Hesquiat 2016 (Part 1)

Introduction

Welcome to the blog post(s) of our recent 2016 Hesquiat trip. As a blogger I have been trying to juggle the time to write posts of our multi-day trips upon returning and think I may have come up with a workable solution. Believe me, blogging takes a considerable amount of precious time and on a few occasions after returning home from trips or paddles I have seriously thought about stopping writing altogether. But then I look at the blog page view counts which is now at over 84,000 visits and I find myself torn about shutting the blog down. 

In the past I would write notes and then hopefully sometime in the future start sorting through the thousands of photos that Robyn and I take and try to piece together the story line from memory. It was simply becoming ….. Arrrrggggh!

However, for this trip I decided to actually write the daily posts (without editing) in MS Word on my iPad each night while the events of the day were fresh in my mind. Robyn helped out tremendously by putting together a Goggle album of a few hundred of the several thousand pictures that we took when we arrived home and posted them via Facebook to give our followers a little visual of our trip. And so, as I open my Word document from the trip I am so pleased to see that the most of the work has already been done. All I need to do is a little bit of editing, update some items and add a few photos. 

So with all that said … Welcome to Hesquiat 2016!!

Planning

Earlier this year Robyn and I were invited by Beverely Hipolito to join a trip that she was planning from Tofino to Hesquiat Peninsula during the summer. So we gladly accepted and the planning process began with a paddle / planning session that was held in April at the Genoa Bay Cafe. 

Beverely describing the route that she would like the group to take on the trip.

On this trip there would be a total of eight paddlers including Heather Jones, Tony Playfair, Reale Emond, Jeff Follis. Our eighth paddler Katelyn Porter would join the group at a later date.

The plan was pretty simple. We would be departing Tofino on  Friday July 15th and be returning on Sunday August 1st. For 16 days we would head north on the exposed outside of Vargas and Flores Islands and make our way towards Hesquiat Peninsula and maybe make it around Estevan Point if the condition’s were right. Visiting Cougar Annie’s Garden was definitely on the bucket list and up to the planning session I had only heard the name before and knew nothing about her. 

Hesquiat 2016 paddlers from L to R: Reale, Beverely, Heather, Tony, Robyn, Jeff and Mark (me).
Katelyn would be joining the group closer to the departure date.

Along the way we would by spending multiple nights at locations to explore on foot, fish, do day paddles or basically just spend the time relaxing. Of course it would all be weather dependent and on the West Coast of Vancouver Island that means you can pretty well get a little or a lot or everything thrown at you. 

Now .... time to start dehydrating food and research Cougar Annie's Garden

A short paddle from the kayak dock in Cowichan Bay to Genoa Bay for the planning session in April

A Tale Out Of Two Bays

Saturday August 30th - Genoa Bay

After mentioning to Gary Jacek that I got my new Lendal Rebel paddle from Cowichan Bay Kayaks, he wanted to head up there on Saturday to check them out for himself. We were in for going there too as it would give us a chance to work on some skills while I christened the Rebel on a paddle to Genoa Bay for lunch.  

Gary & Robyn suiting up on the Cowichan Bay Kayak's dock.

My "Buzz Lightyear" pose. I always wanted to be a superhero!

I have found that when working on skills getting wet before hand somehow takes away the psychological block of wanting to stay dry once I'm in my kayak. Solution? Wade into the water to burp my dry suit or in this case just jump off the dock and then deflate the suit.

We headed out across the bay and spotted the osprey's and seals that are popular on the CBK Wildlife Tours and then made our way to the Genoa Bay Cafe for lunch.

Just as we were sitting down to eat the rain started and we were the only customers who stayed outside under the partial protection of the patio umbrella. The waitresses must have thought we were nuts until they heard that we kayaked in so for us, water ..... what water? LOL





After lunch we paddled around inside the bay exploring the shoreline and some of the interesting inhabitants. One might think that these dwellings were nothing more than derelicts but on closer inspection they showed some signs of life.

Gary with a demo Lendal and myself working my paddle past the residents? of the bay.

Caught on the web cam at Cowichan Bay

We headed back across Cowichan Bay to allow Robyn to work on some rolls just outside the Oceanfront Suites where we were caught on their webcam.

Actually I knew where the camera was so we sort of planned to photo bomb ourselves into the picture. By the looks of things there was a wedding that was going to take place outside as well but the weather had different ideas. Checking the webcam later it was moved indoors. :-)

Robyn almost has it but ....... Head!

Not long after Robyn started working on her rolls a torrential downpour came into the bay so we started to head to the CBK dock where of course the sun came out. It figures :-) Dave Nichols met us on the dock and he managed to get me to try a P&H Aries on loan from Mark Hunt at MEC in Vancouver. The Aries is the composite version of the P&H Delphin that both Robyn and I have and I found it to be as responsive but a little quicker than the Delphin. One thing for sure .... it sure is a "blingy" kayak!

Feels like a P&H Delphin, looks like a P&H Aries :-)

The only thing that I didn't like about the kayak was the positioning of the fixed thigh braces on the cockpit combing. I found them to be too far back towards my hips and as a result they hurt my thighs when I edged the kayak. As a note, Robyn and I went to MEC Victoria on Monday and saw a new P&H Aries and it had the same adjustable thigh braces that our Delphins have.

