2011.01.199 - New Year's Paddle

-5C and dark. That's what you get when you get up before the sun does. By the time Louise and I made our way to Cadboro Bay beach for the first paddle of the new year a couple of hours later, the temperature had risen to a balmy -4. But at least it was no longer dark.


We met Paula for a quick paddle to start the New Year. The highlight was going to be us taking pictures of Bernie taking his annual polar bear swim. Louise is fighting a cold but volunteered to photograph Bernie from shore and I was was going to take shots from my kayak. However, Paula informed us that Bernie woke up feeling under the weather and had decided to hibernate instead. So Louise didn't get any pictures of Bernie, but she did get one of me all geared up and ready to go.


Paula started out in her small inflatable while I was still gearing up. I told her I would catch up as she paddled along the south side of Ten Mile Point.

As I departed a few minutes later, I tried to keep an eye out for her but the sun was low to the horizon and she was lost in the glare. We finally connected near Sheep Cove and paddled together towards Flower Island.


We saw the occasional seal head pop up here and there, as well as a heron who seemed to take special delight in tormenting photographers. I spotted him on the shore off a small rocky islet, and I carefully maneuvered so that the low sun was behind me. I pulled my big camera out of its waterproof bag, but just as my camera was ready, he flew off. He didn't fly far, just from the shore to the top of the islet, but I had to pack up the camera and reposition myself to try again. And again, it was as soon as I had the camera ready that he moved, but this time he didn't fly. He merely took a few steps down the far side of the rocky outcropping and out of my sight. I could almost feel his disdain -- apparently I wasn't even worth the bother of flying away from!
Paula hung around Flower Island, but I ventured out a bit to watch the wind and the currents working. We were near the end of a huge high tide, and the current was going to pick up later in the day with a fast-flowing ebb. The breeze picked up a bit as I paddled into in the more open channel. I looked over saw Mount Baker looming in the distance.

Earlier in the bay we could just barely make out the top of Mount Rainer, so today was what Paula likes to call a two-volcano day.

As I headed back towards Paula at Flower Island, I could see she was over by Evans Rock on the south-ish side, and as I came closer, she paddled towards me with a look of concentration that made me think that she was trying to impart some message to me telepathically.

As we met, she said, "Go slowly around. On the left side of that rock there's two otters."
After being burned by that heron, I was certainly willing to try to get a few shots of the otters.
At first I only saw one otter....

...and he was busy rubbing his ass against a big log. How charming.
But as they scampered around the rock...

...I quickly realized that there were three otters on the rock.

I don't think the otters even realized we were there. Paula had drifted behind me as I took pictures, then the otters hit the ocean for a swim. They followed Paula for a while...

...until they finally realized that something big and red was behind them and they disappeared with quick splashes of their tails.

After that we headed back towards shore....

...where we looked down the beach and saw Mike Jackson and some buddies putting in for their first paddle of the year. Guess my lead over him for most paddles this year is not going to last long!

Trip Length: 4.75 km
YTD: 4.75 km
More pictures are here.

2010 Paddling Stats

The 2010 weather stats break down like this:
36% of our paddles were on sunny days;
17% were on cloudy days;
17% were on rainy/stormy days;
and 10% were canceled due to bad weather

As we can see, sunny days were down, and thus cloudy and stormy paddling days were up. Or was it the other way around? Either way, the weather took a bit of a dip this year, let's hope it's better in 2011.
Happy paddlin'!

2010.29.198 - Ice Ice Baby

Yeah, it's been a while since we hit the water, not counting our pool session a couple of weeks ago. I blame the weather. The weather was actually quite nice in October, milder and drier than normal, at least anecdotally. But we actually believed the weatherman when he said that most paddling days would have bad weather. And that was a mistake, of course, because generally the weather was good when the weatherman was calling for bad, but we, trusting souls that we are, had already made other plans for those days that were forecast to have sucky weather. You see where this is going, right?
This past week brought us our first real dose of winter this year, three snowstorms in five days. The snow might be mostly gone now, but it was still darn cold this morning. Despite this, Louise and I rolled our kayaks down the hill to go for a paddle on The Gorge.


It was cool, maybe about 1 degree when we started out, but it was forecast to be a sunny day and we were sure hoping the sun was going to poke through the clouds quickly and start warming things up. There was still a bit of snow left on the ground from the past week's snowfalls.


We paddled over to Gorge-Kinsmen Park hoping to spot the two swans that have been hanging around there the last few days, but they weren't there this morning. We were starting to wonder if all we were going to see was a few cormorants up a tree.

But after we passed under the bridge and into Portage Inlet....

...and passed the phalanx of geese....

...we spotted the swans. Or rather, they spotted us and headed right for us.



They showed no fear of us. Clearly this pair have had plenty of contact with humans.

