Crossing Hakai

Quitting Triquet / Calvert Island 8.5 NM Distant

I was traveling southeast from Triquet to Calvert Island.  Conditions were NW @ 10-15 knots with swells at 2 meter topped with windwaves.  The route I chose to the Choked Passage complex was 8.5 NM of open water across Kildidt Sound and my crossing of Hakai Passage ended up being further west than intended.  That wasn’t a big deal as conditions were mostly at my back and I was having a really good time.  The wind was increasing and stacking wind waves on the swell but I expected things to lay down a bit in Hakai with the wind, current and swell all trending in the same general direction. 

About midway across Hakai I could see the sun reflecting differently off of the surface of the water and then encountered large westward flowing rips.  It was nearing high slack and I was expecting to find conditions optimal for the time of day so this surprised me.  The chop associated with the rip was above my head.  Paddling was "active" and enjoyable but it went on for too long.  I was feeling exposed and at least 2 miles from anything and was ready to do something else before it was ready to be done with me.  Once past the first rip things laid down but then picked up again as I crossed two more rips with peaky waves over my head. 

Careless Cove

Martin Ryer's account of having his boat and paddle taken by the evening tide while camped on Spring Island serves as a cautionary tale for all paddlers.  It's easy to say "That won't happen to me", which is what I thought until it did.

Dave, Greg and I were camped on the western shore of Price Island at a site called "P1" in the "West Coast Aristazabal, Price & Athlone Islands - Field Guide for Paddlers".  It's a sizable and protected beach that is choked with large drift logs.  There are no openings into the forested uplands that line the beach.  We were expecting a 15.7 foot tide so camping on the sand was not an option.  About 75 meters to the south and over some sharp rocks is a very camp-able area where we set up our tents.  Not wanting to carry our boats across the rocks we left them on the main beach.

Wolf Beach 2 Blackney Beach

Wolf Beach Campsite 

70 degrees, Clear

NW @ 15 – 20

W swell 2 meter with wind waves to 3 feet Seas Moderate 

Glenn Lewis had warned me about confusion that occurs when the ebb tries to turn south out of Hakai Passage so I was choosing to launch on a rising tide.  That made for a pretty long slog to get the boat and four loads of gear down to the water's edge.

Morning at Wolf Beach 

The swell was immediately present but the predicted 15-20 knot wind was still in the 10 knot range.  The sea state was a bit messy but made for enjoyable paddling.  The shoreline disappeared into thickening fog so I was afforded only occasional glimpses of Calvert's many lovely northern beaches when I tucked into a bay.

Kwakshua Channel 2 13.8 Beach

 Hakai Morning

65 degrees. Overcast in the morning, clearing in the afternoon.

Winds calm to SW at 15 

Seas rippled to 2-foot chop

Silver Morning on Kwakshua Channel

Rounding Wedgborough Point we turned south out of Kwakshua Channel down Fitz Hugh Sound. It was 9:00 AM and the flood was reaching maximum flow. While the current didn’t amount to a lot it was definitely against us and it was teamed up with a 15 knot headwind.  We didn’t have much going in our favor as we eddied, dodged, scratched, cursed and crept for 2 NM along Calvert’s steep eastern shoreline to the spot that Dave had marked as our crossing point to Addenbroke Lighthouse. Fitz Hugh Sound was capping and just starting to streak.  It looked a bit awkward but not difficult. We estimated that it would be a 45-minute cross wind/current ferry glide to Addenbroke so we took a few moments, clung to a kelp bed and fueled on energy bars before starting across.

Kayak Bill - A Requiem

Posted with permission - This article appeared online through Sea Kayaker Magazine in October 2005

Kayak Bill- A Requiem

by Keith Webb

Kayak Bill found his freedom under a regime of strict necessity, first on a wilderness of vertical rock, then in the wilds of a horizontal ocean. His goal was to be as independent of civilization as possible. By reversing civilization, he succeeded. For the last twenty-eight years of his life, Bill returned to a hunter-gatherer way of life. He must have spent more time than anyone in a sea kayak since aboriginal peoples left kayaks, as a way of life, behind.

“Perfection consists in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.”

-Bill Davidson

Looking for Kayak Bill - by Neil Frazer

Posted with permission  (This short article appeared, with maps and reproductions of a few of Bill’s paintings, in Sea Kayaker Magazine, October 2005.)

Looking for Kayak Bill

by Neil Frazer

The letter from Stewart in Sointula said: “Kayak” Bill Davidson’s body was found awash with his gear somewhere on the Goose Islands early in March. They are doing a forensic exam on him, and we’ll soon have a clearer idea of what happened. Reading Stewart’s words, I felt a door close and tried to wish it back open. Stewart and Bill were friends and artists who both kayaked freely on British Columbia’s outer coast (as freely as you or I might take a breath), living out of the ocean for seasons on end. How could Bill be dead?

Bill had wintered at Goose Island, I guess. Located just off British Columbia’s coast about 14 miles southwest of Bella Bella, it’s an easy place to stay fed (lots of deer and seals, and no bears to interrupt at mealtimes), and it was a place he knew well. I was pretty sure of that because I’d thought a lot about Bill over the years. I’d hoped to actually meet him one day, but there were unstated rules about it (the kind of rules that somehow get promulgated while you aren’t looking, and later you realize you’ve been living by them). We had to meet in a place like Goose. The problem was that, in the summer, Bill avoided places like Goose because of the people. The dozen or so adventurers who visit Goose in an average summer regard it as only slightly less remote than the moon, but Bill’s notion of remote was not the usual one. Goose could only have been a winter place for Bill.