Calvert Kayak / Butter Pot Camp

Friday I checked the weather and it seemed to finally be a decent weekend, so I asked my buddy Terry if he was up for a paddle from Calvert to Ferryland and back on Saturday.

Peter and Roy expressed interest in paddling earlier in the week so I sent them an invite as well. 

We all met at the Foodland in Bay Bulls Saturday morning and headed out to Calvert.

Terry, Peter, Roy and myself heading out of Calvert.

Terry's Torngat had a close encounter with a rock on a paddle that we did a few weeks before and ended up losing a large chunk of gelcoat off of its nose.  Terry patched it up with duct tape until we get some warmer weather to do a proper repair.

Good as new.

Same as our Brigus paddle, this was a first for us.

Calvert is a really nice place to paddle and has a great coast line for some rock hopping fun.

Peter and Roy

We're just about to make the turn out of Calvert Bay to head down to Ferryland.

Once we got out of Calvert we were open to the south wind, which made things a little more fun.

This stretch was the most enjoyable part of the trip for me.  

We seem to always paddle the same routes out of the same towns, but the last few weeks we have done some different spots and they have been 10/10! Excellent kayaking out here, just like out of Brigus.  This summer I'm making it a point to paddle all the places in between our regular spots.  It seems we are missing to much of the good stuff in between.

Just leaving Ferryland beach after a lunch break.

We meandered through the Islands off of Ferryland just after lunch doing a little more rock hopping and playing in the swell.

It was a quick ride back with a stiff tailwind.

On the way back into Calvert I threw out a little challenge for my buddy Roy to follow me.  I love rock hopping and Roy is new to it, so I thought this was fairly calm it would be a good chance to get him going.  He followed me through every channel and over every rock! Peter and Terry played the game with us.

Roy

Nice Shot of Roy again.

Peter enjoying the view.

And after 19kms of paddling we were back at Calvert Beach.  Great day on the water!  It was a bit chilly but really great spot.  I will be coming back here this summer so I can push things a little further, just like Brigus.

Great day on the water bys! 

After our little adventure in Calvert I met up with Dean in Butter Pot to try out a winter camp.

Dean had a spot picked out when I got there so we didn't need to waste time messing around.  Wasn't a lot of daylight left to play with.  It was a short walk to our campsite and we got to work right away setting up tents and tapts for the night.

We did a camp in warmer weather last month and my back was really cold during the night.  I got home after that and made myself a sleeping pad topper.  That combined with my -7 down bag I slept like a baby!  My back never got cold at all and it was about 10 degrees colder than last month.

Dean had his -9 bag and his -7 top quilt so we was good and warm through the night.

Winter camp was a success!

Usually we get jiffy pop... I was too lazy so I just bought bags of popcorn.

Dean boiling the kettle for our sidekicks.

I'm cooking up our burgers!

It was a light snow for 3 or 4 hours after I got there.  Around 9pm it was -4,-9 with the wind chill.

Our candle lanterns hanging in our tents.

I love this picture...looked a lot better in person tho.  Only so much an iPhone can do I guess.

 My new candle lantern Dean gave me on our last trip to Brigus South.

Had an awesome day of kayaking and camping!

Got to paddle a new section of coastline with some friends, and finally got a proper winter camp in.

I'm really excited for the summer!  Lots of things to do and places to go!