October 29/30 - Greenland Week (#94)

The 6 mile race

Alan D and I drove down to Issaquah for Kayak Academy's Greenland Week Competition. We arrived Friday night and camped in the State Park. On Saturday I took part in the 6 mile race and came 5th place in the Greenland Division with 1:05:52 which I was pretty happy with since it was almost 5 minutes better than the only other time I tried paddling this distance at a pace. Roy S came second, just over a minute behind the winner Wayne H.
On Saturday afternoon, we practice Harpoon throwing with Henry, Alan showed me how to do a vertical sculling roll, and finished the day off with a great salmon dinner and talk by Chris Avery about his trip to the Aleutians.
Sunday's activities began with harpoon throwing. I came third in distance (I should have done much better but fluffed my second throw!) and then came first in accuracy (Henry had made a really cool floating target) which was a demonstration event this year. The last event was the rolling. I was really happy with a third place  finish with 129 points - a couple of new rolls for me made up for a couple of other rusty ones! 16 year old Chris S from Victoria came second with 183 points and Alan from Campbell River came first with 189 points and a nail biting elbow roll to finish a close competition. Great job Chris and Alan! Team Canada took all three places in the rolling.
My 5th, 3rd, and 3rd place finishes earned me 3rd place overall in the competition  which was a great way for me to finish the event.
11 km, YTD 1078 km

Off to Seattle for "Greenland Week"

I'll be heading down to Seattle on Friday for the weekend to participate in the Greenland Weekend competitions again this year. looking forward to meeting like minded Greenland Paddlers! There will be a few of us heading down from the Island! I will need to demo either the Great Canadian beer Roll or a Hockey Stick Roll!

October 23rd - Discovery (#93)

Jennie, Michael and I took Tim (visiting from the UK) for a trip out to Chatham and Discovery Islands. Conditions were superb - sunny and no wind to speak of and a reasonable flood current. I was surprised that there was no current in the "sluice". Tim got to try my Greenland Paddle and may be a convert! We stopped off in Loon Bay on the way back and did some rolling.
A great day on the water!

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16 km, YTD 1067 km

October 9th - Cadboro Ppoint (#91)

I went out with Kirby to do some filming of a traditional style kayak for a video project of his. Conditions were nice and calm and it was great to be pout in the Disko bay again. Hopefully the footage turned out well!

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7 km, YTD 1040 km

October 8th - D'Arcy (#90)

I led a SISKA energizer paddle today from Island View Beach to D'Arcy Island and back. We were a group of 19 and conditions were excellent - no wind and a bit of current. The early morning fog had burnt off before we left the beach. All in all a very nice paddle! In the evening I helped host a pool session and did a bit of rolling.

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18 km, YTD 1033

October 7th - Cadboro Bay (#89)

I went out for a quick afternoon paddle to check on some moorings and do some geocaching. I checked on the boat that is sitting on my mooring and left them a note... I looked for Simon's mooring which seems to have disappeared... I then checked out two geocaches that are fairly kayak accessible in the bay.

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3 km, YTD 1015 km

October 2nd - Brentwood (#88)

Dan, Bill and I met up in Brentwood Bay to do a test 6 mile/10 km route as a sort of practice for possibly racing at Greenland week.The 9.5 km course took us an hour and 10 mins, at an average speed of 8.2 kph (4.4 kt, 5.1 mph). It was a reasonable workout and a good pace for that distance. After that we spent some time practicing with Bill's harpoon. Bill had at least one good throw of 40 ft.

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10 km, YTD 1012 km

September 17th - Sidney Spit Cleanup and 1000 km (#87)

Monica and I joined the SISKA beach clean up paddle to Sidney Spit. Monica was paddling her new Feathercraft XPS and using a Greenland paddle. Conditions were very nice as we made our way out through the Little Group and then to Dock Island, before running with the current to Sidney Spit. We walked the beaches of Sidney Spit and gathered up about 5 small garbage bags full. Quite a bit less than last year which is a good sign. This paddle was a small part of the 26th International Coastal Cleanup day. As a bonus today I went through the 1000 km mark for the year!

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 10 km, YTD 1002

September 16th - Chain Islets (#86)

Dan, Gordin and I went out for a morning paddle before Gordin and I had to be at work. We had a nice run out to the Chain islets and then back up through the Chatham Islands.

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12 km, YTD 992 km

September 11th - Discovery (#85)

George, Gerhardt, Dan and I went for a lovely Sunday paddle around Discovery. Conditions were sunny and calm and we had cooperative currents. I was using my Aleut-inspired paddle and Dan was using his wooden Aleut paddle. They are definitely good paddles for maintaining a good cruising speed. I think I saw more paddlers out there today than I have on any other day this year - everyone else had the same good idea!

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17 km, YTD 980 km

September 9th - Jemmy Jones (#84)

Monica and I went for an after dinner paddle out to Jemmy Jones. It was a wonderful calm sunny fall evening!

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5km, YTD 963 km

Google stats

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I just discovered the stats function in the blog maintenance page - kind of neat to see where the 10,000 or so page views have come from...

September 7th - Rolling at Thetis Lake (#858)

Paulo and I joined James and Sheila for a rolling practice session at Thetis Lake. It was worth the wait for a good spot! It was nice to do some rolling again after a month's break! James continues do do amazingly well!
No track plot for this trip since I left the GPS at Home... but here is a rough guess...

1 km, YTD 958 km

Paddling around the Island in pieces?

Back in 2006, Pete, George and I did our first West Coast Paddle from Quatsino to Nootka Sounds (http://mhjpaddling.blogspot.com/2006/07/trip-journal-july-17-to-27.html) and the next year we did from Nootka to Renfrew (http://mhjpaddling.blogspot.com/2007/07/july-20th-to-28th-nootka-sound-to-port.html). After that we gave it a yeasr break before we did the next leg from Hardy to Quatsino (http://mhjpaddling.blogspot.com/2009/08/august-21-to-30-north-island-s-84-to-89.html). Last week we did from Renfrew to Victoria, thus completing a trip over four separate trips from Port Hardy to Victoria via the west coast. I think my goal eventually is to make it all the way around the island which means I have from Nanaimo to Port Hardy still to do. Alan (Nootka on WCP) has very kindly taken a bunch of my trip logs  and turned them in to an image of the whole island showing the various legs.

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PS, I am not trying to beat Joe O'Blenis' 16 and a bit day record!

September 5th - Discovery (#82)

I decided that I wanted to get in a lst paddle before school starts again tomorrow. Fortunately Paulo was available and came over on his bike - I was able to provide a boat and paddle! We set out to go around Discovery Island, passing in between the Chathams. Conditions were a little windy at the start but calmed down - by the time we finished it was warm, sunny and calm! Lots of paddlers out and about. We ran into Ron and Thor out on Chatham and stopped for a brief chat.

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16 km, YTD 957 km - looks like I should be OK for my 1000 km goal for the year with almost 4 months to go!