2012.03.228 - Spring Has Sprung

Well, hello there.

The picture above was taken with my GoPro camera. I'm sure many of you are wondering just how many pictures your GoPro will take before the battery dies if you've forgetten to turn off the optional monitor before you head out. Thanks to my stupidity well-planned experiment, I can now tell you it's about 90 pictures. And 45 of them will probably be taken before you actually get in the water.
So you might get a couple of nice ones like this before the power craps out. Sigh.

As it happened, I had set up my GoPro and turned it on but got distracted as I had a moment of trouble getting it to work. After a moment it started to work fine, but I neglected to shut off the monitor, and it quickly chewed up the battery power. Ah well, live and learn.

Today, Louise and I were joined by Robyn and Mark of Gecko Paddler. This was their first time paddling in The Gorge and Portage Inlet area, so we gave them the grand tour.


First, we introduced them to what we call the Iron Man.


Further up The Gorge we found a victim from the winter's wind storms. We call it Cormorant Tree because almost every time we paddle here it's usually full of cormorants, but top of the tree is now lying in the mud after having been broken off, probably by the wild storms we've had over the last few weeks.


Next, we passed under the Craigflower Bridge into Portage Inlet.

Enjoy looking at this bridge while you can. Starting July 1, it's coming down. The replacement should be open by Christmas and look like this:

It also means that our paddling options in this area for the summer may be limited as we probably won't be able to get into the inlet due to the bridge construction.



We passed by the swans in their usual nesting spot. I'm guessing we'll see little baby swans playing here in a few weeks.

We headed up Craigflower creek...

...but we found the end is still plugged by a fallen tree, keeping the really cool tunnel 100 metres beyond out of reach, probably for a long time.

The duck and the seagull didn't seem to care about the fallen tree one way or the other.


From Craigflower Creek in the south west corner of the inlet, we headed towards Colquitz Creek at the north east corner, and on the way we passed...

...whatever these are. Centaurs? Avatar people? I don't remember seeing these here before so I'm guessing they're fairly new.

We paddled up the tranquil Colquitz creek, then let the creek's slow easy current pass us back to the inlet.


We headed back down The Gorge to our put in at Victoria Canoe and Kayak Club. Judging by their smiles, I'm guessing Robyn and Mark had a good time. You can read their paddle report here.


Trip Length: 14.62 km
YTD: 25.19 km
More pictures are here.

2012.02.227 - Out In The Blue

Sunday dawned a little cloudier and cooler than we had hoped, but the sun was poking through a light cloud cover. A slow flood and a slight north breeze suggested that we should have some nice conditions of the water. The breeze was forecast to pick up around noon as a squall passed through so we should have had a couple of hours of calm if cool conditions.


Louise and I met up early with Paula for a paddle at Cadboro Bay, joined by Mark and Robyn from Gecko Paddler. They're new to kayaking, but the bug has bit them hard. They purchased their kayaks last fall, and jumped right into paddling with both feet.


Our plan was to paddle out of Cadboro Bay, island hop to Flower and Jemmy Jones, then cross to Chatham Island....

...but on the way Mark spotted an otter relaxing on the shore.



We avoided the sail boats...

...but as we headed across, the 12 o'clock squall roared in about two hours early, so we decided to turn back. We saw the eagle that usually sits in the tree on the island joined by another eagle. Some sort of eagle ruckus ensued. Louise was the closest and had the best view. She was pretty sure that they had been mating. Here they are enjoying the afterglow.


So instead of crossing, we continued up to Cadboro Point. While quite calm along the shore, we could see that the exposed northern shore around the point was getting the full blast of the wind. So we just paddled around the rocks at the end of the point, and Mark had his first taste of paddling in waves.

I think he liked it - he said he should get himself a surfing boat!

We headed back...

...and naturally the wind died off and the sun came out as soon as we hit the beach, but at least we were now able to enjoy our-post paddle coffee with Robyn and Mark at an outside table.

Trip Length: 7.29 km
YTD: 10.57 km
More pictures are here.

