Back In the Paddle Again

For a kayaking blog, Louise and I haven't done a lot of kayaking lately. In fact, we haven't been on the water since last July. And the fault is mine, or rather my right knee's. After stoically braving chronic pain and stiffness for some months (I call it "stoically braving" -- others may call it "living in denial"), I finally sought out medical advice. I could not fully extend my knee, nor could I fully bend it without extreme pain. Sometimes I could barely bend it at all. While some days I could walk on it fairly comfortably, on others I was reduced to dragging my leg behind me seemingly in a vain attempt to impersonate Charles Laughton. Paddling my kayak wasn't so bad, but it became quite a struggle to get in and out of my boat, never mind the travails of loading, unloading and carrying it around.
Last July, my knee finally reached its metaphorical breaking point, and clearly brave stoicism was not getting me very far. After an assessment with a physiotherapist, I was diagnosed with patella dislocation. Basically, this means that my kneecap was not resting correctly in the patellofemoral groove at the end of the thigh bone. While generally an injury that is the result of a sudden impact or twist, it can be the result of a chronic muscle imbalance, and that appears to have been the case for me. There had not been any sudden impacts on my knee, but there had been a slow decrease of function and increase in discomfort going back years. I first dismissed this as simply a sign of the aches and pains of an aging body, but now, after a few months of physio and more months of near normal function, it appears that I was mistaken.
The obvious question is what sent my knee down this road. Was there an incident that injured my knee just enough to create a minor injury that at first was an unnoticed inconvenience but without treatment developed into near-debilitating aggravation? Or is this the result of a long-untreated residual injury from my bike accident? Or just a chronic slight misalignment of parts that finally became unbearable?
That is an unanswerable question. But at least now I can walk around free of pain while I think about it.

So having been off the water for over seven months, this was really nothing more than let's-get-reacquainted-with-paddling paddle. Working out the kinks, seeing if everything still works, and trying to remember all the little details. Where's my paddle? Did I remember my waterbottle? Where did I put my lucky kayaking underwear? Am I the only paddler who wears lucky kayaking underwear?
One thing we suddenly remembered was that the last time we went out paddling, Louise blew out the knee seam of her neoprene pants. Clearly, that might have been an issue for a long day of paddling on the ocean, but not so much for our little jaunt in The Gorge. But Louise came up with a great idea -- she put a piece of duct tape on the inside of her neoprene covering the hole. Not a permanent solution, but it worked for today.


So we wheeled the kayaks down the hill and put in at The Gorge. Although quite mild for February, it was still a bit cool overall, but I was hoping the sun would be enough to keep us warm.

And we're on our way!


I took along a new piece of gear, a selfie stick. I was hoping to try and get something other than the same old kayaking camera angles. A bit of a work in progress, I think.


We headed under the Craigflower Bridge....

...and into Portage Inlet.


Louise was starting to feel the brisk air. Fooled by the bright sun, she was wearing thin gloves instead of her Hot Shots paddling mitts and the cold was getting to her. We turned to head back as we weren't planning to stay out long anyway.
We saw a hawk fly by, but not much else. But as we began our turn around, I saw a heron in a tree. Then another. Then another....


Twelve herons in all. Do we have a new heron rookery in Portage Inlet?


We'll have to check it out next time we're out here. In the meantime, Louise needs some hot tea!


Trip length: 4.95 km
YTD: 4.95 km
More pictures are here.

Looking For Baby Swans

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.

2013 Kayak for a Cure

Louise and I hit Willows Beach early this morning to join the 2013 edition of Kayak For A Cure. About 50 kayakers by my guess hit the water, some old hands at kayaking, but others were first-time newbies, and many were cancer survivors so it's a short, easy paddle to Cadboro Bay and back.

But first things first. And first I get my picture taken with Marty the Marmot, the hardest working marmot in show business.


But when our thoughts turned to kayaking, conditions were beautiful on the beach...

...but there were some big thick clouds of fog here and there offshore and down towards the south.


Soon, we were off. Herding cats is probably easier.


I wasn't expecting to see much in the way of wildlife today, the wildlife generally hides when a fleet, is in the water, but a heron kept watch as we paddled by.


We rounded Cattle Point...

...and into Cadboro Bay...

...where Paula paddled out to briefly join us.


A quick stop under wispy fog at Cadboro Bay beach...

...and then we returned to Willows Beach...

...for munchies.

Donations received from the Victoria event go towards the local InspireHealth Integrated Cancer Care centre, and today we raised over $22,000.
It's not too late to help -- you can still donate by clicking here.


In support of Bobby, Ann, and Karen.
In memory of Pauline, Jaan, and Sam.

Trip length: 6.98 km
YTD: 48.64 km
More pictures are here.

Seal of Disapproval

There's no question that our kayaking mojo has been absent this year. We've just gone through the driest and most sunshiniest month ever recorded in these parts and we only kayaked twice. Part of the problem is we spent the earlier part of the year nursing minor aches and pains, and dealt with some energy-sapping family matters. But those are winding down now, and we're feeling relatively healthy, so we're trying to get back in to the paddling swing again. And although it was overcast when we arrived at Cadboro Bay beach, the weatherman promised that it would burnoff and the sun would out soon.
And the weatherman always keeps his promises, right?


Paula joined Louise and myself and we headed out hoping that the weatherman would indeed keep his promises. And it looked like he just might. As we paddled along the north side of the by, the thin cloud layer began to abate.


This heron was enjoying the morning almost as much as we were.


We reached Flower Island and paddled around the far side of the island where a pair of eagles were resting.

One flew off to sit in a tree....

...while one seemed quite content to sit in the sun.


While I drifted away checking out the eagles, Louise was having a close encounter of her own.

A seal had taken an interest in her and was following close behind her, diving and swimming under her boat.

Louise reported that it was swimming up to her, diving, turning upside down and looking up here. She spent a few minutes mesmerized as it swan and performed in the underwater sunlit rays.

From Flower, we crossed to Jemmy Jones Island with the intention of paddling around it, but as we closed in, we could hear seals barking and we could see young seals at both ends of the island. We decided to forgo paddling around and leave the young ones in peace.


Instead, we paddled towards the end of Ten Mile Point and played around in a cove that only exists at low tide. Normally, this would be a series of small to medium-sized channels, but not today. We spent a few minutes floating around checking out the sponges and seaweed.


After a while, a mother seal and her baby entered the channel.

They seemed calm at first, but clearly baby seal was interested in us and kept trying to get closer. Mother seal kept swimming in front of the baby and nudging it away from us.

Finally, she popped up right in front of me, and with an exasperated splash let us know that we were no longer welcome.

Even though we were in the cove first, we weren't going to argue the point and quickly moved away.
Afterwards, we discussed whether the seal was being overtly aggressive or not. We concluded that the seals must have been somewhat curious as they had clearly approached us -- made a straight line for me at one point -- but mom had obviously determined that we had overstayed in their area and gave a polite but firm warning.

So we took the hint and headed back, past Flower Island, where the eagle was still in the tree.


Trip length: 6.43 km
YTD: 35.46 km
More pictures are here.