International Relations

Solo adventure kayaking presents some challenges that aren’t present when traveling with a team. 

• Some are obvious like having no shared gear which means more weight and more space required for you to deal with. 
• It means that at least twice each day you have to solo carry your 60+ pound boat and 130+ pounds of gear between the tide line and camp.  On a three-week trip that is 5,250 pounds carried.  You have to trust me that if you have a partner it is easier to carry ½ that amount of weight twice than it is to carry it alone once. 
• It means that you make all of the critical decisions as there are no “more experienced” partners to rely upon,  
• It also means that if you are like me and sometimes awkward and lacking self-confidence around strangers you have no other confident, smiling face to buffer and smooth your interactions with said strangers.  No one to send ahead to pave the way, as it were. 

For this final reason, in part, my ferry ride from Port Hardy to Klemtu was an interesting and uncomfortable exercise in international relations.

Passengers with kayaks are the first allowed to board the Northern Expedition in Port Hardy as we have to move our boats from the ramp to the far end of the ferry.  I happened to be the only traveler with a kayak so I was the very first to board.  As the first walk-on I made my way to an upper deck and my favorite seating area on the starboard side just outside of the Aurora Lounge.  Being first in gave me my pick of seats so I chose a high-backed seat front and center to a set of tall windows.  Soon others filed in and a tall European man asked me if the seats were taken.

“Only this one that I’m sitting in” I responded with a smile.

 Soon he returned with an entourage of older German speaking folks.  They quickly snapped up all of the seats except for the one beside me.  Several walked up to the seat and looked down at me as if to suggest that I should move elsewhere so that they could have my place.  Their posture and glares seemed to say “If you move somewhere else we can sit here”.  I was wearing my best welcoming face because I was really looking forward to the company but had no plans of moving.  The group in the adjacent trio of seats had an animated conversation that was interrupted only by glances at me and the adjacent seat.  It was as if they were trying to figure out whether to ask me to move or failing that which among them would be so unfortunate as to sit next to me.  Finally, a fair-haired woman sat in the seat sideways with her back to me.

Nisqually Reach 2 Alki 2009

I have done a number of day trips in the South Sound but I always wanted to paddle back home rather than return to the put-in. I may have mentioned before that Dave and I have a goal to travel from the southern-most regions of Puget Sound to Alaska by kayak. Yes? No? Whatever, we do and this will be done, in chunks. The South Sound to Seattle was a just a piece of it but the timing was never right. Last Fall while eating lunch at Winghaven State Park (a WWT camp site on Vashon Island) we discussed the idea of banging out the South Sound piece during the Winter. We agreed to do it and in January and we did.

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