Pedder Bay With Pedder The Seal

Another glorious weekend on the west coast and who would have thought we could hit 20C temperatures in October??? Enjoying this extended summer we spent the weekend with Dave & Kelly Reaville at the Pedder Bay RV Resort and Marina. This is one of our favourite camping locations as it just 30 minutes from home if you don't stop at Costco and spend $300!!  LOL 

Saturday morning Dave & Kelly rented kayaks and we headed out into Pedder Bay to do a little sightseeing and put out our crab trap in hopes of a little seafood to go with our steaks over the weekend.

I also decided to try a bit of fishing on this paddle and soon found out how cumbersome the fishing rod can be if you  don't have a dedicate rod holder. I found that the best place to put the rod end was between my back and PFD but even so it was a bit of a struggle to reach it. As much as I would like to fish from my kayak, I'm not in favour of drilling holes to mount a rod holder. Looks like I need to a bit more research on this topic.

We have tried our Jolly Good kayak crab trap before without any success so we took it with us and dropped it near all the other crab traps out towards the DND jetty. This time we had frozen salmon heads for bait and I was optimistic that this weekend might show some results. In the picture my deckhand (Robyn) ..... wait a second, me the deckhand prepares the pot while the captain (Robyn) watches. LOL

Once the trap drop was completed we did a little exploring of rock gardens and the girls disappeared into a small cove.  After about 10 minutes I went to find out what they were up to and discovered that a little seal was playing with them. Robyn also had been trying her hand at crabbing and netted a legal Red Rock crab which we threw back since it was too small for any feast.

As I glided into the little bay I turned on the GoPro Hero 2 that I had mounted on my helmet and boy was I ever so glad that I made that decision today.

We have seen many seals on our kayaking adventures but never one that was so curious about us. This little seal which we nicknamed "Pedder", checked out each of our kayaks and was really interested with our rudders and paddles in particular. A number of times he swam right up to our cockpit and we were glad that he didn't decide to try and jump up onto the decks. This was such a great experience but we decided it was time to to leave "Pedder" and head back on our exploration of the rock gardens.





Later in the afternoon while the Reaville's were preparing Thanksgiving dinner Robyn and I went out to check our crab trap. Promising results as there were a couple small Red Rock crab in the trap so we decided to relocate the trap and then check to see if Pedder was still around in the cove. Sure enough he was there and Robyn took probably our favourite picture of him. It was such a special encounter but once again time to leave the little seal to his natural environment.

Sunday morning we all headed out on a shoreline tour of Pedder Bay and I set up my GoPro Hero 2 with the Dive Housing. This paddle would be it's first real test to see how much of a difference the Dive Housing would be under water in an ocean environment. Playing in the rock gardens I lowered the GoPro into the water on my custom PVC wand and let the GoPro do the rest. Checking my videos later I was amazed at the quality that the Dive Housing produced over the standard housing. Maybe one day it might capture an Orca on video. Now that would be cool!

It was time to check the crab trap to see what an overnight soak had produced. Kelly was my support team as I hauled the trap up from the depths. I think to everyone's surprise, there was actually crabs in the trap!! A couple of small Red Rock and a single under size female Dungeness crabs were in the trap!!! Oh well, maybe next time.

We decided to see if Pedder might still be around and maybe get some under water video of him. As we entered the little cove that he was in yesterday,  we found no signs of him.



Another great weekend on the water and we are really happy that Dave & Kelly could share the experience with us. They even suggested that maybe.... just maybe they should think about getting some small yaks for themselves. Nice!!!