Kayaking BC's Broken Group Islands (Jul 15-19)

After a long hiatus from blogging during which we have pit stopped for some days visiting with friends and family in Paris, then Toronto, then briefly in Ottawa, we are now in British Columbia enjoying the wild west coast mountains and ocean. Stop #1 out here is sea kayaking on the far west coast of Vancouver Island where there is a cluster of some 50 islands that form a park. Half a dozen of these can be camped on while the rest are pretty hard to land on and walk around. To get here you board the ferry boat shown below in Port Alberni and take a 3 hr journey out of the fjord-like inlet to the far west coast of Vancouver Island. The ferry drops you off on a dock where some rented kayaks are waiting and you begin to stuff everything you need to survive for the next days into the 'holds' of the kayaks.

The outer islands of this set are open to the Pacific Ocean and require some care before venturing out. The water here is about 12 degrees and a typical day has it calm and foggy in the morning with the fog beginning to dissipate as noon approaches only to be replaced by a wind that gets stronger as the day progresses which creates whitecaps usually by 1 in the afternoon. So the rhythm here is get up early, don't get lost in the fog, explore, and then hunker down for the afternoon. Below is the view in the morning... then followed by the afternoon.

The temperature almost never gets warmer than 18 because of the cool wind blowing off the ocean and night time temperatures are constant at the temperature of the surrounding ocean (12 degrees). Meanwhile the backdrop to all this is the high mountains of Vancouver Island rising straight up from the water.

While out exploring during the day Lori got up the nerve to jump into the water (for about 1.5 seconds!) brave soul and we also came across a 'sea arch' which we paddled through ... or should we say surfed through with the surge of small ocean swells gushing through.

This is not the kind of trip you do for warm relaxing in the sun, but for the stimulation of the scenery and the amount of life in the ocean and skies. Over the course of 4 days we saw seals, schools of small fish, many eagles, hummingbirds and even some deer who were surprisingly accustomed to people. And then there are the amazing tidal pools formed as the tide recedes and the huge variation of small crabs, minnows, anemones, starfish, etc, etc that go scurrying every which way when you turn over any rock. We also found a few original giant cedars which have managed to survive the lumberman's chainsaw.

Pools of brightly coloured starfish abound everywhere...

These deer (doe and fawn) swam over to our island and walked by while we were eating supper. I'm eating vegetarian indian food by the way!

Just one of many beach scenes....at low tide....

The magic of tall stately trees....

Our next plan is to shift over to the northeast side of Vancouver Island and kayak there in the Johnstone strait where there is supposed to be several resident pods of killer whales (orcas) that frequent the channel and are known to swim close to the shore. Will we be lucky?