2010.19.188 - Abort

So today's plan was for Paula, Louise and myself to head out from Telegraph Bay and go north-west-ish towards Mount Douglas Park. It was a partly cloudy day and the water was calm with occasional light swells. No sooner had we hit the water than Louise's stomach started doing the heebie-jeebies and she needed to head to shore.
She was utterly embarrassed (and needlessly so), as we had just been out in much bigger swells and rougher water just a couple of weeks ago, but there is something new about the motion of the water in this area which has started setting off nausea in her every time we've paddled here this year.
After retreating to shore, we tried again a few minutes later, but Louise's stomach lurched again and as much as she enjoyed her breakfast the first time, she didn't care for a repeat performance of it. So we retreated back to shore, and that was that.
Well, almost that. While Louise rested near the beach, Paula and I quickly zipped around the point for a short paddle, where I managed to snap some seal photos.
Better luck next week!



Trip Length: 3.88 km
YTD: 126.65 km
More pictures are here.

2010.11.180 - Green. But Not Necessarily With Envy.

Look, if you don't like pictures of fuzzy little baby geese, you might as well stop now. If your cuteness absorption system is over saturated, just turn off the computer and walk away.
Don't say I didn't warn you.

On this fine and lovely Victoria Day, Louise, Paula and I put in for a jaunt around Telegraph Bay. Although skies looking somewhat threatening to the east, the weather forecasters were assuring all that there would be no rain to spoil the parade (when you live in a city called Victoria, there has to be a parade on Victoria Day), and weather that's good enough for parade watchers is good enough for kayakers as well.


We checked out the geese on the beach as we loaded up...


...and headed out.


Almost immediately, Louise began to complain about the seat in her Delta. She'd wanted to make some adjustments to it before we launched but had forgotten, and she was having trouble making any adjustments now that we were underway. But she gamely pressed on.


We were being pushed along by a flood tide and a slight breeze, nothing crazy or severe but we were noticing that the water was getting a little squirrelly here, as if it didn't know which way to go. We have encountered odd wave action along this shore before. We surmise that as the current comes around Ten Mile Point behind us on a flood, it must bounce off the rocks and reflect back on itself somehow, just enough to sometimes not feel quite right.

Just ahead of me, Louise and Paula were heading for a small beach nestled in a rocky cove. I thought that Louise had finally had enough of her misbehaving seat and was going to put in and make some quick repairs or adjustments, but as I beached beside her I saw that see was a slight shade of jade, while Paula was positively emerald.
Louise said she was more or less okay, but Paula was not doing as well. And so while Louise and I futzed with her seat, Paula quietly excused herself and yakked into the surf.

After a few moments for recovery, we tried to figure out what was going on. Paula's inner ear had gone wonky (a chronic condition) in the oddly churning water. Louise had also felt unsure in the conditions, and said she'd been shaking by the time she hit the beach. To be sure, it was confused water, but it certainly wasn't very rough. We've paddled rougher water in this very spot. But somehow the conditions, a seemingly innocuous following tide with a slight swell and a breeze, were just right to hit the sweet spot in Paula's and Louise's nausea controls. (Or the un-sweet spot, I guess.) "Chittering," was the word Paula used to describe it, "the water was chittering about, just sort of vibrating and not sure where it wanted to go."
We carefully headed out, and the water seemed a little calmer as we made the return trip.


But as we returned to slowly to the beach we had launched from...

...came the part you were warned about: baby geese!

Three families of geese were all over our exit point, so we happily drifted for a few minutes, cameras snapping away.

Finally, the geese started giving us the evil eye. That means it's time to go!




Trip Length: 6.75 km
YTD: 79.86 km
More pictures are here.
The Google Earth kmz is here.




Bonus Quiz!
One of These Birds Doesn't Belong!
Can You Guess Which One?

2010.02.171 - Telegraph Bay

The winds were up higher than forecast, and a stiff breeze was blowing right off the water into the usually sheltered Telegraph Bay and our planned launch point.

