Aug 19-22: A busy weekend

A busy weekend indeed – we left work early the Friday and also took Monday off to make it another 4 day weekend with the weather being so nice – at least it was supposed to stay nice for Friday and Saturday.

Friday afternoon we actually packed gear to go on an overnight kayak trip to Bishops Creek up Indian Arm. Apparently the Pinks were milling about right in front of the Creek and easily accessible from shore at low tide. And since we needed to get there fast – low tide was in the early evening and early morning – we used our Accord instead of our sea kayaks. Now the Accord is not really made for touring since it is really a racing K2 – even though it is a stable trainer version of a racing K2. But we limited ourself to sleeping bags, tent and cheese, salami & buns for food so we didn’t have to take cooking gear and were able to fit it all in plus the fishing gear of course. The cove was really choppy that afternoon but it was a tailwind (not that that really helps in the accord – especially fully loaded) and we flew down to Bishops Creek in 1hr11min (15km or so). We had the campsite almost to ourselves! Jeff headed out to fish right away while I set up camp before joining him. On my way out to the fishing beach I almost ran over a couple of deer.  Fishing was slow that evening although they were jumping like crazy around us – but mostly just out of my reach. I made my way back to the tent after an hour or so of casting practice. Most of the beach had disappeared with the tide coming in and the banks were tricky to navigate with high grass and lots of hidden boulders – Jeff fell on his a… pretty badly when he returned just before dark. Dinner had to happen in the tent though because as nice as the campsite at Bishops Creek is, blackflies also love it there. The next morning Jeff got up really early to catch the low tide and I blissfully slept in :-). But apparently I missed great fishing that morning. Nevertheless I finally did get my Pink salmon before we left around noon.

We left around noon because we had to be at a BBQ at a friend of mine that afternoon by 4pm. Terry and I used to work together at Kodak and he had invited lots of our former colleagues. It was a great evening with lots of good food and wonderful company.

Sunday morning we hit the early ferry to the sunshine coast. Our destination was Sechelt Inlet as rumor had it that Coho’s were being caught off the beach in Porpoise Bay. There is a provincial campground right at the beach where we camped for the night. The weather was overcast but warm – the fish were just outside our reach off the beach in front of the campsite and we hiked around a bit to find a better spot. We ended up in the next bay over on a steep rock cliff where we could only do roll casts. And even though fish were jumping in that bay, we could not touch them. The boat ankered just off shore or the kids throwing gear were much more successful than us :-). Jeff hooked into something big but we never found ou what it was. Oh well we had a good time nevertheless. We went into town for an early dinner – nice pub overlooking the inlet and then back to fishing till it was dark. I caught my fish of the day – tiny bullhead 🙂 That night though it started to rain and it still rained when we got up. On top of the rain it was windy – mostly headwind which is not so great for my casting. We still tried but all I caught was weeds which was extremely frustrating for a while. The rain eventually stopped (it never did in Vancouver that same day so I guess we were the lucky ones) and the frustration became a bit less so we went back into the bay from the day before – out of the wind a bit. Fishing didn’t improve much although Jeff did manage to land a Pink but our mood did. When we left in the afternoon we saw another 2 deer – this time in the middle of a residential area in Gibsons.

Is fall already upon us?

Jeff got a nice Pink

Rain on day two

May catch of the day

Arbutus

Jeff hooks something big – never got to see it

The cliff we fished below

Our camp at Porpoise Bay Provincial Park

Lorquin’s Admiral – on the way to Sechelt

The gang at Terry’s BBQ

I got one two – another pink on the new rod

Fish on!

One of Jeff’s many pinks that morning

Looking south along Indian Arm – I spent some time reading on the beach

Our camp at Bishops Creek – the next morning

Aug 13-14: BC Champs on Burnaby Lake

Gosh – I started this post a month ago….

My first sprint regatta of the season – and I had not trained for sprint at all this year. I paddle my K1 once or twice a week but I don’t do much in regards of intervals etc like previous years. So I just entered this regatta for fun and because it was on our home lake.

The second sprint regatta on Burnaby Lake since we just got the lake dredged. The dredging took about 1.5 years and finished in March of 2011. The 5 years before that the weeds were so bad in the summer we could even paddle on the lake. But even now after the dredging the weeds had already returned by early August – good thing we had a cold spring which seemed to have slowed their growth (who the hell told the city that dredging to 2m deep would prevent lily pads from growing again). Fortunately, some of  our club members spent quite a lot of hours “weeding” the lake by hand – thanks Jim and Bex – the week before the event!!! My job was to wash the goose poop off the dock both mornings before the racing started – I can believe how much sh… geese and duck can generate over night. The weather was quite nice both days.

Racing was actually fun, even though we didn’t have proper lanes – just 3 buoy lines but nobody seemed to mind. And as expected I did better in the 1000m than in the 500m than in the 200m. Day 1 was mostly K1 races – all three distances and a couple K2’s. I teamed up with John George and raced against the men – we did not come in last. It was a great day but I was tired by the end it and glad that the next day would be shorter with only teamboat races remaining.

WRONG – apparently CKBC is trying out a new format this year where they race all the K1’s in their respective age class on day 1 and then AGAIN on day 2 seeded by finish times of the day before. So I had to race 1000, 500 and 200m K1 all over again on top of 3 K4 races (2 of those 1000m) and a 500m K2. I was bagged by the end of the day since we also had to pack up and clean up after the event.

Jeff missed all the fun going fishing both days.

Dave – Chief Official and Regatta Coordinator with Diane as Referee

K4 – 200m: Steve, I, Dari & Ali

K4 1000m – the boat felt really good but we weren’t going fast

K4 getting ready for the 1000m race: Steve, I, Dari , John

We had some good races together – against all the men’s teams

K2 – 1000m: John & I

K1 – 200m Heat on Saturday: definitely not my best race

Looking down the race course