Portage Inlet

Another gloriously sunny day dawned and Louise and I decided to do a little urban paddling. We launched on The Gorge, a mere five minute drive from my house, and only a fifteen minute drive from downtown Victoria. This is a great place to launch your kayak, and although you are still surrounded by city, nature thrives here.
We were in our Delta kayaks, Louise in her 17'...

...and me in my 18', the still water smooth as glass....

...and soon we were under the Admirals Road bridge and into Portage Inlet.


Last year, we saw the local swans and their new babies and we were hoping to see new babies this year, but it looks like we were a little early. The swans were still nesting.


We saw lots of geese, though. Here, Louise is paddling past a few geese on a rock.


We saw a few eagles in the trees, but most were keeping their distance. Then I spotted one across the Inlet on the shore. I wasn't sure what it was doing -- his leg looked trapped by something, and he kept picking at it.

We quickly realized that his leg wasn't trapped. What he was picking at was his breakfast -- a fresh raccoon.


What an amazing thing to see.


A few moments later we saw two different families of geese taking their goslings out for a swim.

Here they are playing Hide 'n' Seek.


From there, we went up Craigflower Creek.

It's hard to believe that we are actually in the middle of a subdivision. Although there are houses just behind the trees, in the creek it seems like you really are out the middle of nowhere.

We'd hoped to get as far as the tunnel under Highway 1, but no such luck today. The creek's water level was too low to get around this fallen tree.


As we returned to Portage Inlet, we saw the geese once more, this time on the top of a small embankment.

They were quite unafraid or worried about us, and this became evident as they waddled down the embankment towards us....

...and into the water.



What a great paddle. It's an amazing world we live in, and so often we hardly even notice it.




My pictures are here.
Trip length: 7.22 km
YTD: 67.51

Return to James Island

I'm not sure how it happpened, but in looking at my paddling records here on the blog I realized that somehow it's been almost three years since I paddled to James Island. And that's odd because it is a great place to paddle and a good stepping stone to other islands.

So this morning Louise and I headed to Island View Beach to launch on a warm and gorgeous spring day and rectify that oversight. A little breezier than expected, but nothing untoward. We were hoping the currents would work in our favour by taking advantage on the flood as we headed north around James Island, and ride the ebb the other way.


We didn't see a lot in the way of wildlife today. We saw a few ducks, and the occasional seal popped up to check us out. Eagles were a little more plentiful, but they were feeling shy and mostly stayed out of camera range. But we did see lots of unusual things flying in the sky.
First there was this plane. We were on the water about three hours and the entire time we were out this plane was practicing approaches to Victoria Airport. We thought he was doing "touch 'n' go's" but as we paddled up the coast we realized that he wasn't even doing that -- he was just coming in for an approach, then he'd peel off, fly a circle over us, and return for another approach.


We paddled along side the shore...

...then began our crossing to James. We were still watching the plane when we saw another object in the sky...

...and moments later we were overflown by a Canadian Forces helicopter.


We made it to James and turned around the sandspit at the far end and headed back.

We put in for a brief rest stop. James Island is now a private luxury resort owned by a former cellular phone magnate. It has its own airstrip and Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course. And, as some kayakers have discovered, an overly zealous security force.


The plane flew around again and we could finally make out the markings - Nav Canada. Nav Canada is the country's civil air navigation services provider, and provides air traffic control, flight information, weather briefings, aeronautical information services, airport advisory services and electronic aids to navigation. At least, that's what their website says. We later found out that Nav Canada was conducting calibrations of the airport's localizer and glide path instruments. It takes about six hours of flying in at various altitudes and approach angles to ensure that the airport's systems are up to spec.


Soon we were at the south end of James, passing under the cliffs.


This was the best I could do for eagle pictures during our lovely paddle.


Trip length: 14.55 km
YTD: 60.29 km
My pictures are here.

Kayaking On an Iceberg

New Record Kayak Plunge

Last Tuesday, Tyler Bradt took his kayak over Palouse Falls in southeast Washington State, a drop of 180 feet, shattering the previous record of 127 feet set just last month. He hasn't released any photos yet, but he filmed the drop for a film called Dream Result. He was only slightly injured, suffering just a sprained wrist. Next, he's off to Norway and Iceland. There's a lot of waterfalls in Iceland, he says. Dream Result is planned for a 2010 release.

