September 11th - Discovery Island (#88)

I joined Rob and Jeff for an early morning (0730) departure from Gyro Park to paddle around Discovery. We had wonderful conditions. (Overcast enough that I did not exacerbate my sunburn from yesterday!) There were quite a few campers in Rudlin Bay and we chatted with a trio from Port Angeles who were over for the weekend. It was nice to see three more paddlers with skinny sticks! The flood was a bit against us on thew way out, but it also helped us on the way back!

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15 km, YTD 749 km

September 10th - Paddle for health (#87)

I paddled over to Willows Beach to be one of the "leaders" for the Paddle for Heath fundraiser paddle for families with childhood cancer. (If you would like to donate to this cause, please do so here.)
The group paddled back to Gyro beach and then returned to willows for a lunch stop. After it was all done, I paddled back to Killarney! Lots of boats on the water! We had over 100 paddlers on the water and we had a great paddle.

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15 km, YTD 734 km

September 9th - Tour de Cadboro (#86)

I went for a solo morning paddle around the bay in the surfski. It was pretty foggy out so I decided to cut things a bit short and not venture too far. I visited the Pacific Swift briefly and saw a pretty good fog bow for most of the trip back from Flower Island since the sun was low and behind me.

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6 km, YTD 719 km

September 4th - Discovery Island (#85)

I arranged to head out the morning after our late night return from the Maritimes! Dan and I went for "the usual" and had a very nice paddle. We met up with Paulo and a few others who had been camping in Rudlin Bay. They had heard the wolf this morning. There was quite a strong ebb running when we cross over to the islands, but it had weakened for the return.

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15 km, YTD 713 km

August 18-31 - Maritimes (#s75-84)

Monica and I took our Feathercraft wisper kayaks to NB, PE and NS for two and a half weeks of exploring. I managed to get in 10 paddles and 62 km in total. There were a few days when I wanted to paddle but it was too windy...

62 km, YTD 698 km

overview of paddling locations - click to enlarge

#75 Hopwell Rocks - August 18

Monica and I went paddling around Hopewell rocks at high tide. It was pretty windy and weird paddling in "chocolate milk". It was neat to be paddling around rocks 30+ feet above where we had been walking the day before!

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8 km

#76 Riverside Albert - August 18

Monica and I went for a quiet afternoon paddle and enjoyed the tranquility of a river paddle. It is neat how you can be on a river and get such a different perspective on the countryside.

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6 km

#77 Bouctouche - August 19

I went for an evening paddle along the shore near Bouctouche.

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5 km

#78 Darnley - Cabot Park - August 21

Monica and I were staying at Jack and Mary's cottage in Darnley and I managed to get out for a few paddles. Jack and I paddled from "their beach to Cabot Park where Monica and Mary picked us up!

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7 km

#79 Darnley - Bird Rock - August 22

I went for a solo paddle along the shore to "bird rock". the wind was from the south-east, so this shore was fairly protected. I was able to catch a few small waves on the way back. You can see that my trip back was a lot faster!

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8 km

#80 - Millvale to Stanley Bridge - August 24

Jack and I went for a nice paddle down the Stanley River. Lots of nice properties along this stretch of the river!

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6 km

#81 Cape Breton Island -South Harbour - August 28

Monica and I went for a morning paddle around South Harbour near Cape North on CBI. There was a bit of wind, so we did not venture out into the ocean..

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7 km

#82 Cape Breton Island - Black Brook Cove - August 28

I went for a solo paddle along this shoreline. This was an amazing piece of coastline with great surge channels and bays littered with giant granite boulders. The pink granite was also cut across by black lava dykes and faults. One of my favourite paddles!

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5 km

#83 Cape Breton Island - Marion Bridge - August 31

Monica and I went for a sunny morning paddle on the Mara River at Marion Bridge, inspired by the "Song for the Mira" which is a favourite of ours!

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Celtic Thunder Plays Song for the Mira

6 km

#84 Isle Madame - August 31

I went for a short last paddle before packing up the boats on Isle Madame. There are so many more places I want to paddle out here!

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4 km

July 29 to August 14 - Alaska (#65-74)

While in Alaska as naturalist aboard Maple Leaf Adventures' MV Swell, I managed to get in ten paddles in several spectacular locations.
I will follow up with detailed  blog postings for each paddle in due course - but first I have to pack for leaving for PEI this evening!
28 km, YTD 636 km

July 24 and 26 - Gordon Bay (#s 63 and 64)

Monica and I went to Gordon bay to do some camping in the trailer and also make a trip to the Carmanah Valley. While at the provincial campground, we made a couple of short kayak excursions. On Sunday afternoon we went west and put up with lots of boat wakes, seadoos etc. On Tuesday morning it seemed like we had the lake to ourselves. It was a nice change to paddle in warm fresh water.

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14 km, YTD 608 km

July 22nd - Discovery Island (#62)

Dan and I went for an early morning paddle around the islands. There were strong winds in the forecast. There was not too much when we started, but it was definitely 15-20 kt by the time we returned. We found that the wind and current had made for some nice lumpy water on the way out across the channel and even better, lumpy and squirelly water on the way back. You can see by the track that the ebb current had taken us down to Jemmy Jones. At the Northeast corner of Chatham we saw the wolf again. He watched us for a while and then got up and moved towards us to watch us again as we rounded the NE corner. You can see the slow section of our track as we watched him (and vice versa!)

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15 km, YTD 594 km

July 19th - Cadboro Bay (#61)

I went for a morning "run" around the bay with my neighbour Dan's guest, Kenny. He paddled the F1 and I paddled the Tahe T and both of us used GPs. He was a quick study at using the GP and liked it. He has used surf skis and wing paddles a lot in Hawaii. Nice conditions, quite a low tide and still ebbing out at Cadboro Point. We kept up a good pace, 7.2 kph, and did not find any lumpy water.

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7 km, YTD 579 km

July 18th - Cadboro bay (#60)

I took the Hobie inflatable out for an after dinner peddle/paddle/sail in the bay. I had ordered a sail kit for the Hobie but was originally sent the wrong one. The correct one recently arrived, so this was a first test. The wind was in the 5-10 kph range so was good for testing but did not get things going too fast! When I combined pedalling and sailing, I was able to go reasonably fast.

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3km, YTD 572 km

July 15 and 17 - Mooring (#59)

I used the inflatable SUP to paddle to and from the mooring to get to Natural C-lection before and after a trip to Puget Sound. The SUP is handy to carry up and down the street and seems to be able to take a reasonable amount of cargo. It is definitely quite practical as a "tender"for one person.

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4x .3 km
1 km, YTD 569 km

July 13th - Discovery Island (#58)

Dan and I went for a morning paddle around the islands. Great conditions. Sunny, little wind and favourable currents - just a hint of lumpy water in Baynes Channel. We stopped on the east side of Chatham to chat with Cheryl and watch the wolf for a while. We also met a paddler called Dave on one of the islands between Chatham and Discovery. Looks like our track from Commodore Point back to Killarney was pretty straight!

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15 km, YTD 568 km

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