Finally after a few minutes of swimming around us, they went on their way....

...and we went on ours.

I was hoping that we'd be able to get into the Western arm of Portage Inlet and up to the tunnel on Craigflower Creek, but as we approached the entrance to the arm Louise and I both had the sensation that paddling suddenly became a little harder as if the water had become thicker. And as I looked ahead I could see that the water had not only become thick, it had become solid. The way was blocked by ice.

We'd encountered ice here once before, but that was really just a thin layer on the surface. This time, we were dealing with some solid ice, maybe a half inch thick or more.

At first we thought we could break the ice but we were finding spots that were so thick that the kayaks weren't sinking through it, nor could we break it with our paddles. Flipping over in this could really ruin your day. We tried sneaking around through the thin ice near shore, but that proved to be futile as there wasn't nearly enough of it for us to pass. The whole western arm was frozen up as well as the northern shore, so we decided to head east and follow the outline of the ice.
Which didn't mean that we didn't occasionally try to be an ice breaker....



As we paddled along three or four seals kept up with us and checked us out. Here's one sizing up Louise....

...and I was so busy taking that picture of Louise and the seal that I didn't notice until I checked my pictures later that another seal that had popped up right in front of me.


As we followed the ice, we noticed a strange line in the water. You can see it just to the left of my kayak.

It followed the contours of the ice. Was it some sort of boundary layer either between temperature zones, or between salinity zones? The Gorge at one end of Portage Inlet is ocean salt water, but the Inlet is also fed by fresh water creeks, so they've got to meet somewhere.

We got as far as Colquitz Creek, then decided to head back because the sun never did come out for more than a couple of minutes and suddenly a cup of hot chocolate seemed like a really good idea.


Trip Length: 8.02 km
YTD: 228.10 km
More pictures are here.

2010.28.197 - The Gray Zone

The Gray Zone. And no, we don't mean some sort of X-Files spin-off where Mulder finally finds out what happened to his long-lost sister while he investigates a conspiracy involving secret government organizations and an extraterrestrial invasion. Instead, we mean the gray zone in a kayak, the space between being upside right, and rightside down.
Louise and I headed to the pool for The Gray Zone course put on by the fine folks at Ocean River Sports.


During the course we brushed up on our edging, and our low and high braces, and our sculling (that's sculling, not Scully). Here, Louise practices her braces while the instructor stands behind her trying to flip her.


Then we tried the balance brace (that's when you and your kayak lie on the side and float, also called a static brace in some circles) and sculling for support, which is when you scull to support yourself in the balance brace position. This will take further practice as accomplishing this move requires you to turn body into a pretzel, and my body is more like a cupcake. Mmmmm, cupcake. Sorry, where were we?
We also practiced our sculling brace, and used it in a simulated situation when you may need to rescue someone by carrying them on the back of your kayak. I always thought that when someone was climbing onto your kayak, the proper procedure was to either whack them on the head with your paddle while laughing maniacally, or to attempt to bargain with them: "Throw me the idol, I'll throw you the tow rope! No time to argue!"
But it turns out that by using the sculling brace you can support your kayak while the rescuee scrambles onto to and off of the stern of your kayak, a technique known as the seal carry. Here's Louise trying to carry a fellow student.

We had a great time, but the thing we learned the most is that we need to practice more!

2010.27.196 - Switching to Glide

Today was a rare mid-week paddle as Louise, Paula and I met at Cadboro Bay Beach to kayak out to Chatham Island.


Although somewhat overcast and rainfall warnings out for various spots along the coast, we had totally calm conditions. A higher than normal tide had come in and was going to be hanging around for most of the day.
And oddly, even though it was cloudy and hazy, the conditions allowed us the rare treat of seeing all three mainland mountain ranges (The Cascades, The Olympics, and the Coast Range), and two volcanoes. Mount Baker was plainly visible as it often is...

...but towards the south-east we could barely make out the cone of Mount Rainier about 200 km away.
We paddled out along Ten Mile Point...

...and out towards Jemmy Jones Island...

...where this eagle watched over our journey.


As we crossed from Jemmy Jones to Chatham, a couple of Navy ships crossed our path, first the HMCS Cougar...

...followed a few minutes later by the HMCS Moose.

These are Orca-class patrol vessels generally used for training and support surveillance. (Destroy these pictures right away, just in case Homeland Security comes knocking.)

At Chatham, we cruised down a channel and quickly discovered where all the seals were hiding.

Even if there isn't much current out in the open water like today, there's always some between the islands that make up the Chatham/Discovery group. We just pulled out our paddles and glided by the seals resting on the small rock outcroppings.




After puttering around Chatham...

...we crossed to the Chain Islands....

...where we found more seals...


...then reluctantly headed back to shore.


Trip Length: 12.45 km
YTD: 220.08 km
More pictures are here.