July 12th - Cadboro Bay and Atessa Yacht (#57)

I went for a late morning paddle with the surf ski and as i headed out towards Cattle Point, I saw a large yacht in Oak Bay and decided to paddle over to it. It turns out it was huge - 68.6m - has a helicopter and several dinghy's the size of my c-dory! The yacht is the Atessa which you can view on MarineTraffic and here on superyachts
Quite impressive! Anyway the weather was sunny and clam and I had a 7.8 km paddle where I averaged 7.8 kph!

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8 km, YTD 553 km

July 10th - Cadboro Point (#56)

Monica and I went for an afternoon paddle out to Cadboro Point. Monica was in her Whisky 16 and I was in the F1. There was a light breeze and it was sunny. Nice to be back in home waters. We saw over 100 Canada geese on the paddle!

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6 km, YTD 545 km

June 26-July 7 Haida Gwaii (#s 51-55)

I was up in Gwaii Hanaas working as the naturalist on board MV Swelll with Maple Leaf Adventures again this year. Over two weeks, I managed to get out for five short paddles

overview

#51- June 26 - Skaat Harbour - 2 km
I went for a short paddle with the group in Skaat Harbour befoire heading off to Burnaby Narrows later in the day.

Skaat Harbour - click to enlarge

#52 - June 29 - Anna Inlet - 1 km
Another short paddle. A few seals

Anna Inlet - click to enlarge

June 30th - Cumshewa Head - 1 km
I went for a last short paddle of the trip in a bay by Cumshewa Head. We saw some river otters.

Cumshewa head - click to enlarge

July 4th - Burnaby Narrows - 3 km
After a wonderful shore trip at Burnaby Narrows we went for a paddle in the bay near Bag harbour. Though we had seen several bears earlier, we did not see any paddling! I went over to the kayak camp to say hi to Sarah who was leading a multi-day paddling trip.

Burnaby Narrows - click to enlarge

July 7th - Anna Inlet - 3 km
For my last paddle of the trip we went to the mouth of Anna Inlet. The walls are steep here and have great intertidal life. Lots of sea cucumbers, urchins, turban snails and some yellow dorid nudibranchs.

Anna Inlet - click to enlarge

Total for th 5 trips 10 km, YTD 539

June 20th - Discovery Island (#50)

Dan and I paddled out to Cadboro Point to meet up with Paulo for a paddle around the islands. Conditions were calm with favourable currents - so much so that our moving average was 7 kph (3.8 kt) for the trip. It was a very low tide and there was lots of kelp at the surface. I love how sea kayaking allows one to work on fitness while socializing.
It was a good way to celebrate the start of summer! (the solstice was officially a couple of minutes ago! 3:34 PM Victoria time)
I am off to Haida Gwaii this Friday for a couple of weeks of being the naturalist aboard M/V Swell. I hope to get a few short paddles in like I did last year.

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15 km, YTD 529 km

June 18th - Discovery Island (#49)

Dennis, Rob, Paulo, Dan and I went for a nice morning paddle, setting of at 8AM. We did "the usual" trip around my favourite islands and encountered no significant current or wind during the trip. No lumpy water. We were back by 10:30 and I had time for a nice late morning coffee!

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15 KM, YTD 514 km.

June 12th - Cadboro bay (#48)

Monica and I went out for a nice morning paddle around the bay. I was in the F1 and Monica in the Whisky 16. It was nice and flat, a bit overcast, and the only waves we encountered were from boat wakes! We saw Ben on his Epic V10 surfski when we returned to the beach and had a quick chat.

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5 km, YTD 494 km

June 11th - Discovery Island (#47)

Dan, Rob, Olivier and I went for a morning paddle out around the islands. There was a steady 15 kt wind from the SW, so the out ward journey was reasonably lumpy and quite fun! As we reached the east side of Discovery, the water flattened out until we came around into Baynes channel where things were lumpy and fun again!

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14 km, YTD 489 km

June 10th - Cadboro Bay (#46)

I took the surfski  and wing paddle out for a short  morning paddle to clear out some cobwebs and test out the new gopro housing I picked up. Both were successful. I didn't find any lumpy water, but was able to keep up a nice pace throughout. I will upload the video results in due course.

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8km, YTD 475 km.

May 31-June5 - Broughtons (#s42-45)

I went on my almost annual trip with our grade 10 experiential program to the Brougtons. We had some great days of paddling - three 17 km days - and a day visiting alert Bay via water taxi as well as a beachbound day due to wind and lumpy waters. On our first day of paddling we saw several humpbacks, a pod of orcas, several groups of Dall's porpoise, Steller sea lions and pacific white-sided dolphins. We had good visits to Village Island and to the Earth Embassy CMT camp. The students were great and it was fun to be leading with Sarah and Beth-Anne again.

Day 1 Telegraph to Compton -  click to enlarge

Day 2 Compton to Village Island and back - click to enlarge

Day 3 - Compton to Hanson and then to Blinkhorn - click to enlarge

Day 5 - Blinkhor to telegraph - click to enlarge

56 km, YTD 467 km

May 28th and 29th - PPS (#40 & 41)

I was at PPS for a wonderful weekend of paddling. Great to spend time with old friends and make new ones! I went out for a full day trip to Rock garden from Whiffen Spit with Rowan and Jaime. Conditions were as flat as can be so we were able to get deep into many slots with little or no risk which was fun. we practiced many handy manouevering strokes and stopped for lunch on Secretary Island (landing on the rocks). On the second day I went for a short paddle in Pedder Bay itself to experiment and play with the Motionize Paddle unit. I am intrigued...

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9km, + 1 Km, YTD 411 km

May 22nd - Bewell Harbour (#39)

I took the SUP ATX paddleboard for a short trip in Bedwell Harbour while we were staying at Ainslie Point Cottage with Jack and Mary. I went from the dock out to the beach by the parks campsite. The wind was quite strong in my face on the way out, making it slow progress, but by the time I was on my way back the wind had dropped so I did not get the advantage of a push! No batteries in the GPS as I accidentally left it on, so the track is created manually...

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3 km, YTD 401 km

May 20& 23 _ Cadboro Bay (#38)

I used the inflatable Jimmy Stix Puffer SUP to get to and from Natural C-lection on its mooring in preparation for our Pender trip. It works quite well as a vehicle for getting from the boat to shore for one person!

1km, YTD 398 km

May 13th - Discovery Island (#37)

Rob and I went for a morning paddle around Discovery. Conditions were excellent. The SALTS ships were anchored off the north-east corner of Chatham and looked beautiful in the morning light. As we approached Seabird Point I spied orca fins in the distance and we were treated to a nice view of half a dozen orcas moving by. They made several breaches! We stopped for a short break and then made our way back to Cadboro Bay. There was about 10+ kt of wind from the N which slowed our progress a bit. Back by 10:30 AM!

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15 km, YTD 397 km

May 11th - Discovery Island (#36)

Dennis and I went for an early morning paddle out around the islands. Conditions were excellent, with a fairly strong ebb current that made it hard work to get around Strongtide islet. On the way back over to Cadboro Bay you can see that the current carried us to the left quite a bit. There was fog visible in the distance in Haro and Juan de Fuca Straits, but it did not affect us. We saw Sheila on the beach when we returned and went over to chat. By the time we had finished, the fog had rolled in and the whole bay was very foggy!

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15 km, YTD 382 km

May 2nd - Cadboro Bay (#35)

Jenny and I went for a nice after dinner SUP paddle around the bay. It was sunny and warm and calm! Lots of yellow-green algae in the water - it is that time of the year again!

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2 km, YTD 367 km