Cultus Sound to Soulsby Camp and McLoughlin Bay: Sept 13-14, 2018

No alarm and a leisurely start to the morning. Extremely mild conditions at low tide through the islets and passageways of the McMullin Group, and lots of Undersea Gardens–type stuff to peer at. My hip felt a lot better after its rest day.

I bet this bright little fella has some good ideas

In a calm channel we met with a raft of otters, who were kind of — but not very very — concerned about our presence. They would poke their heads up and scout us out and bide their time til one of them decided we were too close, then they'd all splash and paddle away in a big group for a few dozen yards, then hang out for a while and do it all again.

A solo outlier swam within a few feet of Jonathon before he realized this big red thing was about to attack him and took off.

Currents in Sans Peur passage were strong enough that we'd have preferred them with us instead of against, but no big deal. We headed out into dead calm seas to the Prince Group, where I was hoping to find the supposed campsite on Robert Island to take some photos and do a site condition report for the BC Marine Trails website. We rounded Robert Island completely, and even did some land-based scouting and bushwhacking, but didn't turn up any evidence of anything usable. The Prince Group has some nice rock formations and some pictographs. The stench of something large and dead was on the air. 

Over lunch we'd discussed our options for the night. Jon was much in favour of staying at Soulsby again rather than taking our chances with an inferior site up the channel, and I was easy to convince. We traded kayaks for the afternoon so I could check whether my discomfort was potentially due to a poor fit with my Mariner II. Jon's Mariner XL definitely fit me better. It was a little less responsive, but paradoxcally easier to steer, harder to edge but I could edge it more confidently. It feels more like sitting "in" a boat rather than wearing one around your hips. The II is a performance boat that demands a lot of its captain, and I'm not quite athletic enough to get the best out of it. I'm definitely going to look at getting something more along the lines of the XL*.

We rode the currents through the tiny channels north of Dodwell Island, including one that would only be passable at very high tide.

Back at Soulsby Camp it was an idyllic evening, with cloud hats on the mountains that had been obscured by weather on our previous visit. 

Jon found a large crab on the upland trail, dropped by a bird or mink maybe. It was still alive — barely — so we returned it to the water... but the poor fellow didn't make it. We found a west-facing lookout where we watched the sun set on the most placid scene, with a quarter moon in the sky and a couple of sea lions snorting around off the rocks. We finished the last of the beer, the last of the sherry, the last of the scotch... and the last of the summer.

Cultus Sound to Soulsby Camp, Sept 13, 2018: 21km

*I've since bought a Mariner Max, the newer version of the XL. As of this writing, the Mariner II is for sale — contact me for details.


September 14: It was a long night, full of restless city dreams, all social anxieties and nothing of nature in them. We had a leisurely breakfast and listened to the wolves greeting the morning on Hunter Island. Sea lions were playing in the channels, and we saw grebes and scoters enjoying this dull, calm, beautiful morning.

It was beautiful paddling up Hunter Channel. We saw a whale blow in the far distance, near the entrance to Campbell Lagoon. A yellow boat came by carrying a young family from Vancouver. They asked us if we'd seen any whales or otters, and we did our best to direct them. The guy took a great photo of the two of us, but I can't seem to find it anywhere.

German Point was staring us in the face seemingly FOREVER as we clawed our way up the channel.We caught a bit of sideways weather coming out of Lena Channel, which was both expected and annoying, but it turned into a nice tailwind that gave us a push from behind all the way to McLoughlin Bay, where we were greeted by a young eagle making quite a ruckus. We initially landed to the north of the terminal, then scouted on foot to find the actual landing spot, which is basically right under the ferry ramp. The worker at the terminal said "I didn't think we had any kayakers left out there!" and I responded that we were just doing some tidying up and making sure all the lights were off.

We packed just the light stuff in the kayak hatches (so we didn't stress our hulls) and loaded the rest of it onto the luggage carts. It was a long, dull wait in the little terminal as we re-entered modern life, picking up the emails and texts from the past few weeks, charging batteries, and seeing other humans. No question: running water and flush toilets were very welcome, and the showers that awaited us in Port Hardy were keenly anticipated (and no doubt considered very overdue by our fellow passengers). As the ferry barrelled down Fitz Hugh Sound, it was weird thinking we were passing on the other side of everything we'd just experienced (just over a mountainous island), whizzing past at 30kt instead of 3, with luxury seating and hot meals served.

For large chunks of the voyage I stood out on the deck just to feel the air on my face, good and cold and real.

Soulsby Camp to McLoughlin Bay, Sept 14, 2018: 17 km