This Hits the SPOT

Paula was recently coveting the SPOT Satellite Messenger, a handheld device that can send an emergency signal over satellite to rescue services. It's a nifty gadget and should be considered as part of your gear, especially if you're doing a lot of distance paddling.
It's now available locally at London Drugs ($169.99), and Mike Jackson tested one out on the Sooke Basin.

Cadboro Bay to Willows Beach

Another cloudy Sunday. We decided to head from Cadboro Bay to Willows Beach. We were just about to head out when we came up with a great idea, "Let's paddle the kayaks instead!" Bernie was certainly keen to try this new approach. "Now you tell me!" he said.

So we headed out: Bernie, Louise, Paula and myself.
Louise and I toured around the beach while Paula and Bernie launched....

...that's where I found this guy in a tree.

Bernie and Paula joined us and we headed down Cadboro Bay towards Flower Island.


It was a cloudy day, but there were some sunshine seeping through the clouds. There were a lot of sailboats around, and a lot of them were training, so we had to keep our eyes on them.


We also kept our eye on Mount Baker...just in case it decided to erupt.


Out of Cadboro Bay, we headed south towards Willows Beach.


We found this eagle perched up on a rock.

This is the same eagle we saw in the area three weeks ago. Here he's enjoying a crab for breakfast but he's being bothered by crows who are hoping that he'll drop some crab crumbs for them. At one point he had three crows bothering him. Eventually he got annoyed enough with them that he took off, but we'll see more of him later.

This seagull was also enjoying crab for breakfast.


Bernie headed back early as he was having equipment problems, and Louise, Paula and I puttered around Willows Beach for a bit, then headed back. We were paddling against an ebbing tide now, and the wind was coming up a little more than forecast.

Then we spotted our crab-eating eagle on another rock.

Soon we were back at the beach...


...and off to Starbucks to warm up!




Trip Length - 8.2 km
Average Speed - 3.2 kmh

Eight Uses for Plastic Bottles

Hah! Louise mentioned that Ocean River Sports had a list of eight other uses for a plastic water bottle. Other uses, that is, other than drinking from them.
Apparently those Lexan and Nalgene and other brands of plastic bottles aren't as spiffy as used to be believed, and there is the possiblility of complex, evil molecules like phthalates and bisphenols teabagging into our drinking water.
Well, I for one have a slim steel Thermos that I now use much of the time, but I will continue to use two slim plastic bottles occasionally. I'll put only water (no acidic drinks) in them, and I'll fill them the day I drink from them, not letting the water sit for hours or days.
In the meantime, I copied the list of eight other uses for a plastic water bottle at Ocean River Sports yesterday. It's slightly paraphrased (I was in a hurry and without my glasses).

1. Keep your valuables dry when kayaking or camping.
2. Store dry food.
3. Pack a safety kit or emergency kit.
4. Hold rope in a confined space.
5. Stow firestarter.
6. Hold your kayak repair kit, which may have resins you don't want to leak on other gear.
7. Pack a time capsule and bury it in the yard . Don't forget to mark the spot!
8. Use it for a pee bottle when mountaineering. (Not a drinking bottle after that!)

Great list, eh? Now all my wide-mouth bottles have other potential uses. And most of them will be usable as a water bottle afterwards if needed in a pinch.

16/100 - 04 March 2008

Short paddle out of Cadboro Bay around to Telegraph cove. Ended up cutting the paddle short because of a panic attack off Telegraph Cove. I think it was a combination of factors; a cup of coffee from Starbucks this morning (it was close, but it is 3X the caffeine of a regular cup of coffee. Are they taking a page from the tobacco company’s playbook and altering the natural levels of the addictive substance in their product?), not enough food over the last 36 hours (still not feeling well from whatever’s been eating at me…), constricted breathing (the combo of wetsuit, skirt, and PFD makes it a bit difficult to breathe–okay, the extra few pounds I’ve added since last summer doesn’t help), and elevated heart rate (the wind and swells had picked up, so I was paddling harder). So all in all, my body tripped over into a panic attack. Oh well, there’s two nice looking days coming up, so maybe i’ll get nearly back on schedule this week.
It’s frustrating, because the boat needs work: sanding and re-painting, some work on the cockpit, including a better back support, the seat, side pads, and thigh pads need to be glued or re-glued, the fine ends of the boat take a beating, so now the bow needs re-glassing to repair some damage, the list does go on. As well there is the issue of another boat to finish, and the conversion kit to make the two of them a sailing catamaran needs to be explored. The days that are good for doing the work are also days that are nice for being on the water. I’ll have to sacrifice some paddling to do the work.