Beware of Falling Bridges

Okay, here's one you don't hear about every day.
A kayaker in Arden, North Carolina escaped serious injury when a piece of metal fell off the bridge he was kayaking under. His kayak was pierced by a piece of metal about two feet long, and the kayaker suffered a cut on his foot requiring six stitches.
The bridge is under construction and work crews were apparently cheering the kayaker on before the accident occurred, and they delivered first aid to the injured paddler.

Winding Our Way to Witty's Lagoon

A warm, sunny and calm Sunday morning greeted Louise and I as we arrived at Albert Head Regional Park. After what has been months of below seasonal temperatures and a cool Spring, the warm weather finally has arrived. How long it stays is another question of course, as rain is in the forecast for later in the week, but today's weather is about as spectacular as it can get in April. We put in and headed out around the point for Witty's Lagoon.


Even before we started, we thought we were going to have a good day for spotting seals. As we prepared our kayaks for launch, we could see that the rocks about 350m away were covered in seals. But they were a little shy and as soon as we hit the water, they dove off the rocks even though we were still a third of a kilometre away. So we paddled past the little gray heads bobbing in the water along the eastern side of Albert Head. It didn't take long for another photographic opportunity to present itself. I whipped out my camera....


...and got a picture of....well, I don't know what exactly. All I know is that it was enormous, so I suspect it's a young eagle.

And a couple trees over this pair of eagles sat watching it. Perhaps the proud parents?


We continued around the point...

...and found some more seals. This group dove into the water quickly as well, even though we were quite a distance away. We were a little surprised by how jumpy they were -- usually, they are a little more calmer than they appeared to be today. We started to wonder if our (relatively) new red boats were scaring them off. Our previous boats were blue -- maybe to the seals we blended with the water better in blue boats?


While we pondered the reactions to the seals on our left, we stumbled upon a baby seal off to our right. He didn't seem the least bit worried about what colour our kayaks were, but that gave us another theory. If there were lots of baby seals about, maybe the seals were being a little extra cautious. The pictures of the baby seal didn't turn out, but beside the seal was this seagull which was eating something.

Frankly, it looks like an avocado, but I doubt that's what it was. Another seagull had one, too. Clearly neither had ever read any books by B.Kliban.

We passed by this eagle nest...

...and stopped to explore the rocks outside Witty's Lagoon. We arrived at an extremely low tide, so we knew we'd never get into the lagoon itself, and even outside the lagoon passages that were normally passable like this one were blocked.


Finally, we found some seals that didn't seem to mind the colour red. Louise drifted by these ones...

...and I found a fellow who seemed quite happy to pose for a few minutes.


It was time to head back and we caught the incoming tide, which if my GPS can be trusted, pushed us along at 8 kmh for a good chunk of time.


This is one of my favourite paddle routes: easy to get to, the conditions always seem great, and there is always something to see.


And what about seals and red kayaks? Well, it turns out that the colour of your kayak shouldn't make any difference at all because seals are colourblind.



Trip Length: 8.79 km
YTD: 45.74
My pictures are here.
The Google Earth kmz is here.

Marina Meeting April 29

The Victoria Harbour Defense Alliance is organizing a meeting to discuss the proposed Mega-Yacht Marine planned for Victoria's Inner Harbour. The meeting, planned for Wednesday April 29, 7:00 PM at Victoria High School, will bring together various interest groups as well as other speakers, including at least two former mayors who have spoken out in opposition to the plan. Long-time mayor Peter Pollen told the Victoria Times-Colonist that the marina proposal is "...just ridiculous. The harbour is crowded already." He also told Monday Magazine:

I think the process of handling this whole thing has been absolutely outrageous, conflicts of interest, absolutely no discussion, it’s gone as far as it has with virtually no notice to the public. The second thing is that it is entirely inappropriate to have 50 mega-yachts owned by mega-yachters buying condominium berths at $50,000 to $80,000 a berth, and they’re going to store these things in our tiny little harbour. It’s just crazy.

