Monday, March 20, 2006

19 March 2006

Sunday could not have been a more perfect spring day in Victoria. So we left Victoria and went to Sidney to paddle. Thankfully it was a pretty nice day there too.
Getting ready for launch at the park, everyone in our group removed one layer before getting into their boats—this despite having to scrape windows before driving off to Sidney. I was down to a t-shirt and PFD when I set out. Well, and pants....

Due to bad planning (the truck broke down Friday), we weren't able to take both the Pamlico and Adventure out. But on Friday, Paula had stopped by West Marine and picked up an inflatable kayak. So yes, we are now a three kayak couple. So Alison gave us a lift out to Sidney where we set up.

Paula in her inflatable "Skedaddle" (also known as a "Dragonfly")


Alison takes her turn in the new boat.
As you can see below, we shared the water with a large number of large others. Don't exactly know what they were doing, but it seemed to involve a lot of tacking back and forth in a very restricted area. Eventually they headed out to the east, but not very fast—particularly considering the size and speed of some of these boats—and they stayed pretty much clumped together.
Having a waterproof housing for my camera, I thought it might be an idea to give it a trial run. The day was so bright that when I found myself over some rocks (with the tide on the ebb, by the time we came back I couldn't have paddled over these same rocks), I could see bottom some 1 to 2 metres down. So I stuck the camera in the water and pushed the shutter.

There wasn't the plethora of wildlife sightings that we'd had in the Gorge, but Alison and I did stop to look at a half dozen harlequin ducks—so not visible in this photo.

but the most interesting sighting of the day was Dennis doing his best impersonation of Red Green. Need I say more?

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