My first experience in a kayak was on a glacier fed lake in the Yukon with Leanne and Louise. The lake was filled with white silt from the glacier such that you couldn’t see more than an inch into the water – not something you wanted to fall into. There was a mountain on one side of the lake and in the centre of the other side was a stream with hundreds of salmon lining up to head upstream to their spawning grounds. It was very interesting but the kayak was narrow and my back was killing me by the time we returned.
When Julie and I arrived in Nanaimo we decided to try a guided introduction to kayaking. We rented a double which was wide and comfortable, but one of the other people found his kayak two tippy so I took his kayak and he went in the double with Julie. I was fine for the first 20 minutes but after that my back started killing me because of the narrow hull. It got so bad that I eventually dumped on the other side of Newcastle Island and went for a swim. I managed to get back into the kayak with the help of the guide but the rest of the trip was agonizing. I vowed never to go in a narrow kayak again.
I decided the best thing was to buy my own kayak. The kayak I bought was long and wide – easy on my back and perfect for long trips since it could carry a ton of stuff in the hull. It was built by a father and son duo that had a fibreglass repair shop in Nanaimo; manufacturing kayaks was a sideline for them but they made a great kayak. That was the kayak, I used on the trip with Ron to Haida Guaii.
We had a sailboat as well and I wasn’t doing much in the way of kayaking so I sold the kayak to Ron. Then, sometime later, Ron & Claire invited me on a trip to tour the islands off the central coast near Bella Bella. I rented the largest kayak I could find and we headed up to Port Hardy. From the ferry to Bella Bella, you had the option of getting them to drop you off a platform into the ocean and then pick you up on the way back. That required waiting in mid-ocean for the ferry – so we decided to just go to Bella Bella and head out from there.
Below are some photos taken on the way up. One group from Ladysmith took the option of being dropped off in the ocean (the last photo). We met them later on during our trip … to be continued.
WR Foster 