So we decided to stick to the bay. Louise is not a confident paddler and abhors the wind and Paula has inner ear issues and occasional balance troubles and she abhors rough water, so it was a good chance to safely practice paddling in windier conditions than we normally do. Richard however abhors anything with the word "practice" in it and set out by himself on a quest to find calmer waters. (He eventually found a new car.)

One of the things we did was practice something I had read early in the week over at The Gnarlydog. There, he posed a question to a number of experienced kayakers: In the event that I should be caught out on the water in a group of 6-8 paddlers (too far from shore to be reached in time) what would be my best way to ride out a short storm? The post makes for an interesting read and I recommend you check it out. Nigel Foster suggested a couple of training exercises, including this one.

"Another useful practice session in similar conditions is to paddle a figure-of-eight path around two anchored floats. It gives practice in turning in every direction to the wind and shows how effectively you can control the kayak in that strength of wind. The more practice, usually the quicker and more effectively you can do it without getting blown onto the beach."

And that's exactly what we had here in the bay. There were a couple of floats out that we did some figure eights around.


We went to the edge of the bay and enjoyed surfing the waves back in.


We also saw otters (I couldn't get any pictures), 3 deer (I couldn't get any pictures), and two eagles arguing over a tree (yeah, that's right -- no pictures). But we did see some geese, and I did get a picture. (Fortunately, these geese were of the pacifist variety, unlike this one.)


Finally came the best part of the day, a warm drink at Olive Olio's!




Trip length: 2.18 km
YTD: 8.22
More pictures are here.
The Google Earth kmz is here.

2009.34.165 - A Rare Tuesday Paddle

This past past weekend may have been the last long weekend of summer, but it sure felt like the first weekend of fall. Cool breezes and showers developed over the course of Saturday, Sunday and the holiday Monday, which put the kibosh on our copious paddling plans. But we can't complain; we've had five months of splendid kayaking weather, kayaking every weekend since the beginning of April though until the end of August, and this was our first weather cancellation since, what, January? Five months is a pretty good run.
Even though the weather wasn't the best on the weekend, I had a sneaking suspicion that today's weather would be pretty good. After all, today was the first day of school, and the first day of school was always warm and sunny. At least, that's the way I remember it, as I stared out from my school desk through the window to beckoning blue skies all those years ago.
And so on this bright and clear Tuesday, as thousands of school children across the city moaned and sighed at the prospect of the new ten-month forced incarceration that lies ahead, Louise, Paula and I headed towards Telegraph Bay to get at least one paddle in over our extended long weekend.


Before we hit the water we saw a deer and two fawns make their way through a small copse of trees. This turned out to be a little foreshadowing for our paddle, as the four-legged animals ended up being far more interesting than the winged or finned animals that we usually see.


It was a perfect day to be out....

...but when you get right down to it, we saw a lot of odd things. Paula rescued a volleyball from a kelp bed. How in the world does a volleyball get in a kelp bed?


We passed by this seagull enjoying a breakfast of fresh fish heads...

...then past this house with its own helipad.
How do you get a helipad in a residential area? Isn't there some kind of zoning thing or something? I mean, the hoops you have to jump through to get a new driveway put in, and this guy has a helipad? His neighbours must love him every time he comes home, dive-bombing out of the sky and rattling windows for blocks around.


I was using my Stohlquist drysuit for the first time today. This was my first experience in a drysuit, having generally used a neoprene Farmer John and a paddling jacket up to now, but I've gotten tired of the neoprene itch and the wonderful aroma that permeates my van on the way home after a kayak paddle, that unmistakable stench of wet neoprene.
And so far, so good. It kept me nice and dry, and not too warm. It seems to breathe really well. I wore some Icebreaker Merino wool underneath and that did the job keeping me comfortable today, although I suspect that I will need to add some fleece to that as the weather gets cooler. The only complaint is that the neck gasket is very tight, uncomfortably so. I felt like I was getting strangled the whole trip. I see that this year's model has replaced the rubber neck gasket with a neoprene gasket. I can't say that I'm surprised.


