Lone Wolf Island: Part II

Mount Baker and kayak on the north end of Sidney Island, the
turnaround point for my adventure

My adventure kayaking around southeastern Vancouver Island continues. 

On Day One, I paddled out of Victoria, the British Columbia capital, to isolated Discovery Island where I made camp. There was no sign of the famous wolf that makes its home there, but I did get to share the campfire with Sandy, a fellow kayaker who lived in Victoria. Waking up the next morning, I got to decide what I wanted to do: spend a chill day poking around nearby islands, or go for a long voyage north, fighting the elements in the open water in order to put down my longest single day of kayak mileage thus far.

Guess which choice I made.

Life would have been easier for me if I’d woken up and the sky was dumping buckets of rain or if a hellacious gale was ripping across the water.

I probably would have anticipated the misery of going for a long trip and opted for a short day’s paddle around the Discovery Island archipelago. Unfortunately, I crawled out from my tarp shelter to see soft, inviting orange light climbing down the slopes of the Olympic Mountains in the south. The Strait was wind ruffled, but not churning; the sky was baby blue. 

What a shame it would be, I thought, not to capitalize on these fair conditions. I would grow restless dawdling among these small islands, knowing that a greater adventure lay to the north of me.

That adventure was the Gulf Islands, some 15 miles to the north. There would be some long crossings, tide rips and strong winds to deal with. There was also the fact that the coastline looked boring and developed that way, so I wouldn’t have the same element of inspiration that I would have in a truly wild place.

My Canadian friend Sandy, had woken up at about the same time as me. We said hello and then largely kept to our separate camps as we tended to our individual tasks of organizing gear and packing boats. A westerly wind began to build as the sun got higher in the sky.

We ate breakfast together in the shelter of a stony ledge.

Sandy was going back to Oak Bay (an eastern suburb of Victoria) that day,  while I was to spend one more night on Discovery Island. My tarp would stay up as a welcome place of rest once I returned that evening.

Since Sandy had some extra water, he let me top off some of my rations. I even went as far as taking some of his cooler ice that he was going to throw out and packing it into my hydration bladders.

Since we both seemed to be taking about the same time to leave, we ended up starting our trips together, paddling around the east side of Discovery Island.

Along the way, we both had fun shooting “field goals” between shallow rocks and the cliffs. Wildlife was everywhere.

“Check out that a seal at three o’clock.”

“Bald eagle at 11.”

“The crows don’t seem to be happy about him being there.”

“Seals on the rock at nine o’clock.”

Seals on the rocks in the Chatham Islands 

The quiet, and the absence of other humans, made it was all the more incongruous to round the north side of Discovery Island and see a skyscraper shimmering in Victoria.

Rivers of sea water moved with the tides between the islands, setting the brown fronds of bull kelp aflutter.We moved through the eddies and the riffles north until we came to the last island in the chain.

That was Strongtide Island, Sandy told me.

“I bet it’s called that for a reason,” I said.

The reason was Baynes Channel, Sandy explained.  

Baynes was about a mile of open water before Ten Mile Point on Vancouver Island. The Batman villain-sounding stretch was notoriously treacherous when the tides were running.

We were lucky enough to be making the crossing close to slack however, which meant that the water was limited to some riffles and boils on the surface — no standing waves or whitewater. Still, this point was a something of a rubicon to cross. The fact was that now, I would want to come back here in either six hours or 12 hours. Any sooner or later, I would end up crossing the passage during a strong flood tide or ebb. 

The channel would stay on my mind throughout the long day of paddling ahead of me, as the hours added up on my watch and my body tired.

 “I wonder what Baynes will be doing when I get back.”

Once we got to the other side, Sandy pulled his boat on a beach to call his wife to pick him up. She’d meet him down the island.

I was sorry to say goodbye and lose the company. It was going to be a long, long paddle if I was going to reach the Gulf Islands, and I was as much worried about boredom as I was worried about the physical challenge.

Sandy had pointed out the tall line of sand cliffs that marked James Island, one of the southern outposts of the archipelago. It looked as far as hell. The fastest way to get there was to go way offshore where there would be none of the entertaining foreground scenery that came with paddling around Discovery. I wouldn’t be looking at seals on rocks or perched eagles. It would just be paddle, paddle, paddle.

The bluffs at the south end of James Island

One nice thing: I had both wind and tide at my back.

As I paddled further north, the westerly wind coming out of the Strait of Juan de Fuca swung around Vancouver Island and became a southerly. Eighteen-inch waves gave me helpful nudges, allowing me to surf occasionally. 

I took a snack break inside me boat, letting the elements push me along as I relaxed.

To keep my mind busy, I would compare distant mountains to closer mountains. The great white flanks of Baker loomed over San Juan island to the east. I marched it north with me, taking bets with myself on how long it would take for me to get the volcano to line up with a radio tower on shore. 

A few miles later, I could see the Olympic Mountains looming over the Vancouver Island foothills. How long would it take before they would appear taller than the smaller, closer mountains.

