
2011	105	1217
2010	124	1214
2009	116	1381
2008	75	1080
2007	66	1098
2006	77	1273
Total	742	9327

Countries paddled: Canada, Peru, Ecuador (Galapagos)

Highlights of the year included paddling in the highest navigable lake in the world, paddling in Galapagos, completing another leg of my "round the island" mission and "mini-mothershippping" with Monica aboard Natural C-lection in Kyuquot Sound and the Broughtons.

Most of what I said in my 2011 review (http://mhjpaddling.blogspot.ca/2011/12/mjs-2011-year-of-paddling-in-review.html) remains true. Most of my paddles are out of Caddy Bay, Dan and Paulo remain my most regular companions, I still paddle a Tahe Greenland, but now I have an expedition duty Greenland T as my every day boat. The bib and tuilik are still my paddling gear of choice for most of the year. I still use GPSVisualizer for plotting my tracks downloaded from my Etrex Legend HCx

2013 Cadboro Bay/Oak bay tracks

January 2nd - Discovery Island and Heart Rate (#2)

Dan and I went for a late morning paddle around Discovery. The weather was a bit rainy and cool, but my Comfort paddling tuilik did a good job of keeping me dry. I picked up a Runtastic bluetooth heart rate monitor yesterday at Future Shop and decided to test it out today. I had some trouble getting it connected to begin with and did not have it properly connected until we got to Staines islet. However, once I had done things properly it did a good job of recording my heart rate, speed and position over the trip. Here are some screen shots from the Note 3 and the Runtastic app. Dan made me paddle hard between kms 11 and 12! I am quite inmpressed with the data gathering and display options of the app and will continue to explore it. The app also said that I expended 1500 Calories on the trip! That would explain my hunger when I got home!

Heart Rate

Heart Rate Zone

speed

heart rate graph

heart rate graph with "zones"

I was able to export the data to a gpx file and plot it using the trusty GPS Visualizer site :

The normal speed plot for my GPS

the heart rate data plot from the gpx file
I had some trouble getting the HR data to plot without gaps. Hope to fix this soon...

I also have a screenshot from the runtastic web site which shows the graph data and the map together.:

Runtastic screenshot

More than anything, this data confirmed that our paddles are a good workout and burn a fair number of calories! It will be interesting to compare the profiles for some different styles of paddles that I do.

15 km, YTD 30 km

January 1st - Discovery (#1)

Dennis and I set out for an early morning paddle around Discovery. On our way out I dropped off a small crab trap with an old fish head in it on the off chance there might be a crab on the menu. Conditions were excellent with a diminishing ebb current turning to a weak flood so we had little current to worry about. I stopped near Seabird Point to look for some more trap buoys, but no luck. When we rounded into Rudlin bay, we saw a paddler on the beach who turned out to be Paulo who had spent the night there! We chatted and then headed back all together. The crab trap had nothing in it, so I left it down until my next paddle - I guess that will have to be soon!
A great way to start the year!

click to enlarge

15 km, YTD 15 km.