Caving in Middle Cove

Friday is usually shoulders, lats and traps day in the gym but when Shane mailed Thursday about a paddle in Middle Cove, I couldn't pass it up.  We met at 12:30 and after putting in we made our way along the east side of the cove.

Shane has paddle once before in Middle Cove but not the east side where there are a number of caves.  I'm going to tag this cave as "Split Rock Cave".  I don't believe its been named yet so now it has a name.  Its apt because ...

... you can go in one side and loop around to come out the other.  We didn't today due to a bit of swell that was running and the sea has been known to cause an unpleasant surprise especially in a narrow cave.  We moved on to ...

... one more substantial one but its not ...

... ,thought similar to, The Molar where I shot a similar photo.

We paddled into the imposing cliffs of Ship Cove.  Leaving there we poked our noses into Outer Cove where a stiff southerly wind was blowing and decided to cross Middle Cove over to the west side and through ...

... Motion.  Motion is a place to be avoided at times because it comes by its name honestly.  Today when we were there it was low water so the rocks afforded some protection.  The rocks broke up the waves dissipating their energy but still interesting.

Near Torbay we checked out another cave.

Entering Torbay the cliffs out of the sun still harboured a few icicles.  We carried on into ...

... Torbay proper.

At this point we began to retrace our steps to Middle Cove.  In the back of my mind I knew what we were going to face as the wind was forecasted to increase and sure enough when we left Torbay we were face and eyes into 35 km southerly winds gusting to 50.  Breaking wind waves sprayed salt water into our faces.  We paddled the remaining 2.5 kms back at what felt like a snail's pace but the thing about padding into the wind is, just paddle.

Thankfully back on the beach and our gear stowed we stopped for a cup of java, a super way to end the day.