Lazing On A Sunday Morning....

What a difference a week makes. Last Sunday, we were just shaking off the last remnants of a torrid heat wave which blasted baking sun down on us for a couple of weeks. Today, we can't even see the sun.
Louise, Paula and I put in for a paddle around Albert Head to Witty's Lagoon and back. The conditions were perfect, nary a breeze or a current, and the fog and low clouds kept the bright sunshine at bay.


Armed with our compasses and GPS, we headed out into the murky morning. As we paddled around the point, we headed to what we call "the shortcut," a channel near the end of the point that can cut a few minutes of paddling off your trip if the tide is high enough.

But we saw something silver lying on the rocks on the right side of the channel -- a baby seal. And then mom poked her head up in the middle of the channel. We decided that discretion was called for, and we abandoned the shortcut and took the long route around.


Around the point at the exit of the shortcut, a number of seals were gathered, maybe a dozen or so, and it was easy to see why. The ocean was teeming of thousands of little tiny fish. Clearly the seals had found a good spot for feeding along this side of the point.
We continued on and soon the fog slowly started to lift.


We quietly paddled around some small islets and rocks as we approached Witty's Lagoon. The entrance to the lagoon has run dry, so there was no hope of getting in, but the real show were all the seals camped over the rocks outside it.


We saw another baby on the rocks. And here's a note for all you landlubbers out there: if you find a baby seal out on the rocks by itself, please don't try to help it. While you make think that its mother has abandoned it, chances are mom has just gone to do a little fishing and the baby is perfectly fine. Yes, the impulse to help what looks like an abandoned animal is strong, but the best help you can give is to walk away and leave it alone. If you try to help it, the seal may end up with the scent of humans upon it and then mom will likely abandon it. Early this year one tourist in the area took what they thought was an abandoned seal off a beach, put it in their car, then called the police. That seal is now being cared for in a shelter and may never return to the wild.
To that tourist I say that it's good that your heart was in the right place, but please use your head instead next time.


There was no getting over the fact that the seals were everywhere today.




Even the eagles were just sitting back and watching the seals.


We try to give the seals a wide clearance, but sometimes it is impossible. As we paddled around the little islands off the mouth of Witty's Lagoon, we could see seals everywhere. There were probably three dozen just in this little area.


I think the eagles were starting to get jealous.


We headed back under some rain clouds which thankfully held on to their moisture and dropped it somewhere else.


As we headed back, we saw a large number of turkey vultures. They aren't unknown in these parts and we have seen them before, but this was the first time we've had a really good look at them. They are enormous, and look even bigger than the bald eagles we often see. They're only in our part of the world during the summer -- just what we need, more tourists!


Finally, we passed one last bob of seals, and our paddle was done. (No, really. A bob of seals. I looked it up. The Internet wouldn't lie.)



Trip length: 9.62 km
YTD: 226.30 km
More pictures are here.
The Google Earth kmz is here.

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.

Windy Witty's

The skies were cloudy, but the sun was trying to poke through, so we headed out for a paddle around Albert Head. Although there was a breeze blowing, a small group of us, just Louise, Richard and myself, put in to a flat sea. Louise and I were in the water first and as we waited for Richard, we slowly paddled along the coastline.


Richard joined us a few moments later...


...and we headed for more open water. We were hoping that the breeze would would lessen once we got offshore, but it wasn't the case. In fact, as we got to the first point, we saw a patch of breakers and swells ahead.


We stuck close to shore and avoided the breakers, but we still had the swells to contend with. It was an interesting few minutes. Just as a swell caught me unexpectedly from behind, giving me a "moment", I heard Richard cackling gleefully, "Woo hoo!" It was almost as if Bernie was with us.


Richard liked the shortcut between the rocks.


We got past the swells, but then the wind was in our faces. Usually our paddles here are in good weather and calm seas, so it was a fun challenge to face less than ideal conditions.


Eventually, we reached the rocks and islets outside of Witty's Lagoon and headed into them to get a little shelter from the wind. There were a lot of seals around today.




[insert the theme from Jaws here.]



The wind seemed to die off for the paddle back, and the sun broke through the clouds. It didn't last, though, as the wind slowly swung around until it was in our faces for the last part of the return trip.
Of course.


When we started out, we saw this guy standing on some floating seaweed fishing for breakfast. We figure he stayed there during our entire paddle because as we returned, he was still standing on the seaweed fishing, only now he was fishing for lunch.


Clearly, Richard had a good time. As did all of us.



Trip Length: 9.7 km
John's Pictures are here.
Richard's blog report is here and his pictures are here.

Nature's Smörgåsbord

On this gorgeous Sunday morning, Louise and I headed off for a paddle from Albert Head Regional Park, around Albert head, to Witty's Lagoon Regional Park. This is one of my favourite places to paddle. Current and conditions are always good here, and there's always something to see.
And it didn't take long to spot some seals on the first rock that we passed.

We knew that just around the point there's a couple of big rocks where seals love to congregate. We thought that having spotted seals so soon into our paddle that these rocks would be covered in seals.
But in fact, they weren't. Not a one.

But that didn't matter on this day. The sun was warm, but not too warm, and the wind was blowing but not too strong. Everything was just right. It was like Goldilocks had designed the weather program for the day.

So the seals weren't around, but the birds were out. We saw a lot of turkey vultures during the day, but I didn't get any good shots of them. I got a nice shot of this bird....

...and I have no idea what it is. A jay of some kind? (Felix in the comments below says it's a kingfisher.)

Then there was the heron.

Then there was the other heron.


We reached the entrance to Witty's Lagoon...

...and quickly discovered where all the seals were hiding.


I love the spots on this one.


This eagle was up in a tree, seemingly keeping watch on the seals around it.

It was like a nature smörgåsbord. "Yes, I'll have two herons, two eagles, lots of seals, easy on the vultures, and just a dash of otter for flavour."


Trip Length: 11.72 km
YTD: 122.77 km
More pictures are here.


Post #800 on the blog. Woo hoo!