Little Harbour

On Saturday, myself and Trent Hardy left Little Harbour, Placentia Bay for a nice 15km paddle. No real plan, we'd just head south along the shoreline and head back whenever we felt like it. The NE wind was forecast at 20kph gusting to 40kph, so the hills and shoreline protected us from the winds most of the way, except going around the different headlands. We headed south until reaching Pinchgut Point, took a peek inside and saw that the NE winds were blowing pretty hard out of greater pinchgut, so we headed back towards Little Harbour. We stopped on one of the beaches for a lunch, and tried out my new drysuit, and also my new waterproof camera (see the underwater photo below) Looks like I'll have some fun with that this summer. As we were heading into Little Harbour, the winds had really started blowing, making forward progress very hard, so we ducked into a small cove for a fire, a lunch, and waited it out. Finally after waiting a few hours, the winds dropped enough to let us make the last km or so back to the car. I took some great video of the winds from that cove, however I accidentally erased it. I also screwed up half of the pictures, not fully understanding the functions of my new camera. That won't happen again! I'm going to try to figure out how to post videos here, then I'll post a few small clips of the wind that day.

Leaving Little Harbour
Rocky coastline
Interesting formation, looks something like a gorilla's head

Lots of small hideaway beaches Underwater picture test

Lovin' my new drysit

Lunch Beach

Looking into Little Harbour

Blow Ye Winds!!!!!

Waiting for the NE winds to die down

Avondale

Me and Ang got out for a short 2.5 hr, 10km paddle around Avondale and Conception Hbr. It was a great day, no wind and relatively warm temps. Still a little ice around, especially in by Capt. Sid Hynes House. We also took a look at the shipwreck in Conception Hbr that interestingly enough has some trees growing on it. The water was COLD as @#!!, and on the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, I can’t imagine what it must have been like for them….I don’t think many lived long once they hit the water.


Rock Over London, Rock on Chicago
Brian

Angie before launch

Still ice in some places

Capt. Sid Hynes's house. Nice place!

Shipwreck in Conception Harbour

Trees can grow anywhere!

Ballyhack Cove

First Paddle of the Season

....and I forgot my camera.........turned the house upside down, and it turns out I had it left at the office......so unfortunatly, there are no pictures. Last year, the first paddle of the season in Colinet I also forgot my camera. Seems to be a trend.

Me and Ang went to Old Shop/South Dildo yesterday evening around 7pm and launched from the beach on Brazil's Road, and went for a quick 1hr paddle around the point and back. The pack ice has pretty much moved off, but there was still enough for us to play around in. We also saw a huge bald eagle less than 50ft away from us on the shoreline. That was worth the whole trip!

Rain for the next 5 days...........can't wait to get on the water again. Spring is here!

Rock over London, Rock on Chicago.
B

Cross Country Skiing in Whitbourne

Being a beautiful day on Saturday, I decided to dust off the ol' cross country skis and go for a short run near my house. I had a few hours to kill before supper, and the wintertime extra insulation I have grown around my midsection was reason enough to get outside for a little exercise. Besides that, there were a few ponds and rivers that I wanted to check out, for a route I had been checking out on the map for this spring. If the rivers were big enough, I could paddle down the river near my house, and link up with a few ponds and end up at the pond near the town council. It would be about 7kms total, and make for a fun afternoon excrusion for some inland paddling.

So I strapped on the skis in my driveway and headed out.... The ponds were open in places, and there was not a lot of snow left, but I managed to pick my way about 4 kms from my house and determine what way the rivers flowed, and that I could indeed paddle down them in my kayak.

Now I have to keep praying for spring!

Rock Over London, Rock on Chicago

KNL Photo of the Month

Hurray! My photo submission for the Kayak Newfoundland and Labrador (KNL) photo of the month contest won first place.

If you want to see a few more pictures from this kayak trip, you can look back through my archives through July.

However it was not without a bit of controversy on the KNL Google Newsgroup. Some felt it was not a good idea to post pictures of kayaks near icebergs on the KNL website; If people want to take risks and go near icebergs, thats their decision, but KNL should not show them.

KNL decided to post the picture, with a disclaimer. Good choice.

Michael Kay has a very interesting post about sport and risk, where he touches on the issue of icebergs and kayaks. Check it out. http://mak57.blogspot.com/

Also Alison Dyer was nice enough to post my picture on her blog, http://thesquidink.blogspot.com/ Thanks Alison!

Anyways, bring on the spring!

Rock over London, Rock on Chicago

Brian

Short Trip to Nova Scotia

Didn't get to do any paddling, but I just thought I'd share a few photos that I took over the Halloween weekend in the Halifax area. I got to visit Oak Island, the site of the famous Money Pit (alleged pirate buried treasure). I hope to go back someday and do a paddle around Mahone Bay. The fall colours were amazing.

Rock sculptures in Peggy's Cove. A local artist took 6 years to carve this tribute to the hardworking men and women of the sea in a 30m granite rock in his backyard. Its pretty impressive.

Interesting tree in Old Lunenberg.

Peggy's Cove Lighthouse at sunset - the icon of Atlantic Canada

Rock over London, Rock on Chicago

Brian

Circumnavigation of Chapel Island, Sept 2007

........well, almost.

Myself and Trent Hardy did an overnight trip around Chapel Island during the Labour Day weekend. Originally it was to be a 3 day trip, but the weather had other ideas, and we had to shorten the trip and make it a 2 day trip. The plan was to leave Boyd's Cove and paddle clockwise around Chapel Island, spend the night on Inspector Island (a Beothuk site) and the following day, go through the Curtis Causeway and into Dildo Run and around the rest of Chapel Island, finishing off where we started. Again, mother nature proved she was the boss and gave us 50 gusting to 70 km/hr headwinds as we just about finished our paddle. We had to beach the kayaks and walk to the last few kilometres to get our cars, as forward progress was near impossible. I'm in the process of writing up a trip report for the KNL website, and when I get it completed, I'll post the link. Here are some pictures from the trip.

Rock over London, Rock on Chicago