Tomorrow would be another day on the water with Gary but his wife Jane would be joining us on a paddle from another bay closer to home.

2014 Paddle # 37 Genoa Bay

Distance: 5.56 nm (10.29 km)

YTD: 225.90 nm (418.36 km)

Sunday August 31st - Cadboro Bay

Peek-a-boo!

They don't exist in these waters anymore .....yeah right! It seems that a friendly sea otter has migrated to the south coast and has been hanging around Cadboro Bay for the past couple of weeks.

We had the pleasure of it coming to check us out at Cadboro Point while on a paddle with Gary and Jane Jacek to Discovery Island. The unfortunate thing about this sea otter is that it is way too friendly and was trying to climb onto our kayaks.

Ok ... what have you got on your PFD that I can take?

From our encounters with sea otters on our recent west coast trip we found them to be curious but they sure didn't want climb onto our kayaks. We figured that this little fella must be rehabilitated as he showed no signs of fearing contact with humans.

Continuing on our paddle we crossed Baynes Channel and made our way into the Chatham Islands to explore a little bit. This was Jane's first trip over to these amazing islands and so far she was getting her money's worth on this wildlife tour. We met Mike Jackson, George and Dan who were out on a paddle and I told them about the sea otter encounter. On the way back to Cadboro Bay the sea otter found them and it climbed onto Mike's kayak. You can check out his encounter here.

Myself and Jane paddling through the islets that make up the Chatham Islands

We headed to the Discovery Island Marine Park which would be our lunch stop on the trip. Being a long weekend we fully expected to see the place packed with tents and power boats but to our surprise there wasn't anyone there.......

Robyn and Jane all alone at the campsite. Where are all the long weekend campers???

Except for a very large family of Asian campers that had just arrived by powerboat. By the looks of all the gear they were bringing ashore it looked like they were planning on staying a while.

The only kayaks at the campground

The Ocean River Discover Tour was also at the park and we watched them head off on their paddle while we finished our lunch. It was one of those times (again) where it would have been nice just to set up camp and stay the night but who would have thought that the place would be deserted?

Yup folks that there is wild swimming deer!

It was time to head back to Cadboro Bay and our crossing of Baynes Channel had a little excitement for Jane to experience in the form of a few tide rips that were generated from the wind against current that was happening.  Making our way back through the little channel at Flower Island we saw a deer swimming across to the point. Another planned part of our wildlife tour for Jane to experience. Tip Please! LOL

2014 Paddle # 38 Discovery Island

Distance: 9.12 nm (16.89 km)

YTD: 235.02 nm (435.25 km)

Fine Tuning With Cowichan Bay Kayaks

Robyn and I headed to Cowichan Bay yesterday to firm up plans for our Paddle Canada Level 3 course with Cowichan Bay Kayaks September 25th-29th in the Deer Group. We are so excited for this opportunity and have a lot of homework to do in preparation for this 5 day program that will be taught completely in the outdoors.

Dave Nichols who is a PC Level 4 paddler, PC Level 2 Instructor was taking a family out on a 2 hour wildlife tour of the bay and he let us tag along.

Dave gets his group ready for the the wildlife tour. 

Heading out towards the Cowichan River estuary to see what wildlife could be found

The wonderful thing about a wildlife paddle is that it makes you look for the obvious that you might miss while just paddling. On this tour above the water we spotted Purple Martins, Blue Herons, Muted Swans, Belted Kingfishers, Cormorants, Harbour Seals and several Ospreys and their nesting areas. Below the water there were egg sacks on the Eel Grass (maybe herring?), Lion's Mane Jellyfish and the bay was blooming with what is know as Red Tide. I have seen red tide before but never this crimson in color. In many parts of the bay it was almost blood red.

A mating pair of Ospreys guard their nest of chicks that recently hatched. 

While Dave was talking about the various creatures that the tour was seeing an Osprey was aggressively chasing away a Blue Heron that got too close to a nesting area. Just sitting back and watching nature in action is very cool. We all need to just be more observant to what is happening around us to see it.

The tour then headed into Genoa Bay which is a very small community near the south end of Sansum Narrows. There is a marina and the local favorite Genoa Bay Cafe that many pleasure craft visit each day.

Entering Genoa Bay

Janette, Dave and Dean with his son Easton paddle into the marina.

Robyn finds an orca ... well at least another statue of one.

After the wildlife tour Robyn and I headed back onto the water with Dave for a little coaching in preparation of our upcoming PC Level 3 course. Unknown to ourselves, Dave was assessing of paddling ability while on the wildlife tour and in particular our paddling strokes that we were using. After Robyn completed her rolling session, Dave then put us through a series of paddle strokes to blend them together to increase our ability to maneuver the kayak.

The reverse low brace .... never thought of that one before but I can see why I might need it.

We finished the day off with some rescues and paddling drills that we can use on our own over the next couple of months. We'll be going back to Cowichan Bay Kayaks in August for another tune up prior to our September course. Thanks Huw & Dave for a great day!

2014 Paddle # 22 Cowichan Bay Kayaks
Distance: 4.75 nm (8.8 km)
YTD: 114.58 nm (212.2 km)