2014.04.257 - Baby Hunt

A warm sunny morning greeted Louise and I as we rolled our kayaks down the hill for a paddle. The object of today's paddle was our annual pilgrimage up The Gorge to look for baby swans. There's two local swan couples, one in The Gorge that have lived there for a couple of years, and another couple in Portage Inlet that have been there for at least six or seven years. So be warned; there's possibly lots of cute feathered goodness ahead in this post.

First, we noticed a heron preening in the morning sun near our launch point.


We kayaked by the first swan nest. Mom was sitting on the nest, and there was no sign of baby swans. Or dad for that matter. We'd thought we might have seen mom and some babies a few days ago from a distance when we were on a walk, but we really weren't sure. And with the the high grasses, mom could be hiding almost anything in there. But if she had any baby swans in there, we saw no sign of them today.

A few minutes later we spotted dad out for his Sunday morning walk, er, swim.


Soon, we paddled by some geese and clearly they had had some luck on the baby front.




Another heron was fishing for breakfast.


Then we headed for our first trip under the new Craigflower Bridge after its official opening a few weeks ago.



This fancy new bridge replaces an 80 year-old bridge that looked like this:


Going under the bridge moves you from The Gorge to Portage Inlet and we headed for the nest of the the other swan couple. But disappointingly, there was no sign of them. The beach area where they've nest for years looked undisturbed, so we wonder if they are still around. Perhaps they've moved on.
So, no swan babies. But as we looked in vain for them, we saw a pair of youngish looking herons.




It was high noon, but low tide and we were getting stuck in the mud and silt botton of the Inlet. Time to head back.


Trip length: 6.83 km
YTD: 25.58 km
More pictures are here.

2014.03.256 - Thetis Lake

This morning, Louise and I headed down to Thetis Lake so that Louise could try a dry-suit for the first time. Up to this time, Louise has used various combinations of neoprene pieces and paddling jackets. However, her main paddling jacket is in need of replacement and we've been discussing the pros and cons of a dry-suit as a replacement. Personally, I don't see any cons to a dry-suit -- except maybe the cost -- but until now Louise has remained unconvinced. We borrowed a dry-suit from another local paddler, but when she put it on we quickly discovered that Louise suffers from "clothestropohbia" -- a fear of confined clothing.

Our plan today was to paddle around the lake, then play in the water a bit so that Louise could get an idea of what a dry-suit is like.
We were about to hit the water when we suddenly realized that in our concern over getting the dry-suit ready for Louise, we'd forgotten out PFDs! Whoops!

What to do? If we were launching into the ocean without out PFDs, well, we wouldn't. But this being a lake we decided that sticking close to the shore should be safe enough. Thetis Lake is actually a deceptively deep lake; many a poor swimmer has encountered serious, in some cases fatal, trouble by walking out into the water from shore not realizing that the bottom drops off sharply and unexpectedly.

So, carefully, off we went.


Soon we found some trash floating near the main beach.

I'm not sure what it is -- a floating drink tray? Summer is starting early in the park! We put it ashore near a garbage can.

We continued on.


Among the trees and bushes along the shore I thought I saw a giant turtle. All I saw was a round shiny back, so my first thought was turtle, since we know there are turtles in the park. Then I saw it again, and it was definitely not a turtle. Too fast for one thing. Moving between the trees, it waddled along. Otter, maybe? We have seen those here, too.
But then I noticed the tree it walked by.

I'm pretty sure that otters don't eat trees.
So, a beaver then? Maybe, especially because Louise pointed out the large beaver mound behind the tree.


We moved into an arm of the lake that we know has turtles in it...

...and sure enough, there were two.


Soon it was time to head back. Louise has promised to report on her dry-suit experience.


Trip length: 6.04 km
YTD: 18.75 km
More pictures are here.

2014.02.255 - Inner Harbour

The forecast was for fog, not cloud. Fog burns off, cloud not so much sometimes. But not this morning. Cool and cloudy. Despite that, Louise and I headed down to the harbour to kayak from downtown up The Gorge.

Louise looks thrilled, don't she?

As we were readying to launch, the nearby Johnson Street Bridge went up.

Venerable old "Big Blue" is being replaced late next year and part of the rail portion of the bridge has already been removed (as we reported here.)
Here on the southern side, construction is not obvious....

...but once we go under the bridge and look at the north side...

...construction is well under way.

Not being a bridge construction engineer, I'm not sure what we're looking out, but I'm guessing this is a temporary construction platform that's being used to sink the pilings.

The Inner Harbour is a working harbour. As we paddled past a tied-up fishing boat...

...a pair of eyes studied us carefully.


As we paddled by the Point Hope Shipyard....

....we saw the remains of the Undersea Gardens.


The Undersea Gardens was a long-time tourist attraction in the harbour. It's a 150-foot purpose built vessel where, according to Wikipedia, visitors "....descended 15 feet (4.6 m) beneath the ocean surface to look through the many viewing windows of the aquariums that surrounded the vessel and see the various marine life of coastal British Columbia, in their natural and protected environment." It was originally opened at the Oak Bay Marina in 1964, then it was towed to the Inner Harbour in 1969.
My dad took the picture below in 1971, showing the Undersea Gardens in its prime. I love that sign!

The Gardens closed late last year and was towed here where it waits to be scrapped or sold.

Under the Bay Street Bridge...

...then under the Selkirk Bridge...

...and we were paddling up The Gorge.

Suddenly to the left, a splash!

The culprit? An otter, that sought cover under a dock after being surprised by a pair of kayakers on his morning swim.


We spotted something in the water ahead of us.

Anybody want a slightly used Zodiac?

I did my best to push onto the shore. Hopefully someone will come and collect it.


After that, it was time to head back.

The cormorant pointed the way.


Trip length: 6.66 km
YTD: 12.71 km
More pictures are here.

2014.01.254 - The Gorge

Louise and I decided to get the paddling season started this morning with a quick little jaunt down in The Gorge. We didn't want to do a long paddle; this was more of a "work out the kinks" paddle, both in our gear and ourselves. We've been off the water for a few months, and have had a pretty lazy winter so far, so we wanted to go slow and easy the first time out.
And besides, who doesn't like to go paddling in the fog?


We've been socked in the past couple of days, sometimes about as thick as it ever gets around here. It looked like it had backed off a bit as we were getting ready to launch, but then it suddenly rolled in like thick pea soup. I tried to take a picture of Louise a couple of metres away from me on the shore but as you can see, it was so thick the camera couldn't make anything out.

Which is too bad, because as Louise was standing there a Sasquatch ran by, almost knocking down Brad Pitt and Robert Downey Jr. as they signed autographs for Elvis who was piloting a flying saucer. Jeez, I wish that that picture had turned out!

Yes, I'm kidding. But if you didn't like that joke, don't worry the rest aren't any worse than that one.
In reality, the foggy shroud was starting to back off as we put in.


Either a small piece of Esquimalt was ceded to Italy over the winter, or someone is starting his World Cup cheering early.


We kayaked by the local pair of swans....

....as they practiced for the new Olympic Sport, Synchronized Underwater Grazing. I think they're going to do quite well.


Long-time readers will recall that the demolition and rebuilding of the Craigflower Bridge on Admirals Road began last year. It was supposed to be finished by Christmas, however a steel shortage delayed the project, as drivers in the area have no doubt noticed.

The latest estimate is that the bridge should be done by the end of March.


The fog began to burn off, but the temperature remained cool. Warm drinks began to call us from our kitchen, and we responded to their siren call.

The first paddle of the year is in the books!

Trip length: 6.05 km
YTD: 6.05 km
More pictures are here.