Newfoundland Sea Kayaking

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

An Evening Paddle in Burnt Islands

With the Come Home Year festivities in full swing in my hometown, Burnt Islands, waaaaaay down on the SW Coast of Newfoundland, my wife and I squeezed in an evening paddle from behind my dad's house, in God Bay........seriously, its called God Bay, look on the map.

Anyway, the coast down there is pretty exposed, and there have been an awful lot of shipwrecks over the years in this area. There are sunkers EVERYWHERE. Inside the Colombier Islands (called Glumsy Islands back home) its usually pretty sheltered, but you can always hear the roar of the swells breaking up outside.

On this particular evening, we paddled around the community for a few hours, out around the Island and back. It was real nice.

The SW Coast of Newfoundland, between Isle Aux Mortes and Burnt Islands

One of the few sensible places to launch along Route 470

Heading out of God Bay

Angie paddling past "The Island", which was connected to the mainland by a causeway in 1969

The site of the old fishplant, it was here in the 1950's

These are called the Colombier Islands on the map, but everyone home calls the Glumsy Islands, I guess "Colombier" slowly got bastardized to "Glumsy" over the years, haha.

Happy to be home

Flat calm inside God Bay

Under the bridge. I spent a lot of time down here as a kid, it was nice to see it again.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Bay Bulls

On Sunday afternoon my wife and I got out for a few hours in Bay Bulls. Nothing serious, just a lazy afternoon on the water. We paddled the south shore of Bay Bulls out to the Big Cove Point and back, stopping into the caves and small nooks and crannies along the way. The total distance was around 10kms. We were hoping to see whales, but had no luck. Maybe next time.

Departing Bay Bulls

Heading for the south side

Interesting side by side slot caves

Lots of caves on the south side

The cliffs are awesome in Island Cove

This small cave went in pretty deep

Heading in around Spoon Island

Going inside Spoon Island

I've always seen this area from the cliffs of the East Coast Trail, never from the water. Its very nice down here.

Angie facing the massive cave in what I think is Long Harry Cove

Me and Ang

A rare photo of me on my own blog :-)

Big Cove

Big cave in Big Cove

More small caves

Captain Orlebars Cairn stands high over Bay Bulls

This one really looks like an open mouth

More small caves

Monday, July 19, 2010

Gander River Canoe Trip - Year X

So this is year number 10 for the annual Gander River Canoe Trip. I attended once before in 2008 (see http://newfoundlandseakayaking.blogspot.com/2008/07/gander-river-canoe-trip.html)

I was lucky enough to attend again this year, it of course it was a blast. We caught 7 salmon and a beauty 1.5lb trout. Instead of the usual 4 day trip, this year being year X, it was stretched out to 5 days, with the extra day being spent fishing at Lou's pool.

The weather was great except for the rain on the last day. It was really warm, almost too warm, but compared to my last trip in 2008 when the temperature never went into double digits, being too warm was very welcome.

One of the boys, Colin Power, set up a website that has a lot of info and pics on the annual trip, it can be viewed here http://canoetrip.weebly.com/

Great friends, great food and lots of cold beer made for a great trip.

Departing Glenwood

Shawn showing off our custom paddles. On the blade it says "Gander River Canoe Trip" with the X standing for year 10. We each had our names engraved in the handle as well. Pretty sweet.