Monday, June 27, 2011

what 'sup

oh, the stand up paddleboard (SUP) jokes never stop giving...

what 'sup

yesterday A and i headed out on a little paddleboarding adventure, our biggest one so far with these boards we've had just over a month. we took the short ferry ride to denman island and drove the winding rural roads to a parking spot on the west side of the island. a short trail through the woods led down to the beach, where the tide was slowly coming in. we then paddled our way along the shore and across to sandy island marine provincial park, locally known as tree island. the north tip of denman is linked to tree island by sand bar at low tide that can be walked across, although it seems most people still choose to boat over. A has been there many times leading kayak tours, but this was my first time visiting this little island off denman.

coming in to Tree Island

it was the perfect spot to continue to work on my SUP skills in relatively friendly waters, as a lot of the time i still feel quite wobbly and awkward, but i'm getting there. our boards are a bit shorter than the standard flatwater boards that many people use when first trying the sport, and are therefore less stable. but they are more versatile for different conditions, such as when we decide to try surfing waves on the west coast.

perfect lunch spot

tree island has long stretches of beautiful sand, and it was a great warm day to have a lazy lunch and explore the island a little bit. the sand was wonderfully soft between my toes.

tide coming in

above you can see the view back toward denman island, with the long sand bar stretching off white spit. in the distance to the left is hornby island and to the right vancouver island. perhaps someday we will skip the ferry ride and just paddle straight across from vancouver island.

Paddleboards with a view

eating lunch

we were supposed to take some friends out to try paddleboarding today, but rain set in this morning and made that a bit less appealing. i will stay inside and make sure all my recent orders are ready to ship out this week now that the postal service is headed back to work after their strike. thanks to everyone for their patience while their orders were held up.

beach flowers

after all the sun i got yesterday, this rain suddenly makes me want to eat a cozy meal for dinner and settle down with some knitting. what are you up to this week?

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things i like today:
• kathryn clark's cleveland foreclosure quilt
• amanda's thoughts on time with her new babe
• grecolaborativo's plush art summer camp projects

4 comments:

Netta said...

I forgot how beautiful tree island is. must go there again.thanks for the reminder:)

Cloudberry said...

Looks like alot of fun! And what a beautiful beach!

belinda darling said...

it looks beautiful!.

Jenny said...

Gah--that sand. I want to be there now. A good friend of ours is a stand up paddle board agent. Let me know if you want to make it big time! Haha. I've been wanting to try. Sounds like an amazing upper body workout. Which I might not be too good at :)