A Swell Paddle

Partly cloudy skies greeted us this Sunday morning. It was cold last night, down below freezing but already the sun was warming the air and us up. It had been windy over night but the breeze was dropping off and it was expected to decrease further as the morning wore on. So with Paula and Bernie temporarily grounded with car trouble, we headed for Cadboro Bay.


It was a small group today, just Alison, Paula and myself. Bernie begged off with a bad back and Louise is trying to ward off a cold. It's been a heck of a winter for colds and flues. There's already been two bad outbreaks that have gone through the area, and it looks like a third one is going through now. It was pretty calm when we started....


...but it did get a little choppier as we headed out. We went past Flower Island, then out to Jemmy Jones Island...


...then we headed for the lighthouse at Ten Mile Point. We saw a bit of wildlife today -- seals, herons and oyster catchers -- but they were keeping their distance today. We saw a big young eagle take off from Jemmy Jones Island, but of course both Alison and I had just put our cameras away.


As we rounded the point, we saw this huge house under construction. At least the owner has a sense of humour....


....as he's flying a Jolly Roger.


To the side of the house, there was this contraption. Paula thought it some sort of coiled piping or wiring, while Alison stayed with the pirate theme and suggested that this was an electromagnetic cannon of some kind.


As we continued, we encountered the wake from a cargo ship that passed out the strait about 20 minutes earlier. We were faily close to shore and we caught the swells as they came in and bounced off the rocky shore and headed out to sea again.


I wonder if there's a bit of an undersea ridge in this area as the swells seemed to keep bouncing back and forth around us.




And as we headed back, the wind unexpectedly increased dramatically so it became even choppier. But we still had a great day on the water,




Trip length: 7.3 km

Sunday again.

And so, another paddle. This was unexpected, as our truck has broken down which makes travel to anywhere pretty much impossible--especially with the kayaks. But Catherine asked if we were planning to paddle Cadboro Bay, so of course we said yes.
It was a quiet, slow paddle out past Flower Is. and over toward Cadboro Point. The tide was moving a lot of water through Baynes, kicking up some waves, and there were regular large swells coming in past the point. At this point we decided to turn around, as there was coffee waiting at Olive Olio's in the village. After the brutal noise levels last night at the Prism gig in Sooke, it was nice to be out on the water again, where the loudest sound is the paddle in the water and your paddle jacket brushing against itself.
Wildlife today included visits from a cormorant, heron, and a seal off Cadboro Point. And Catherine also spotted a lovely orange sea star by Flower. All in all a good day afloat.

13 and 14 out of 100

Two short days; Saturday and Sunday paddles this weekend. Saturday was basically from Cadboro Bay to Willows and back. The trip across Baynes to Chatham Island was pulled because the rising current in Baynes/Plumper would have made the return a bit hairy with Paula having a low-grade migraine and with Richard still learning how to handle currents. Not to mention my recent propensity for flipping while crossing eddy lines…

