Like Water Off a Buck's Back

A cloudy but mild (for late October) morning greets us on the shore of Esquimalt Lagoon.


It's just Louise, Paula and myself. We're not planning to paddle the lagoon today, but we're launching from here to explore a spot that we've never paddled before, Esquimalt Harbour. We had the choice of launching in the lagoon and heading out of it, or just launching directly into the ocean. We decided on the ocean launch because there was a bit of a current coming into the lagoon, and why should we fight against it? On our return, we thought we might ride the current in.


But that's later. First we head out into the morning sun, er, cloud.


We noticed that there were some sandbars offshore creating some breaking waves. Nothing too big, but we thought we'd head out around them to be safe.


To get into the Harbour, first we had to swing around the historic Fort Rodd Hill lighthouse. It's part of a base built in the late 19th century to defend Victoria and is now a national historic site.


What's that on the rocks? Could that be...?


Yes, it is. Ol' eagle-eyes has done gone and spotted hisself an eagle.



Now we're in the Harbour proper. In the background is Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt, one of the large naval bases here on the south end of Vancouver Island. There's also the Esquimalt shipyards here, and yes, that is a BC Ferry that's getting some repair work done on it. There's also some naval facilities on the other side of the harbour so we are in fact paddling between two naval bases. I took a lot of pictures today; I wonder how many were taken of us.


Anyway, we continued on. After we passed the base, we crossed over to the right side. Louise was looking for a park she sometimes walked in along here....


...but Paula suddenly saw something and pointed. "What's that swimming in the water?" she called.


We looked over and there was something swimming. Our first thought, of course, was that it was a duck or a seagull, but it was moving too fast. Our brains were trying were trying to match shapes we were familiar with to this totally unfamiliar shape. Dog? Cat? Ocelot? Hippopotamus? Finally, it became a recognizable shape. "Deer!" I shouted.





It was a deer, alright. A big buck with a big rack.
If you've ever wanted to see a big buck shake himself dry after a swim, here's your chance.


I'm no good for estimating the size of this guy, but he was big. And fast. If we had been racing in the water, him swimming and me in my kayak, I'd be hard-pressed to think that I might win.
Just when you start thinking that this kayaking business is getting ho-hum...oh yeah, more seals and eagles...like, I'm so booored of that scene....nature gives you another gift.


We carried on and found these old buildings on an island at the end of the harbour.


At first glance I thought that they might be old boat houses, but clearly they're not. But they have some sort of cranes in the top, presumably some sort of loading equipment.
[Addendum: Long-time reader Scott The Hoople believes that these building may be old munitions warehouses.]


We turned around at the top of the island and found some geese. They didn't seem at all frightened of us. As you can see, Paula paddled right by them. In fact, a lot of the waterfowl were pretty fearless today. Earlier, a seagull had come down and landed right beside me. He swam along with us for a while before he got bored and left. Later, as we neared the end of the paddle, a small bird like a kingfisher suddenly popped up out of the water right in front of Paula's pink kayak. He dove right away, otherwise Paula might have run it over. We both started laughing, although Paula was apologizing to it even though it was long gone. I was thinking that the bird would have quite a story to tell when it got home.
"Hey man! I almost got swallowed by a pink whale today!" it would say.
"What are you talking about?" its mother would say. "There's no such thing as a pink whale!"
"But I saw it! I did!"
"There's no such thing as a pink whale! You young birds and your crazy stories! You wait until your father gets home with some salmon fins! He'll spank you so hard that you'll wish you were back in the egg!!"
But I digress. Back to the geese.


They let me get close, too.



We found another old building on the island.


We headed back. We approached the lighthouse again as we headed to the open sea.


But once again, Paula spotted something on the causeway...


....another deer.


We swung around the lighthouse and Paula decided to run the current into the lagoon. She headed for the sandbars where the waves were breaking. She caught one, surfed it for a bit, then followed the current into the lagoon.


