Back to the Water

It's been busy round here. Weddings and funerals, and life goes on. This past week I took my Occupational First Aid Level 2 course. How well did I do, I hear you ask? (Yes, my hearing is that good). I do my practical and written exams on Wednesday, so I'll find out then. It's probably good set of skills for a kayaker to have, although firing up a defibrillator on the water could be a shocking experience.
Spring weather has sucked around here. It's as if we went straight from winter right back to autumn again. But today dawned sunny (if cool) so Louise and I decided to ignore the cool weather and headed to Cadboro Bay to join Paula for a paddle.


Richard was supposed to join us but there was no sign of him, so we headed out for a quick paddle to Chatham Island.

It needed to be quick for a number of reasons, among them the fact we were launching near slack, and the flood was expected to be a quick one. Also, although it was a sunny morning, there were isolated rain cells around. As we launched, we could see one off to the north-east, but it never came near us.

These oystercatchers were practising their Sunday morning yoga on Jemmy Jones Island.


We began our crossing to Chatham, but bailed on it halfway across. Paula's inner ear began to go wonky on her just as we encountered an odd eddy that came at us sideways and exacerbated her condition, and some sea lions were in the area feeding, and we decided to give them some space. We turned to head back to the mainland, content to putter through the nooks and crannies of Ten Mile Point.
But when we turned around, there was Richard heading off to Chatham Island! He'd picked a different line for his crossing, but he was only a couple of hundred metres away. We started calling him, but he didn't see us, and when we called, he didn't hear us, even when Louise gave her whistle a blow.

So there's a thought for you. If your shouts and whistles don't get attention on a perfectly calm day, will they on a stormy day?

We turned around at the Ten Mile Point light...

...and there was Richard!

He'd spotted us moving up the coast as he crossed back from Chatham, and he confirmed for us that he hadn't heard us earlier. We began our return to Cadboro Bay and stopped for a moment...

...to watch the sail boats play in the bay.



Trip Length: 8.52 km
YTD: 41.93 km
More pictures are here.


But wait -- there's more! After we landed and loaded up our gear, we headed down to the Inner Harbour for the "Celebration of Our Harbour" event to promote non-motorized uses of our harbour, and to continue the battle against the proposed mega-yacht marina.

There were races for various water craft, and we arrived just in time to see Mike Jackson win his kayak race...

...and do a victory roll.