Richard brought his GPS along on the trip and was kind enough to post this track to Flickr. Basically the four of us ran out to Jemmy Jones, south to the lighthouse and then over to Mary Tod and back along the shore to Gyro Park. The trip took a little over two hours, and proved to be interesting for the varying current condition, and the number of birds we saw. There was one seal, but the rest seem to be off making little seals–and good for them.
Sunday was to be a day for newbies, but there were several bailouts before the weekend, so it ended up with being John, Louise, Paula and myself, and Pebbles and her mom Marlene. I rented a double kayak, the Eddyline Whisper CL, for a couple of hours and Marlene and I paddled it while Pebbles paddled the Pamlico. We toured the middle harbour from Ocean River to the Selkirk trestle and back. Which worked out well, as Marlene managed to hang in physically the whole way–but not much farther. The rest of the gang, including Pebbles, continued up to the Gorge-Tillicum bridge and then came back to the launch at Songhees. The sun kept coming out and warming us, but the steady wind stole most of the heat away. A slow day, but a generally enjoyable one.
The double, the Eddyline Whisper CL, is not a boat I would buy. Made too small for touring, the boat is unsuitable for the kind of paddling that I do. Even for taking a new paddler out, like I did today, I was frustrated by the footpegs/rudder controls. I’m not fond of the rotating peg rudder controls at the best of times, and these did nothing to change my mind.
So between the two paddles, that puts me at 14/100 for the year. Still pretty much on track!

Bluster on the Harbour

Once again, the weather forecast was somewhat misleading. It was forcast to be sunny and clear, but it was cloudy and windy instead. But we were planning to go up the harbour into The Gorge, so we would not be going out into open water.


It was Pebbles, Louise, Paula and myself today.


We headed into the wind...


...and towards Ocean River Sports where Bernie and Marlene were joining us in a rented double.


We headed under the Bay Street Bridge and carried on up The Gorge...


...and under the Trestle Bridge.


We didn't see much in the way of wildlife today, but we did see something that you don't see on the water every day: a floating leather sofa. The tide was ebbing and the current carried it away, perhaps even out to sea. (Kids, remember that when you're encountering sofas in the wild that they are generally scared of humans and won't bite. In fact, they're just as scared of you as you are of them.)


We paddled up Cecelia Ravine, a small creek that runs into The Gorge that we've never explored before. At low tide, this is mostly a mudflat and a good place to spot herons and other birds, but we were here at high tide and there weren't many around.


We tried, but we couldn't go up very far. It dead-ended under Gorge Road.


Marlene was having a good time. She very quickly figured the secret to paddling in a double: relax and let Bernie do all the work.


As I said, not much in the way of wildlife today. But we did see this really gnarly tree.


The wind died down and it was time to head back.


John's pictures are here.

Mystery A Foot

As we noted on this blog last August, two sneaker-clad right feet mysteriously washed ashore in the Gulf Islands. No one knew who the feet belonged to, and no had reported their right foot had suddenly gone missing.
This past week, a third right foot has been found washed ashore.
Let's hope the authorities put their best foot forward and solve this mystery.

Paddlin' 'Bout the Bay

Saturday was supposed to be a decent day for paddling, so we decided for a little paddle off of the home port at Cadboro Bay.


It was Richard, Paula....


...and Bernie and myself.


We put in at Gyro Park and headed out down the south side of Ten Mile Point towards Flower Island. It was forecast to be reasonably sunny, but there was the occasional dark cloud around above us and what looked like a front passing south of us, so we were wondering if we would get some squalls coming through.
We decided to head on out and the let weather come. But we were going to stick reasonably close to shore just in case.


The clouds broke up and we ended up with a mostly sunny paddle. We went out to Flower and Jemmy Jones Islands. Then we headed south off of Cattle Point and ended up at one of the lighthouses off Willows Beach. We debated heading out to the Chain Islands, but we knew that the "freight train" would be running and picking up speed, so we stayed close in.


We put in briefly at Mary Tod Island as Bernie needed to make an equipment adjustment. Then he struck a heroic pose. Go west, young kayaker.


After the brief stop, we headed back around Cattle Point and here we saw some cormorants enjoying their perches.




We spent some time noodling in between the rocks and islets. The tide was fairly high (although ebbing) so this gave us a chance to play between some rocks that we don't often get to. That's when Bernie spotted this eagle.






All in all a lovely day on the water.

Richard's GPS track of our paddle, originally uploaded by chaffneue.