Louise and I watched her go. Louise was ahead of me and I called out and asked her if she was going to do the same thing. "I'm not sure," she shouted back. I saw that she was drifting into the area where the sandbars were. "Make up your mind quickly," I shouted back, "or the waves will make it for you." And no sooner had I finished than a wave came up and broke behind her, carrying her towards the shore.


She was heading in whether she wanted to or not!


But all's well that ends well. And we put into the beach after another fine paddle.


John's photos are here.

Pseudo Paddle

There was no paddle this weekend, as most of us were partying down at VCon 32. Heck, the weather was so rainy that we wouldn't have paddled even if we were around.
Some of us have always wanted to go on a nighttime paddle. Here's what it might look like using a night scope camera.

Life, In Abundance

A beautiful morning greets us as we put in at Albert Head Lagoon Park. It's sunny, an increasingly rare thing these days. Last year we didn't even get in the water at all in November, so we're going to enjoy these days when we get them.
Albert Head Lagoon is the small body of water to the right, while Albert Head itself is the piece of land jutting off to the left. We'll be launching into the mist to go around Albert Head and to the entrance to Witty's Lagoon and hopefully into Witty's itself.


It was just Paula, Alison, Louise and myself today. In this picture, Alison has just helped Paula recover after Paula almost dumped herself in the water before she even left the beach. She was totally embarrassed by it, and I promised not to mention it in the blog.


But recover she did, and we headed out into a sunny day.


Almost right away, we ended up beside a family of otters enjoying a morning swim. They swam parallel to us for a while, then put ashore. I got a picture of them, not a great one mind you, but you can see them anyway. They'd be the brown lumps on the rocks at the bottom of the frame.


Louise set the pace as we headed around the point.


As we paddled around the point, we saw a sea lion lazing on the rock. In one way, it wasn't very exciting as he wasn't doing very much except lying there, but it was still very cool to see. We gave him plenty of room. A cranky sea lion charging at us could have ruined a nice paddle.


We carried on and a little further we saw a heron and an eagle in a fight. I thought at first that the eagle was harassing the heron, but as I watched the eagle fly back into a tree, I started thinking that it might be the other way around. The eagle may have been warning the heron off because, as you can see in this photo, the eagle and its mate were hovering around their nest. Perhaps there were some little eagles around and they didn't want the heron to get any ideas.

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We made it to the entrance to Witty's Lagoon. We had timed our arrival to coincide with a high tide as this was the only time we could paddle into the lagoon. We were a little ahead of the high tide, but it close enough to give it a try.


Down the channel we went (here's a tip: stick to the right).


And we made it in. It was still very shallow and we were grounding all over the place. I had a devil of a time getting out....


...but it was a very quiet and peaceful place.


We decided not to stay long. Our sunshine had been replaced by clouds. We knew that the weather was going to change with rain due in the evening, so after a quick stop for a stretch, we headed for home.


Just outside Witty's Lagoon there is a small cove with a lot of islets and rocks. Last year they were covered with seals, but this year there was hardly a one. But it looks like there's something in that tree....


...yep, that be an eagle.



I was so busy checking out the eagle that I didn't notice that someone else was checking me out. A seal was circling my boat not more than a dozen feet away (that's 365 cm for those of you who are Imperial-measurement-challenged). I put my camera away and looked up and saw this guy swimming by. "Aw, hi guy, you sure are cute," I said as he went by. Then I said, "Holy $%#&! My camera!" I fumbled for my camera, but I was too late, he was already behind me. So I did something that usually never works -- I pointed my camera blindly over my shoulder hoping I might catch him. But this time it worked, and I got him.


The pair of eagles that we had seen earlier were gone, but this heron was out fishing in the seaweed at the same spot so I wonder if he was the same one who was annoying them.


We took the shortcut home, going through a small channel that cuts off the end of the point.


We did find some seals out on the rocks.




As we neared the put-in back at Albert Head, we decided to see if we could make it into Albert Head Lagoon. Stephanie had tried it the first time we came here and she got part-way in. Maybe we would have more luck.
It was a nice little paddle down the channel....


...that at times seemed like an obstacle course....


...but we soon grounded out again and had to turn back.


