April 27-28, 2010
Five paddlers joined me and Joe -- a part time kayak instructor and float plane pilot -- on a 2 day kayaking adventure this weekend. We taught the group how to navigate -- that is to read tide and current tables, read a chart, to use longitude and latitude to locate ourselves on this precious but small planet in this amazing but insignificant solar system within this one gallaxy amongst billions...reading the weather from a synopisis of high and low pressure systems off of the gulf of Alaska..understanding local forcasts for Vancouver Island South to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and off into space -- earth, roating around sun, moon around sun, creating a massive tidal wave that builds as it surges into the local shoreline of Songes, Saanich and so many more places that I'd like to know along this delightful coast. We developed the student's ability do a variety of rescues including the fast "Tripple P" -- that focuses on maintaining the tenuous temperature of the human body...37 degrees is so easily cooled in the 10 degree water....then we went onto a day paddle and the focus on the most challenging stroke of all: the forward stroke...try dipping that paddle in the 3700km of Haida Gwaii, Vancouver Island and the Centeral Coast...and onto weather coxing remedies, trasit lines and how to avoid confrontations with motor boaters and large sea lion herds -- in the end what caught the student's attention was a tremendously large sun star the great white shark of the intertidal zone.
