Sunday, June 18, 2006

Blew Lagoon

Talk about history repeating itself...
After my dunking in the Chatham Islands (see here), the wisedom of dry clothes suddenly became apparent. The next week, everyone had bought dry bags and packed spare clothes and towels.
Now, after last week's trip through the fog, everybody's got a compass! :)
On to this week's paddle!

The Infamous Esquimalt Lagoon!
Okay, so it's not very infamous. Hardly at all, really. But this morning found us on its shore, and ready to paddle. A mixed bag weather day. Sun, cloud, and an offshore breeze that kept us on our toes.
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Bernie heads out in Paula's boat, as Paula was unable to attend. (Any excuse to use a bigger boat....)
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Louise heads out.
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Karl and Steph head out, too.
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The last time we were here, we played in the lagoon then headed out for some playing in the ocean. Today we put in on the ocean side and decided to head west along the coast towards the gravel plant.
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Past the plant, the shoreline had a nice beach, but the cliff made it unrealistic to use as a launching point.
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Bernie is clearly excited about something. Too bad none of us can remember what it was.
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Are we heading into a park?
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Yes, we are! Beach access, road access, and even what looks like a small river. What a great spot! The only problem is none of us have any clue which park it is.
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The river shallowed quickly, so Stephanie decided to see where the river went.
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After consulting a map later, we discovered that we were at Albert Head Lagoon Park. Easy to get by road, it looks like a great place to launch from. It fact, we're planning a day-trip from here to Witty's Lagoon and back in August.
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Karl takes some pictures of turkey vultures.
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There was a family of geese and geeselings, er, goslings.
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This looks like an old water line of some sort, perhaps an old sewer outfall.
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This was really a beautiful little spot. We hung around here for about half an hour.
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But finally, it was time to head home.
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At least one of us had a good time! :)
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My pictures are here.

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