But we had a great paddle on a beautiful day.


John's pictures are here.

Broken Islands trip report

Last month, I took a five day kayaking trip to the Broken Islands in Barklay Sound, off the west coast of Vancouver Island. It was something I'd been talking about for at least six years, despite the fact that I have only spent one night of my adult life under canvas. Since then I've been editing photos and working on and off on a trip report that just kept getting longer and longer as I remembered things and looked up details. It was just about an ideal trip. The setting was beautiful, ideal for kayaking, our guides were capable, mellow and entertaining, the group just gelled, and after the rain and wind of the first day, the weather was as good as it gets in September on the west coast. And everywhere we turned, we saw a whale. Here's the full trip report, on a separate page over on my other blog: Broken Islands trip page.

And should anyone wonder: yes, my missing sock reappeared.

A Sad Reminder -- Wear That Safety Gear

To me, this is a clear example of people not getting it. One survivor described the conditions when they launched as "about seven-foot swells and 85-, 84-kilometre-an-hour winds." How eight experienced adventure racers could launch into extremely rough and cold ocean water without wetsuits, some in a racing kayak as opposed to a sea kayak, and apparently without radios or other communications equipment is beyond my understanding.
We kayak. What we do can be dangerous. Even on the calmest days, we are taking a risk going out on the ocean. Going out without doing everything possible to mitigate those risks is foolhardy at best.
These experienced people made poor decisions on Sunday. A rescue worker said, "The weather conditions were forecasted. They were known. It was a poor choice on their part. They wore life vests, but otherwise they were all poorly dressed for the conditions."
It might be unfair to Monday morning quarterback this awful accident. I don't know these paddlers; I have no idea if they were capable of paddling in these conditions or not. I wasn't there, I wasn't privy to their decision-making process. But somewhere along the way that process went awry. They were woefully under-equipped and unprepared for being out on the water, and two paddlers didn't come back.

Sunday weather

Sunday weather was challenging all round, in this part of the world. The paddle group didn't have an outing set, so Bernie went out for a solo paddle. I carried some of his gear down to the beach (we live a stone's throw from the water in Cadboro Bay) and saw him off, saying "Paddle safely!"
That's the same advice other paddlers were giving each other in Howe Sound that day.
Bernie didn't paddle all that safely. Not all that bad, of course, as he did return. But two of the other paddlers in Howe Sound didn't make it.
Bernie went out across Baynes Channel to Chatham, and coming back, he got caught in the freight train, as our neighbour calls it. The current in that channel runs like a river, and makes a series of standing waves.
The good news is that Bernie now knows his new wooden kayak can handle metre and a half waves. (That's something I can't see over when standing, let alone sitting in a kayak!)
The bad news is that the paddlers in Howe Sound must have made mistakes, by the definition of our black-humoured joke: "It isn't a mistake if nobody dies."
Go to the following URL for CBC's story about the two who died, the two who went to hospital, and the other four on that adventure:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/10/08/kayak-death.html
It seems like these were extremely fit, healthy and adventurous paddlers and sports enthusiasts. But even all their experience and strength wasn't enough when the wind crested to 80 klicks or more, and the waves reached seven feet or so. The group were wearing only sports tights instead of wetsuits or drysuits, and nobody wore a PFD. Apparently they didn't have cell phones or a marine radio, as the call for help didn't go out till one of the double kayaks got to shore.
Yes, I feel like a harping auntie and a coward on our own groups' outings. And it's so easy to second-guess someone else's mistakes. But part of why we talk about our outings on this blog is to second-guess our own mistakes, laugh at them where we can, and learn from them.
We have been so lucky on our own outings. Part of that is absolute luck when the weather changed or we mis-read the currents.
But a big dollop of that luck is being prepared.
Safety gear (ropes, pumps, paddle floats, spare paddle, lights, whistles, air horn). Cold water clothing. Drybag with clothes, food & mini-stove for a hot drink. Cell phones and marine radios. Compasses. Look back through our posts since this blog began, and it shows that we gradually got all this gear together, as we gradually began paddling in more challenging places than a small, sheltered lake.
Looking at Bernie when he returned from the freight train, still shaken, was not a heart-warming experience. But he came back, and an hour later was already making light of the challenge he'd faced.
Two of those paddlers in Howe Sound didn't make it. Two went to hospital for hypothermia. And four did the best they thought they could.
I don't want the same thing to happen for our paddle group -- for anyone else, frankly -- and I'm trying to figure how it would be less likely. The big one that comes to mind (after ensuring each paddler has cold water clothing, PFD, safety gear and a drybag) is not setting out from Anvil Island into rough weather. Camping on the island overnight should be an option, even if only with space blankets, granola bars and hot drinks.
Our group talks about how each of us is feeling, and we try to admit our fears. The conditions probably became abruptly worse for the paddlers in Howe Sound. When luck is a factor, you have to bring all the best luck with you.
My paddle partner brought planning preparation and strength to his challenge. He came back.

