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Over the Hills, And Far Away
Canada
18 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2010 : 11:56 PM
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Colin and I decided fairly last minute to do a trip to the Broken Islands. I tossed it up on the VOC message board to see if we could find some company, and in the end we ended up being a crew of five. Colin, Philippe, and I paddled singles, while Cecile and Eva paddled a double. We set out Friday afternoon, and luckily Philippe had enough foresight to make a reservation for the 8pm ferry, otherwise we wouldn’t have made it on until Saturday morning. We headed out to the west coast and half of us spent the night at a place my uncle had rented near Tofino, while the other half camped in Toquart Bay to avoid an extra 40km of driving. This exacerbated the morning faff a bit, but otherwise worked out okay. We saw a bear on our drive out to Toquart which was pretty exciting, especially if you’re a visiting student from Germany.
 
We paddled out from Toquart in light fog and low clouds, typical west coast weather. The seas were calm, and there was no wind, so we made good time out to Turret Island where we stopped for lunch. We shared a red rock crab that Colin had caught from his boat on the way out from Toquart, while a deer, which didn’t seem too concerned by our presence, wandered along the beach. Tame deer and mink were a pretty common occurrence throughout the Broken Islands.
After lunch, we continued on to Clarke Island and set up camp. It was a beautiful spot, but we ended up sharing it with quite a few other paddlers. The Broken Islands are definitely not the place to go to escape the crowds. Someone came by in the morning to collect the $9.80 per person, per night, fee for camping in the park – you don’t need cash, they’ll take credit cards.
After we set up camp, we decided to do a lap of Clarke and Benson Islands, and check out some of the swells coming in off the Pacific. I paddled too close to Sail Rock, and ended up getting dumped by the combination of an outgoing rebound wave off the rocks and an incoming swell. It came as a bit of a shock, because up until that point I was working under the assumption that it was impossible to get dumped in a sea kayak in anything less than a hurricane.
Fortunately, there was no wind and the swells weren’t pushing me into the rocks. If you get dumped from your boat, the trick is to build an outrigger from your paddle and paddle float and use it to climb back in. Unfortunately, when I did this one of the straps holding my paddle to the boat snapped, which made getting back in a bit of an ordeal, especially in the choppy water. I eventually managed to climb back into the boat, and Colin steadied me while I pumped out all the water. There was no harm done, but I definitely learned an important lesson: be more careful! Getting mangled on the rocks would have been a bad (I hope?!) end to the trip for everyone. Anyways, I paddled back to the campsite wet, and a little embarrassed, but otherwise okay.
The great thing about kayak trips is the food. You can take just about anything, and supplement it with seafood. Fishing, and living off the coast, is Colin’s speciality, and this time he outdid himself. He caught a big rock cod, and an even bigger cabezon, one of the ugliest and tastiest fishes around. We had curried rock cod on rice for dinner, with cabezon steaks grilled on the fire on the side. The cabezon had an enormous liver which Philippe fried in a bit of butter. I was a little skeptical about trying it at first, but was shocked to find out that it’s delicious. It was rich, and didn’t taste very fishy; on top of that it’s incredibly good for you.
  
The next morning we slept in, and ate a leisurely breakfast on the beach. Colin spotted some humpback whales out in Loudoun Channel while we were eating. We started our morning off (well, early afternoon actually) by paddling out into the channel and watching the humpbacks do laps. They came up within about 100 metres of our boats. One of them was even nice enough to do a full breach, but we only saw it from a distance. When we were done watching the whales, we headed over to Combe Rock to check out some sea lions, and then paddled over to an island near Effingham to have lunch. We found an unopened bottle of vodka on the beach, which we left with Cecil and Eva, while Colin, Philippe and I did a lap of Effingham. When we got back, the girls were sober, but well rested after a nice nap on the beach. We put the vodka to use later that night with Philippe’s hot V8. It wasn’t great, but it improved a lot with a bit of lime juice.
The trip around Effingham Island was probably a highlight for me. There’s a big sea arch and sea cave on the outside of the island. Paddling through the sea arch was so much fun we had to do it three times. Philippe’s last trip through looked exciting! A wave washed him sideways into the rocks. Of course, he escaped unscathed, and even managed to make it look effortless.
The opening to the cave was huge and there was a small sandy beach inside where we landed the kayaks. It’s pretty substantial and you need a head light to explore it. There’s flowstone and soda straws on the walls, but most of the soda straws have been broken off by other paddlers. It extends back a long ways, probably well into the island, but the passage constricts too much to squeeze through. I read recently that sea caves are common native burial sites and best left alone, but this one definitely gets a fair bit of traffic.
We left Effingham and paddled over to Gibraltar Island for our second night. We were lucky enough to get the campsite all to ourselves. We had another fantastic dinner, and got another late start the next morning. After packing up, we made the 15km trip back to Toquart in record time, loaded up the boats and headed to Nanaimo to catch the ferry.
All in all, I’d say the Broken Islands lived up to their reputation for being one of the most spectacular paddling destinations in BC. We saw blue sky briefly Saturday afternoon and again as we were packing up the boats to leave, but it never rained which is pretty fantastic for the west coast of Vancouver Island. We managed to do a full lap of the islands covering about 60 or 70 kilometers. Cecile and Eva probably doubled that, because they liked paddling in zig-zags, but they were more than up to the challenge. I think it’s safe to say a good time was had by all. |
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Vernon, BC
Canada
37 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2010 : 10:19 AM
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| Wow. I've been thinking haphazardly about the Broken Isalnds for a few years. Now it's a must! |
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Vancouver, BC
Canada
118 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2010 : 3:11 PM
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| Awesome trip! It's funny (but normal) to see the weather difference on the real West Coast - we paddling between Bowen and Gambier in super sunny condition. |
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354 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2010 : 4:44 PM
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| great TR :) nice pics. thanks for posting it :) |
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 Happy go lucky, plaid wearin, postholin, safeway gaitor sportin, old-school film shootin, giver of many regards
Abbotsford, B.C.
Canada
13435 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2010 : 5:35 PM
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Memorable trip, enjoyable TR. You make that seafood feel so good. Bet that is one large part of your experience.
Thanks for sharing.
K |
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Broken Islands - July 17th-19th
