Category: Kayaking

I went kayaking on Friday. This is the first time I’ve been since 29 June, when I injured my elbow during or after a paddle. The new anti-inflammatory drug I’ve been taking, and neoprene elbow sleeve seem to have helped bring the pain level to manageable levels as long as I don’t twist and pronate my hand.

The creek is down lower than I’ve ever seen it. There are mud flats all over the place, both on the creek and in the bay where the creek lets out. There was very little wild life, except for one scary loud sound of something large crashing through the weeds as I passed by one part of the creek both on the way up and the way down. So much of the route was a quiet tunnel of dead reeds. Out beyond the reeds, however, the forested banks of the creek are in full colour change.

I can’t believe how badly my skills and fitness have degraded in that time. First of all, I had to let out the straps on my PFD to accommodate my weight gain. I then couldn’t get the spray skirt on properly, at least partly because I didn’t feel stable enough to work on it much. Then I discovered I just couldn’t sustain paddling for very long. So I ended up paddling and resting and paddling and resting. I only made it as far as the weir.

The low water level has created a big mud flat just in front of the weir. The weir normally is a bit of a challenge, often running quite fast. But the mud flat has created another narrow channel that was running even faster than the weir normally does, and then there was a very small pool before the weir with very little room to get lined up for that fast stream. I decided not to try it. I’d been planning to turn around at the weir anyway, and I still wasn’t confident enough in the boat to feel confident I could keep it upright.

On the way back, I finally started getting some confidence back. I still was still having to paddle for a minute and rest for a minute, but I was actually stable enough to get the spray skirt put on right.

It’s two days later, and my “good” elbow hurts more than the “bad” elbow. That’s a bit weird.

On Tuesday night the Huggers Ski Club “Paddle Power” group went for a paddle at Baycreek. I tagged along, since I just joined the club. I paddled with the group for most of the time, except when Rob was calculating whether they needed to turn around I sprinted ahead so I made it all the way to Browncroft Boulevard to turn around so I got 4.37 miles and the rest of the group probably only got 4.0 or 4.1 miles. I got back to them as they were turning around just about where the linked map shows the 2 mile point. Soon after we turned around, a couple of the fitter paddlers decided they needed to go faster to get some exercise. Just past the 3 mile point, I decided that was a good idea for me, and I sprinted quite hard all the way to the end.

The creek was quite high, but it wasn’t flowing quickly at all. The weir was a total non-event. There also wasn’t that much wildlife, which isn’t too surprising with a big group of people paddling along and chatting.

But afterwards we went for beer and wings at the next door MacGregors. Smithwicks is the best way to de-train.

On Friday, I ducked out of work early to go kayaking because I’d been kept late for various emergencies on previous days. I have been a little worried about the “NO TRESPASSING” and “AUTHORIZED VEHICLES ONLY” signs that have appeared at my put-in at Browncroft Avenue, so I was planning to go down to BayCreek and put in there, but the wind was blowing so strongly that I decided I’d risk the parking ticket and put-in on the more sheltered part of the creek.
Continue reading “Kingfisher patrol”

Last night I went with the Hugger’s Ski Club for a group paddle. There were seven of us, and we went to what for me is unexplored territory, Braddock’s Bay in Hilton. It was a nice paddle. The stream was extremely placid, and for most of the way Rob and I were forging ahead into water without a ripple on it. Didn’t see too much wildlife, except a fair number of turtles, some large splashes that might have been carp or might have been muskrats, and the usual kingfishers and swallows, and one great blue heron who took off before we got too close. Several of the people in the group spent the entire time loudly chatting, so even though I was up ahead of them I think they scared off some of the wildlife.

As you can see from the linked map, it appears that there is more navigable stream above where we turned around, plus several other streams coming off other parts of the bay that might bear exploring.