St. Philip's Wednesday Fun!

Wednesday evenings we meet at St. Philip's for our practice nights where we have a good opportunity to try new things, push ourselves in a familiar place, and practice rescues.

Five of us showed up Wednesday, it was myself...

Tony

Terry

Gary

and Barb

I think we all had some good fun Wednesday night.  I took my RG to play with a little more.  It was a workout towards the end keeping up but my friends were patient and waited for me when I started to fall behind.

Check out
http://mynewfoundlandkayakexperience.blogspot.ca/

for more on the day, and I put together a video of different clips I took.

https://youtu.be/NWuKjR4kaXI

Quick Update (Camera Mount)

A few weeks ago I had made a little stainless steel adapter to mount my camera to my kayak for our Placentia Bay trip.

I had just cut a square bar and added the proper holes to get it done quickly to test it out and see how it held up.

The mount worked perfectly so I took some time and made and upgrade with a larger rounded end so that there was more area for the mount to sit on.

And much more ridged.

If anyone wants to do something similar the Valley kayaks come with M6 x 25mm stainless steel bolts.  I bought M6 x 30mm SS bolts to replace the factory one and camera mounts are 1/4 20 for your tap size.

Semi Drysuit UPGRADE

Last summer I bought a Kokatat Semi Drysuit.  It has the booties and wrist gaskets but on the neck it has a neoprene collar instead of a neck gasket.

 

Instead of spending $1200-$1400 on a full drysuit I decided to try and make an budget friendly drysuit and put and neck seal in the one I have.

First I hunted around to try and find something the right size to fit my neck collar down over and came up with this...

I used a plastic lemonade jug I had found.

I had to put a bit of electrical tape around the top to stop it from sliding up and back off the jug.

I VERY lightly sanded around the edge of the new seal with 220 sandpaper.

Then I took my time and stretched my new neck gasket over the neoprene collar.

After the gasket was on I rolled up the bottom edge to expose the factory seam where the neoprene was joined.

Next I added a decent amount of Aquaseal all the way around the factory seam.

Then I rolled the edge of the gasket back down over the factory seam.  You can see in the middle of the factory collar there is a little rib that runs around it, so after I rolled down my new gasket I added a bungee on the bottom side of that rib just to be sure I get a good seal.

From the looks of things it turned out perfect.

Fun little project and can be done for almost half the price of a full drysuit.

I'm going to be using this on Wednesday night so Ill put it to the test then and update on how it held up.

St. Philip's Weekend

SATURDAY

I had some work to do on Saturday and finished up around 2:00p.m. when I was done it was 10 degrees and sunny so I decided the day was too nice to waste at home.  I sent out and email letting people know I was going to be at St. Philip's at 3:30 if anyone wanted to join me.  Terry replied saying he was already out and over to Bell Island and that he would be there to meet up with me.  I loaded my gear and took off to St. Philip's where Terry was waiting for me then we headed out.

We made our way towards Topsail Beach playing along the shoreline.

We got to Topsail Beach and spent some time playing around where the pond runs into the ocean.

There were a few people that came down and took some pictures of me and Terry taking turns running through the current and getting carried up in the beach by the waves.  We stopped for a quick snack then headed on back to St. Philip's.

Few pics of Terry on the way back

 

That's it for Saturday.  We had an awesome day taking out time and playing around along the way.  We got back to St. Philip's, washed off in the fresh water and headed home.  Awesome day!  Way too nice to stay home.

SUNDAY

An email was sent out Saturday suggesting a trip from Long Pond to Kelly's Island to Little Bell Island and back again.  That didn't really appeal to me and Brian said he was going to skip that one and take his Hammer to St. Philip's instead so I decided I would take my RG and join Brian.

When I got there it was Brian, Sue, Dave and myself.

Shot of Sue.

Here is Brian, Dave, then Sue leading the way.

Dave and Sue had their Sea Kayaks so they carried on ahead while me and Brian took our time and played around in our boats.

I didn't get a lot of pictures today partly because I forgot about my camera towards the second half and partly because I was busy having fun and testing out my new RG.
We got as far as Beachy Cove and me and Brian spent some time playing around where there is a little brook that runs into the ocean.  The swell was pretty big so we had a lot of fun here riding the waves in and then letting the brook push us back out.  We kept playing here until Sue and Dave started to head back then me and Brian took our time and followed.  Two beautiful days of paddling with lots of fun playing around the rocks and streams.  This was my first time taking my RG for a good paddle and for what we were doing today, I love it!

Terry, Brian, Sue, and Dave...
Thanks for the awesome weekend! 

Norman's Cove Short and Sweet!

Today I took my boys out to see their Nanny so I figured Id bring my kayak and see if I could sneak away for an hour for a quick paddle.  No issues there Nan was more than happy to have some quality time with the boys so off I went.

Just crossed over from the boat launch and followed the shoreline around.

Few scattered rock sticking up I could meander around

From here I crossed over and made my way up the shoreline.

The wind was picking up pretty good so because I was on a time budget and paddling back into the wind I decided to start my way back.

  I paddled over to a little island to have a look on my way back.  It looked like I could get a few decent pictures...

I was only gone a little over an hour but I got my kayaking fix for the weekend and a few decent pictures.  Next time I go I'll make a day of it and make my way around to Spread Eagle.

I made a GP with wider rounded tips last week so I tried that out on the way back and I liked it a lot.  I noticed it had a little more bite which is what I was going for when I made it.

This was what I would call my second solo paddle and I gotta say I was WAY more comfortable this time around than I was on my Kelly's Island trip.

Placentia Play

Mid last week Terry sent out an email to see who was interested in going to Placentia to play/practice in the current under the lift bridge caused by the dropping tide.  Myself and I believe 8 others decided to join Terry on Saturday morning for some fun.

Brian

Dean

 Tony

Cathy

Dean in front and Ron over to the left

Terry

and Gary showing us all how its done!

I got knocked over a few times so here is a few shots from one of my rolls

On my way over

Upside down

And right side up again!

As always we make time for a little snack on the beach!

I think we all had a turn trying to paddle up the current.  This was a heck of a workout because a one second pause set you back 10 feet haha.

This was a lot of fun for everyone!  I really enjoyed it because it was my first time paddling in currents like this and it was a lot of fun to practice crossing the eddy lines....and to practice rolls when I did something wrong haha.

With the great weather and all the fun we couldn't have asked for a better day!

I put together a video of the day, you can check it out here-
https://youtu.be/_rGdmDOrelc