2012.01.226 - Snow Day

Now don't start laughing, but it snowed in Victoria last night. I know that barely 2 cm of white stuff on the ground wouldn't count as a "real" snowfall in most locales, especially here in the Great White North, but for Victoria, 2 cm is almost a blizzard. Which isn't to say what we haven't had real blizzards, for we most assuredly have, but snow is a rarity here and anything more than a light dusting throws this town into a tizzy.
I couldn't resist a quick paddle this morning and wheeled my kayak down the hill. It's not often you see a guy in a Santa hat walking his kayaking in the snow. Even one of Victoria's finest was distracted from the traffic ticket she was writing.


Louise would normally accompany me, but she stayed on shore and walked along beside me, the idea being that she could take a few shots of me and the snow for a Christmas card for next winter. She took some nice shots, but they'll have to wait until the holidays roll around again.


I put in at the bottom of my hill....

....and paddled into the quiet morning. Even the small amount of snow on the ground was enough to dampen the sound of the neighbourhood.
But I was quickly joined by a duck that landed right beside me.
While the ducks and other fowl are fairly tame in this area, it's still a bit unusual for them to approach this close unless it's obvious that you have food. I suspect that they're feeling a bit hungry this time of year, although they certainly aren't suffering. When it became obvious that I was wasn't going to feed him, he went on his way.


Enjoying the crisp and cool air, I continued on, past the (barely) snow covered trees...

...while three swans swam towards me.


The swans had also drawn the attention of a photographer on shore who asked if he could take a few pictures of "Santa" in his kayak, even though "Santa" never brought him the bicycle he wanted. Turns out he's a local professional photographer named Jason, and he snapped quite a few shots. I was starting to feel like Cindy Crawford.

Check out his website,there's some nice stuff there.

I turned around at Craigflower bridge. Clouds were building to the east and there had been some wicked squalls blow through the last copy of days.


In the end, the clouds never amounted to anything, but on the way back I encountered the swans again at the same spot, only now we were both going the opposite directions.



A heron was bundled up against the cold...

...while Cormorant Tree was draped in its namesakes.

Meanwhile Louise kept pace with me, taking pictures as I drifted along in our temporary winter wonderland.


I landed and began organizing myself for the always fun uphill trek with the kayak.


Trip Length: 3.38 km
YTD: 3.38 km
More pictures are here.

2011 Annual Weather Stats

And now it's our annual paddling day weather stats wrap up. This year I eliminated the "cancelled due to bad weather" category, so the weather category percentages have been tweaked a bit from previous years.
What can we glean from this? Well, first we can see that Google Docs makes some neat-o charts. Second, we can see that over the six years we have been paddling that the percentage of sunny days has gone up over this time, perhaps something that should not be unexpected as we enter our future of human-caused climate change, although this is clearly not a scientific study by any means as no doubt we are self-selecting which days to paddle on. Still, it's an illuminating if anecdotal look at how our planet is changing right before our eyes.

2011.27.225 - Thetis Lake

Hard to believe it's been a month since we were last on the water. Life is like that sometimes.

Even though it was a brisk 1 degree as we headed out in the morning, the sun was occasionally poking through the clouds and the cool air certainly woke us up.
Our friend Alison is back in town for a visit. She's been post some great paddle reports of her kayaking adventures in Montreal, but she's here in town for a few days visiting her kayak and giving it a little workout.
Unfortunately, Alison suddenly realized that's she'd forgotten to renew her driver's license before visiting, limiting her options for moving her kayak to put ins. And with Paula limited to commando kayaking on public transit today, a tense two-hour negotiating session ended with the decision to paddle Thetis Lake today. (If David Stern needs help with the NBA lockout, tell him to give us a call. After this, we can negotiate anything.)

Louise and I put in with Alison....

....and caught up with Paula at a different part of the lake.

Checking my records, I see that this is our first paddle this year at the lake. How the heck did that happen?


Not only is this a great place to paddle, but it's a great place to do some rescue and paddle practice, but no one felt like doing that today. That water was cold!


So we spent a couple of hours meandering around the lake....

...and then spent a couple of hours warming up afterwards!

But before we could imbibe some warm beverages, we passed a bluff on the shore where a photographer took some snaps of us. We bumped into him later in the parking lot and he graciously emailed us the photos. Thanks for these pictures, Erik!



Trip Length: 7.55 km
YTD: 214.59 km
More pictures are here.