There was a breeze blowing from the north barely evident in the harbour but I could see whitecaps in the distance. It felt good to be back in the kayak. Before long Dean and Brian and I ...
... were making our way past the houses of the community.
Clear of spectators we were along the rugged cliffs of Gasters Bay.
It didn't take long to recapture the feeling of the kayak under me. When I got home I checked Stardust's log. The high point was in 2011 when I had 126 days in the kayak. That includes pool sessions but in any event, it was an incredible number.
The further north we went the more we felt the breeze. Looking across the bay towards Salmon Cove Point we could see there was good action as the waves hit the rocks.
Referring again to ship's log, as late as 2016 I still had 76 days in the boat! In 2017 I was still making entries in the log but bike rides started to creep into the log. It was the sharp edge of the wedge.
The bike took over and each year from 2018 the kilometers on the bike increased to over 3,000 kms in 2020. The Nordkapp began to collect dust.
We began feeling the wind more and the waves became steeper. One more headland I thought and we'd be in Bacon Cove. We got there but alas there was one more. This was to be an easy ease-back paddle so we decided we had enough and turned to return with the wind.
At one point Dean was in front of me and I thought about the winter of 2013 when we both paddled every weekend of that winter. Hard to believe it was almost 9 years ago.
Back in Conception Harbour we checked out one of the whaling boats that were left to find their watery graves.
Taking out and putting our gear away there was talk of a more frequent return to paddling. Not necessarily to reach the same numbers of earlier days but for a minimum of two days a month. More between biking days and hiking days would be a bonus.
In closing, I'm not the only one who seems to have lost my mojo but I am lucky to have friends with a mutual desire to spend more time kayaking.
