Another easy paddle was the order of the day, mainly because my recovering shoulder and arm are still not ready for a long paddle, and because The Usual Gang of Paddling Idiots was accompanied by a rookie paddler, Jenny.
Bernie gave her a quick on-shore lesson in his technique and expertise, but despite this, she was still keen to try.
So away we went for a short cruise around the home port, Cadboro Bay. It was Louise, Alison, Paula, Jenny and myself today, as Bernie begged off.
We tried to give Jenny all of our worldy kayaking knowledge. Here Paula demonstrates how to cause a traffic jam and almost fall in at the same time.
Louise has her I'm-not-doing-anything-when-John-is-pointing-the-camera-at-me-so-he-can't-make-up-a-goofy-caption-for-the-blog look down pat.
And away we go!
We watched a pair of eagles fly around for a while, until they landed.
The older one (the one with the white head) was eating a fish or something, while the other one (the younger, brownish speckled one) watched. But they got bored with us and flew away. They were big, though. The brown one circled over us later, down fairly low, and it seemed to have a huge wingspan.
We went as far as Flower Island. It was cloudy when we started, but the sun burned through and it turned into a pretty nice day. We had a slowly turning tide that gently pulled us out after we launched, then gently pushed us back as we returned.
Alison and Jenny are discussing why it is that only the cool paddlers have red boats.
A paddle wouldn't be a paddle without a heron.
As we headed back, the young eagle returned and parked itself in a tree.
It didn't seem to be paying me any attention. Which is fine. I can get more pictures that way.
After saying goodbye and thank-you to the eagle, this heron decided it wanted to pose for a while.
And pose he did.
You couldn't have a much better day on the water than today!
My pictures are here.
Jenny, Alison and I enjoyed a look and read tonight after Alison pointed us at Kayak Yak. Thanks for showing Jenny how to paddle today and bringing her back again more or less dry despite Bernie's tutelage.
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