Another former mayor David Turner hit the mark when he called the marina "...a private rather than a public facility, catering to the wealthy who own these mega-yachts."
Also, savevictoriaharbour.com offers a quote from a recent letter from the South Island Sea Kayakers Association to Transportation Minister Ron Cantelon, which also pretty much hits the nail on the head:

The fundamental issue is that if you grant a license of occupation for this water lot, you will be taking an expanse of public waters currently enjoyed by all Victorians, and privatizing those waters for the use of the internationally wealthy. You will also be privatizing irreplaceable viewscapes and the shoreline - shifting them from the shared use of the entire community to the private benefit of a handful of mostly foreign-owned luxury yachts.

savevictoriaharbour.com also reports that local MP Keith Martin has written a letter against the proposal to federal Transport Canada Minister John Baird (the same John Baird who when he was Environment Minister supported "soft" intensity carbon targets instead of a hard cap. But I digress.)
And remember, we are in a provincial election campaign -- make your voices heard and ask your candidates where they stand on this issue.

Thetis Lake Trials

Although forecast to be an iffy kind of weather day, sun was bursting through the clouds on this fine spring morning. After five months of below seasonal temperatures, we are finally starting to see some warmer weather. It's still cooler than normal, but at least it's pleasant and sunny as apposed to cloudy and miserable.
Paula wanted to have another group paddle with her Advanced Element kayaks that she was given to test. She, Louise and I headed to Thetis Lake where we met kayak novices Jon and Cat. It was a perfect opportunity to give the kayaks to total rookies and see if they liked them. And if we brought two more over to The Dark Side, so much the better.


Louise got in the small Dragonfly, while I took out the Expedition. We loaded Cat and Jon into the Straitedge2...

...and got them in the water. They were really struggling and had a very difficult time controlling the boat. They seemed to end up mostly going in circles.


Maybe putting two rookies in the same boat wasn't wasn't such a good idea after all. We quickly put in to shore and Jon and I traded places. He took off like a rocket in the Expedition, while Cat and I followed in the Straitedge. It still wanted to turn a lot, far more than when I was in it with Lila a couple of weeks ago. Still, I managed to keep it on a steady course and Cat was finally able to enjoy the ride.

We switched around again, this time giving Cat a solo paddle in the Expedition, and she took off like a rocket, too.


For my part, I tried the Expedition solo, and the Straitedge both as a tandem and solo. I paid more attention to the seat adjustments than I did last time out and that did make for a more comfortable ride. Cat and Jon enjoyed their first kayaking experience as we spent a few hours lazily paddling on a sunny day.


Trip length: 4.51 km
YTD: 36.95 km
My pictures are here.

SISKA Against the Mega-Yacht Marina

The South Island Sea Kayaking Association (SISKA) is keeping the mega-yacht proposal on the front burner in the local media as this morning's Times-Colonist reports that SISKA:

told provincial Agriculture and Lands Minister Ron Cantelon, whose ministry must issue a water lease for the development to go ahead, that the proposed marina would contravene the public interest, the Land Act and common-law rights....The marina must also pass an environmental assessment by Transport Canada, currently accepting public submissions.

The story also quotes Calvin Sandborn, the director of the environmental law clinic at the University of Victoria. He says that:

under the Land Act, Cantelon cannot legally hand over a water lease unless it's in the public interest. Sandborn said kayakers have a legal right to paddle in waters where the marina is planned.

The marina planners have proposed that a passageway will be built for kayaks and canoes, but the passageway, planned to be only five to eight metres wide, will be too narrow for outrigger canoes. The marina will also add more congestion to an already crowded harbour.
If you want to stop the marina, click here to help. And remember that we're in an election campaign -- ask the candidates in your riding where they stand on this issue!

Tour Witty's Lagoon For A Good Cause

Team Witty, one of 2009's Leadership Victoria Community Action groups, is hosting a Forest to Seashore Interperative Tour of Witty's Lagoon Regional Park at 10:00 AM on Sunday, April 19.
Team Witty is constructing a Teaching Shelter at the park, an eco-friendly structure that will be a unique space in the forest where students and families can receive hands-on learning and education about the natural world.
We've kayaked here a few times and the lagoon is a terrific place to explore from the land or sea. This is a great opportunity to learn a little about the lagoon and help a good cause. Check out their website here.

a comic with insight

Check out xkcd.com for insight into kayaking!

How Not To Roll Your Kayak