Finally, we passed by a house that we've watched being built for the last three years. As we looked at it, a dog loped into view. A big dog, with odd flopping ears, and it was followed quickly by another. Then another. We quickly realized these weren't dogs, but it took a moment until our brains finally matched up the unexpected visual images our retinas were sending with the patterns of farm animals taken from too many childhood renditions of Old McDonald's Farm.
Goats! A flock of goats! (Yes, "flock," though uncommon, is acceptable.)
We weren't sure if the goats belonged on this property or not, as they looked like they were enjoying the free run of the neighbourhood. They trundled up a small hill and headed down the street. So if you live on Ten Mile Point and your goats are missing out of their enclosure, try the big house at the end of the point. Your neighbours' gardens will thank you!



Trip length: 12.32 km
YTD: 291.35 km
More pictures are here.
The Google Earth kmz is here.

2009.23.154 - Potpourri

We've had another stretch of hot lawn-baking sunshine. Brown: it's the new green. Although it cooled off a bit today and is expected to cool further over the coming week, the current forecast high for next Sunday is 34c, about 11c above the normal high temperature. We'll be cooking, if we can trust the weather guru's often dubious prognostications.
This hot weather marks the temporary return of our kayaking comrade Alison, here visiting family, friends and her kayak from her current home (and the city where I was born) Montréal. [insert shameless plug here: buy her new novel!]
We put in this morning at Telegraph Bay.


Before we removed our kayaks from our vehicles, we watched a pair of otters scrambling over the low tide rocks...

...while on the other side of the small bay, this heron kept watch on the proceedings.


It was Alison, Louise, Paula and myself today. I mentioned that the cool people were all paddling red kayaks this year. Reds are in this year, said Alison. Paula argued that she was almost a red with her pink kayak.


As we made our way north-ish from Telegraph Bay, we saw quite a variety of animal life. This is the third deer we saw up on the bluffs. We saw two others earlier, both being tailed by a small black cat. No pictures, alas.


We turned around and headed back at Mount Douglas Park, where we saw this eagle.


Just south of the park, our curiosity was raised by this concrete wall. Paula said it was a salt water swimming pool. The pool fills up at high tide, allowing people to take a swim in it. She said she remembered walking to this pool from Mount Douglas Park and swimming in it as a child. She offered that if we were to put in, she'd jump into it for a quick dip for a picture.

We put in and clambered over to rocks to find that the pool was indeed full of water.

It was also full of green stuff and algae. Paula quickly reconsidered her offer to swim in it, much to Alison's amusement. Continuing our paddle, we noticed two or three other salt water pools like this one, although none were as big.


We also noticed this small room built into the side of a cliff. Paula and Alison immdiately said it would make a great writing room, and they're so right. It's how I imagine a writing room to be: a small private and secluded space, with a great view and a cat in the window....

....although generally I imagine the cat to be inside the window.


We saw a little bit of everything today: two eagles, two otters, a heron, jumping fish, three deer, a few seals, two air force jets and two pussy cats. It just doesn't get much better.




Trip length: 11.61 km
YTD: 178.42 km
My pictures are here.
The Google Earth kmz is here.

2009.16.147 - A Quickie on Telegraph Bay

It's another beautiful day in paradise here on The We(s)t Coast, and there's no better way to spend part of the weekend than kayaking on the calm waters of Telegraph Bay. Louise, Paula and I planned for an early morning launch and we were pleasantly surprised when Tracy made another unexpected appearance to kayak with us.
We weren't the only ones out early this morning. Three families of geese were also on the beach. I haven't seen as many goslings before as I have this year. We're practically being overrun with them. Well, no, not really. But last year I think I saw one gosling while this year I've given up counting. Maybe I'm just going to all the good spots this year.

The geese launched at the same time we did.


I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked today as I was distracted by a wonky GPS that had suddenly decided that there were no satellites in the sky for it to lock on to. According to it, some sort of giant space disaster involving a massive EM pulse which knocked out all the world's satellites must have occurred. But I think I would have read something in the papers about a giant space disaster.
Anyway, we headed up the coast...

..towards the cave.

Tracy had never seen the cave before.


As we headed back, this gull watched us warily.


We passed the geese one last time, then the paddle was over. Now the weekend is over, and it's back to reality. Sigh.


Trip length: 8.68 km
YTD: 126.57
My pictures are here.