Caddy Bay Turkey Day Paddle

It's with thanks on this Thanksgiving day that the weather gods blessed us with a few hours of sunshine this morning between weather fronts, so a quick paddle at Cadboro Bay was in order.
Louise and I drove there listening to a CD I'd made of songs from various "Simpsons" episodes. It didn't go over as well as I thought it would. This really has nothing to do with the paddle, but it does set up my closing joke for this paddle report.


Here's Bernie's new boat. We haven't made fun about how pink Paula's new boat is, so it wouldn't be fair to make fun of how yellow Bernie's boat is.


Unfortunately, Bernie's new boat doesn't have any room to store gear so he has to keep it all on his deck. Ha! I'm kidding -- got ya!
Actually, it looks like he has quite a lot of room for storage using his own patented design for the hatch covers. And as Bernie says, he'd rather have a kayak that when upside down looks big, yellow and unnatural than like a piece of driftwood.


Here's Bernie boat in action.


Paula is still enjoying her new Eliza.....


...while Louise just can't wait to get going.


This was my first paddle with my new carbon shaft. (You heard right, ladies.) I picked it up at the Ocean River sale a couple of weeks ago. I love it. It's a little shorter than my usual paddle (a 240cm paddle, down from a 245cm paddle), so that took a a little getting used to. But it sure is light and strong.
It was a sunny day when we started -- here's the picture to prove it.


We made it to Flower Island and were planning to cross to Jemmy Jones Island. Louise was having contact lens trouble, one had fallen out, and so her vision was not reliable. The wind had come up and was making waves, not enough to be a real issue, but enough to combine with her lens trouble and put Louise out of her comfort zone. So while Paula and Bernie headed out to Jemmy Jones, Louise and I stayed behind at Flower.


This gave me a chance to try out my other new piece of equipment, a new Sony DSC-H9 digital camera. I've retired my film camera. I just paid $75 to develop three rolls of film, get one set of prints each and a digital scanning of each roll. So this camera will save me money, save a little piece of the environment, and it has a monster zoom lens on it to take some great pictures. Check out this heron!



We saw these gulls that we've not seen before. They looked like regular seagulls, but were gray and smaller with bright orange beaks. They also sounded like they were barking when they chirped.


Bernie came in close to check out the gulls.


We headed back to shore as the wind came up.


We headed to the beach and to the end of our quick paddle, but as you have probably guessed, by the time we got the kayaks all loaded up, the sun came out again.


Next week, we had the idea to paddle at....never mind, maybe it's more of a Shelbyville paddle idea...

John's photos are here.

Another Inflatable...

Yakka: the world's first rigid-hull inflatable kayak. The Yakka gives you the paddling performance of a rigid-hull kayak with the added safety and comfort of an inflatable. Even better, it folds in half and can be easily stowed in a van or SUV. The integrated transport wheel lets you pull the Yakka to the easiest launching spot before unfolding it. Hull is made of a rigid polyethelene. Inflatable top section is made of nylon.
Folded dimensions: 59"L x 27"W.
Unfolded length: 9'4".
Width: 30".
Weight capacity: 264 lbs.
Color: Red/White.