After a busy weekend last week helping out at Victoria's Largest Little Airshow we decided to head out to the Pedder Bay RV Resort & Marina for a little R&R. Originally I had planned not to take our kayaks (that's a first huh?) and just hang out around the RV but Robyn had other plans. The kayaks would be going with us because she wanted to make a run around Bentinck Island and practice her rolling. Don't you just love her? :-)
Pedder Bay RV Resort, 30 minutes from home and a great location to kayak
The recent heat wave that the south coast has experiencing for the past couple of months has left us and after a few days of rain this week the sunshine returned but there is a definite feel that autumn is just around the corner.
All these fishermen .. must mean lots of fish!
Gary Jacek joined us for our paddle today and with all the media about the abundance of salmon in the area I took my fishing rod with me. Yes.... we would be having salmon for dinner! It's been a long time since we have seen so many recreational fishing boats at the marina and the parking lot was full of inspiring anglers participating in the weekend fishing derby.
Race Rocks Lighthouse in the distance and Bentinck Island nearby.
Gary and Robyn passing the east end of Bentinck Island before entering Race Passage
Gary navigates through the bull kelp on the way to the west end of Eemdyck Passage.
Taking advantage of the moderate ebb flow we headed out around Bentinck Island into a pretty stiff westerly wind and navigated through the bull kelp exposed at low tide before entering the west end of Eemdyck Passage. The ebb was decreasing rapidly as we searched the islets for current to work on some ferry / edging techniques through our playground. There really wasn't much happening today except for the usual group of seals that came closer to see what we were doing.
Gary and Robyn practicing in the last of the ebb current through Eemdyck Passage
Gary and his buoy :-)
On the way back to the marina I decided to do a little mooching near the Navy anchor in the middle of the bay while Robyn and Gary headed towards William Head to explore the shoreline. There was lots of bait fish in the area and the number of fishing boats was encouraging, I certainly had visions of maybe catching something for dinner. But…. Nobody was catching anything including myself. :-(
I decided to head towards Robyn and Gary who I could see were in our rolling practice cove on the east side of the bay. I was surprised to see Robyn suiting up in her dry suit which meant only one thing… she wanted to get wet, literally! I had a little chuckle when Robyn was venting the air out of her suit by wading into the water and realized that her zipper wasn't fully closed which meant she got a little purge of cold water into her suit. :-)
Robyn getting it done while Gary and I watch her technique. Photo by Gary Jacek
Robyn is committed to reaching the goal of being able to roll her kayak ... Nice! Photo by Gary Jacek
Robyn has been working on the mechanics of her roll using a paddle float and she is getting very consistent in fact 5 for 5 or 100% today. Without the paddle float it still is a work in progress but she is able to identify the things that don’t work during the rolls and is making the gradual adjustments to refine the process. The one thing about Robyn is that she is always open to try different techniques and today she worked on her first scramble rescue. Like most people, she found it to be a bit of a challenge coordinating herself and paddle on the back deck of her kayak.
Paddling back to the marina our suspicions about the number of fish being caught were confirmed. Sadly after day one of the fishing derby only 3 Chinook were weighed in! Where did all the fish go??
Paddling back to the marina our suspicions about the number of fish being caught were confirmed. Sadly after day one of the fishing derby only 3 Chinook were weighed in! Where did all the fish go??
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