Sea Kayak - Vancouver Island

Trip Report

In late July, Alan Marshall, David Stolier, Will Wade, and myself paddled in Brooks Bay for 7 days.  Brooks Bay is the north side of the Brooks Peninsula

I passed through here in 2018 on the Quatsino to Tofino trip and knew I wanted to come back to explore more.  We drove from home to Side Bay in one day.  It is a long drive.  The last section from Port Alice is 2:30 hours of gravel roads.  

Day 1

Winds are forecast to come from the south today, then calm for two days, then from the north.  Completely opposite of what we want for a trip to the Brooks Peninsula.  Still, David points out that those two days are our weather window to paddle out to Nordstrom Creek.  Everyone votes to do that.  Our routes for each day are orange, dark blue, light blue, blue, red, and magenta:

This first day is an upwind slog and we arrive at Cook Lagoon tired.  However, we saw many sea otters and Will took some good photos

Through out the trip we estimate we saw 1,000 sea otters.  Or, at least 1,000 sea otters saw us.

Day 2

We have a calm day and an easy paddle out to Cape Cook.  Winds are calm and swell is 3-5ft.  We cross to Solander and paddle through the chaotic waters between two islands.  If there are dragons, Solander is where they live.  We don’t sight dragons but do see over a hundred sea lions, who are not disturbed by our passage.

We land at Nordstrom Creek and find a perfect pea gravel shelf to camp on.

David observes that we have one more calm day then NW winds 15-20kt.  If we leave tomorrow, we will have an easy paddle.  I argue that we should enjoy a full day out here and risk a difficult paddle latter.  We are strong paddlers, it is only 3nm to Cape Cook where we turn and then have the wind on our beam.  It probably won’t be that bad.  We vote and all agree with this plan.  I appreciate my trip partners willingness to take such a risk.

Day 3

Overnight, a wolf left tracks that tell a story:  it crossed the nearby creek, walked the beach below us, realized we where there, stopped, walked back, stopped and lay in the sand watching us, then crossed back over the creek.

Early afternoon, Alan, Will, and I explore the rocks between Nordstrom and Amos Creek.

Afternoon relaxing, beautiful day.  We cook and eat dinners together.

Day 4

This is our day to pay for our beautiful and relaxed day.  Winds are 15-20kt.  We launch early and paddle NW.  We find some protection behind rocks.  In the open we paddle in a line to gain efficiency.  Though the wind is strong, we are sill making 3kt progress.  It is not long before we are poking through rocks just south of Cape Cook.  Once we round the corner the wind comes onto our beam.  Dave and I have some decent but not great sailing.  A brief rest in the tropical feeling bay west of Crabapple and then on.  Sailing is great on the last leg.

We paddle into Cook Lagoon, planning to camp out of the wind on the inside.  There we find a father and son from Japan on a trip from Port Hardy to Tofino.  They are waiting for a calm day to paddle around the Brooks and overall taking much more time.  They spend their days harvesting sea food and cooking over a fire.  

We set up camp above them.  The wind is strong and the tent is not restful.  As day turns into evening the scenery moves to the “next level” as Alan said.

Day 5

We explore up Kingfisher Creek - beautiful.  

Then we go to the outside to surf.  The river has created a sandbar in our small bay.  At the current tide height, incoming waves are forming up and running over the sandbar.  Water is clear, waves are good, it is a beautiful day.

Day 6

We paddle along the much larger beach just to our east.  In 2018 we stopped on this beach and I got a photo of Charlie floating in the fresh water pool.  I try to re-create that but the shape of the pool and water height has changed.  From there, we continue on through beautiful islands and coastline.

Nice camp at Heater Point with beautiful sunset.

Day 7

We explore Side Bay and the beaches in the Keith River area.  Back to our launch site by noon.  

We stop again for excellent pizza in Port Alice then break the drive up with an overnight in Campbell River.

 

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