2008.15.108 - Vancouver Island Paddlefest 2008

Bright and early Saturday morning, we headed up island towards Ladysmith for Vancouver Island Paddlefest 2008.
Actually, it was only early -- bright was not on the horizon, as the weatherman was predicting clouds and showers. Still, there were going to be so many kayaks on the beach that you wouldn't be able to spit without hitting one. Why you want to do that, I don't know.


Richard, Paula, Bernie, Marlene, Louise and I arrived just after registration opened and we quickly readied ourselves to try out boats.


But before we got on the water, others were already test driving. This fellow was out in a wave paddler. It looked like a lot of fun, but it's clearly a flat water ride.


Louise didn't waste any time trying this new 16' Delta kayak. We really dug the black colour. The 16' is still a prototype - there's only two in the world and they were both here.


Louise tried the other 16' (a blue one) just to be safe. She really liked this model. She also tried a 17' as well -- she liked them both, but preferred the 16'. I tried them both, but they weren't for me. I can't say anything bad about them, just not right for me. (I prefer the Delta 18' which I tried later.)
Mark, if you're reading this, you need to get those 16' models into stores ASAP -- you have a sale just begging to be made!


Here, Louise is trying a Current Design Kitsilano. Louise thought this boat was okay, but wasn't really impressed. I tried a Current Design Solstice Titan LV. It has a huge cockpit -- I was swimming in it! And this was the low volume version! I tried sitting in a regular Soltice, but found the cockpit a bit cramped. I may give it another shot at MEC Paddlefest next month.


Richard is trying an Atlantis Titan. He didn't care much for this boat, but I liked it a lot. The only problem was that I couldn't get out of it. Getting out of a kayak is the only difficulty I have left over from my shoulder injury, so ease of entry and exit is important to me. This was the sweetest ride of the day for me, but sadly it failed the exit test.


Louise tried this Necky Eliza composite...


...then she and Richard took out a couple of Seaward boats: Louise a Chinook, and Richard an Infiniti. Richard liked the Infiniti, saying that it was a very playful and edgy boat, but Louise also tried it and thought it was way too tippy. She much preferred the Chinook, but thought that it was too big for her. I tried the Chinook and thought it was a nice solid ride.


Sail and outrigger kayaks seemed to be popular this year.




There was also this Velomobile that Nimbus kayaks is working on. This looks pretty cool.


After all that paddling, there was hardly any time for mini-donuts!


John's photos are here.

2008.14.107 - Coal Island

Yes, the rumours are true - finally we got some sunny weather here on the coast. And on the weekend, no less. (I even sun-burned my nose.)
So on this sunny day, Louise, Alison, Richard and myself headed out to do something that none of us had ever done: circumnavigate Coal Island. As Richard noted, it was the blind leading the blind....


As you can see, the tide was really low, which made for a slog in the mud to get to the water and get going, but once we headed out, the water was flat and calm and the weather gods continued to smile on us. We moved out of the bay, and crossed the entrance to the harbour north of where we launched. After that we faced two small channels to cross before getting to Coal Island, and we decided to explore the first channel instead of making a direct crossing. This was a good choice as we paddled around some beautiful islands and shoreline before crossing over to Coal.


Everyone was enjoying the lovely weather - even this seagull on the pole....


...and these seals on a rock. We also saw what we think was an otter or a beaver climb up onto the island from the water.
We figured that we should have been facing a flooding current -- that's what the current charts indicated -- but here it was on the ebb. In fact, the currents always seemed to be going in a direction we weren't expecting them to. It was not such an issue on a calm like today, but something to remember if we're here on days that are a little rougher.


We made it to the far tip of Coal Island when something came across in front of us. Suddenly Richard's kayak didn't seem so big anymore.
Since the big ferries from Vancouver travel along the north side Coal Island on their approach to the Swartz Bay Terminal, we knew that we had about an hour to make our way across that side of the island without having to worry about the next one.


The north side of Coal was beautiful, the water was clear. We saw some eagles fly by here, but no pictures, alas.



As we rounded the next point and started back, we spotted an eagle landing in a tree. I paddled in for a closer look and saw that it was perched in a nest. There were actually two eagles in there (I could only ever got one in a shot), and it sounded like some baby eagles were in the nest, too.


Then we saw a number of strange rock formations. It looked like someone had either built rock walls extending in to the ocean, or someone had dug back from the shore to expose these walls. It could very well have been a natural formation, but the "walls" and the "cuts" just seemed a bit too regular to be natural. This particular wall has had a bite taken out of it.