I ended up in a race with a large sailing yacht that was coming up from behind me. It had a deep purple sail adorned with the eyes of a femme fatale. 

Because traveling directly downwind is actually slow going for sailboats it took a couple miles before the pair of eyes overtook me. I thought about cutting right behind it so I could draft in the wake, but it was going too far to the west now, heading for Sidney. 

I could see planes taking off and landing from the Sidney Airport far ahead of me. If I made it that far, I would cross my paddling route from the year before. 

I made it to James Island around noon.

Yellow scotch broom flowers blossomed out of the sandy bluffs overhead. 

OK, I thought, I have officially reached the Gulf Islands. It might be a good time to turn it around now.

Instead, I ended up paddling five more miles between James Island and Sidney Island. A long sand spit came out of the north side of Sidney Island. I knew that beach, because I’d been there last year. I pulled my boat up to eat lunch. 

The view included five separate mountain ranges. I had finally gotten far enough north to see the Vancouver Island Range. The six-thousand-foot peaks had plenty of snow on them. To the north, I could see the Canadian Coast Range, some distant 8,000-footers like Mount Tantalus near Whistler. The view of the Cascades included 10,000 foot Mount Baker. It may be a stretch to call these mountains, but there is a 2,000-foot peak on the San Juan islands, so I will include them in my roster. Finally, there were the dear old Olympic Mountains to the south. They were far enough away that I could see the whole range, east to west. It was a reminder that I needed to get back eventually. 

The wind was going hard, so I found a sheltered spot to eat. I wolfed down sandwiches and granola to supply the energy that I was going to need very soon. 

On the one hand, I was elated to have reached the same point that I had paddled last year, this meant that I had an unbroken line of paddling experience from Port Angeles to the middle of the Gulf Islands. On the other hand, I knew that I was going to be fighting wind all the way back to Discovery Island. I would end up adding extra distance cutting into bays for shelter. I was at the halfway point of my journey, but I was nowhere near halfway done. Also, I still had to cross Baynes when it was all done.

It was 2 pm. I needed to get to Baynes somewhere around 7 or 8 pm to have the best chance of getting across safely.

That seemed like a lot of time until the headwind slapped into me. Dammit. I felt like I was barely moving at all.

It took almost two hours to get back to the top of James Island, the place where I thought I would turn around originally.

I stuck close to shore, but their were barely any places where any points stuck out far enough for me to get a break.

At one point, I just ended up hopping out of the kayak and towing it along the beach for a ways. This worked, OK for a while, but once the shoreline started getting rocky, I started tripping in the water. The waves made the water murky so I couldn’t see what the hell was going on beneath the surface. It was 5pm now and I had made it maybe halfway back.

When I got back into the clear, I saw the fronds of bull kelp were waving to the south. That was good, because I knew the current was with me now, yet it hardly mattered against the headwind.

“Wind trumps tide,” I muttered. It’s an expression my dad likes to use, and it’s true. 

The wind finally began to shift as I continued going south. It began to turn back into a westerly wind, meaning it was coming more from the side.

While this made for faster paddling, it also made for an unnerving crossing with the waves pushing me away from shore. I knew that if I flipped my boat would end up going east for about 10 miles before I ended up on San Juan Island in the U.S.

The light was getting lower over the mountains now. My watch beeped 7 pm. I needed to get to Baynes soon or it was going to be a shit show getting across. Would I try crossing if it was dark out, or would I just bivuac in the suburbs somewhere?

It was especially concerning that I couldn’t even see the islands yet. I rounded another point expecting them to pop into view, yet I just saw another point to go around.

I paddled fast. The wind was no longer fighting me.

Suddenly, I realized that I was seeing the islands. In the low light, I didn’t realize that the point I was looking at in front of me, was actually Strongtide Island — separate from Vancouver Island. Relief swept over me. I was much closer than I thought.

Baynes was moving by the time that I got there, but I was still close to the slack. 

I steered around passages with larger wave trains. Finally, though, there was no avoiding it and I just dug in. I’ve got this. I thought. I’ve paddled through way harder stuff.

I reached the edge of Strongtide Island and turned around to look back at it all.

The reflection of the setting sun cast all kinds of weird light over the boils. The waves were torched with sunlight; they marched like ocean acolytes along the path of the rip.

The sun was down by the time I got back into camp. Cold hit me immediately and hard. I clenched my jaw as I struggled out of my drysuit, shivering violently and cursing. Pre-hypothermia stuff. It is amazing how quickly it can come on when you are tired and you stop moving.

I peeled out of the wet stuff, piled on the dry. By the time I had a fire and hot soup, I was coming back around.

I didn’t know it yet, but I had paddled 40-miles that day. It is, so far, the furthest I’ve paddled in one day. What I knew was that I was pooped, but my muscles had basically held up. I felt proud of putting in a full day and for connecting the Gulf Islands to my web of adventures out of Port Angeles. I hadn’t blistered or injured anything.

This was good news because I had one more day of paddling ahead of me in order to get back to Victoria and home.

Some of the weird water near Baynes Channel

Klahhane Ridge in the Olympics as seen from the water off Discovery Island