We decided to take the scenic route back and visit The Little Group....


...where the seals were hanging out.

What a great paddle!


Trip length: 10.6 km.
My GPS ran out of batteries....here's Richard's GPS track.
My pictures are here.

2008.13.106 - Paddling Come Rain or, er, Rain

We knew that the rain was coming. A front was going to pass through sometime around noon and bring with it some showers, so we weren't sure how long a paddle we were going to get before the rain. But we decided to go for it. We're kayakers, after all -- we dress to get wet.
So under cloudy skies, we put in at Telegraph Bay. It was Louise, Alison, Paula and myself today.


I'm using a new piece of gear for my deck camera. I've been using a Sticky Pod suction cup to mount my deck cam onto my boat and it mostly works pretty well, but it does have its drawbacks. It's really meant for a flat surface and of course kayaks aren't flat, so you've really got to find the sweet spot on the deck where it will stick, otherwise your camera goes swimming. Also, after a few hours the Sticky Pad does have a tendency to pop off. So I was thinking what I needed was something that was curved, yet has a flat top to mount a camera on. As it happened, I was surfing the online MEC catalogue and saw they had these things on clearance. This is actually the attaching stand for a kayak sail, but it works great as a camera mount, and all the hardware from the Sticky Pod fits it perfectly. There have been some rough water days that I haven't bothered with the deck camera, because I knew it was going to get swept off, but this should be nice and steady on those days.


Before we even got in the boats and started paddling, I was taking pictures. An otter swam by, and although I tried I never got a good shot of him. But there was a heron who was watching us launch.


Soon we were off and on our way. Every time we paddle here, we pass this tree and there's always an eagle in it. Today was no exception.


We were supposed to be paddling against a slight ebbing current, and if there was a current, it was very slight indeed. The water was calm and flat, and the rain seemed to be holding off. We proceeded west towards Mount Douglas Park.


We paddled into a small cove behind Queen Alexandria Hospital. We've never poked around in it before, but today seemed like a good day to noodle between the rocks. It was a good thing we went in, because we saw this heron doing a little fishing.



We continued on under the gaze of some deer. There were three of them looking down on us as they calmly enjoyed Sunday brunch.


After we passed the deer, we played in the cave.


Well, we call it a cave, but really it's a very small rocky cove. But it's a fun little place to poke around in.


We headed back, and again passed under the watchful eyes of the deer.


Finally, the rain hit. We also caught a couple of wakes to play in on the way back to end a great paddle.



Trip length: 8.5 km

2008.12.105 - Breaking New Ground

We were dubious about a paddle as the morning broke. Depsite a total absence of rain in the forecast for today, we were encountering drizzle as we loaded up and headed out to Brentwood Bay. But the drizzle soon stopped, and it looked like we were going to have a great paddle day.
It was Louise, Richard, Paula, Alison and myself today. The plan was to cross Saanich Inlet and see how far down the Inlet we could get. About a decade ago, Louise took a kayaking course and they paddled down to a waterfall where they put in and had a break. Today we're going to seek out this mythical waterfall.


We headed out and crossed the Inlet without incident. Alison and Paula lead the way...


...but their path crossed mine, and I had them in my sights. In naval combat, this is called Crossing the T.
Ready...aim....


Actually, the crossing wasn't totally event-free. We found ourselves being tailed by over a dozen seals. This has happened before when we've crossed over south of Bamberton. I tried to get some pictures of them, but none turned out. But we did see this fellow sunning himself as we paddled down the shore.


An eagle relaxed in a tree.


While Alison and I were distracted by the eagle, the rest of the group drifted by the next point. As we paddled slowly to catch up, Richard looked like he was doing a "shush" motion and Paula was pointing at the far side of the point. We realized that something was there and as we drifted around, there were two baby seals on the rock.
We were probably closer than we should have been, but we just drifted slowly by and tried not to disturb them too much.


Then we came upon the ruins of Minus Tirith.
Okay, maybe not that exactly, but there was a stone staircase that went from the shoreline to nowhere.


We never made it into Finlayson Arm. We ended up just going down a part called Squally Reach. That's where we found Louise's waterfall.


There was a small beach there to put in, but we decided to keep on paddling. We crossed, then put in for a rest and a snack at McKenzie Bight.


Then we started the final leg back to Brentwood.


We had a great time and were out on the water for about four and a half hours. What a fun paddle!



Trip length: 15.6 km

My pictures are here.