Category Archives: Expedition

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A travel day.

Left 9 mile beach at 9:30 heading ultimately for Tzoonie Narrows. First stop was just North at Kunechin Point.As we were leaving a deer swam the inlet and landed south of us on some rather steep rock face. To top that off, as we were 50 feet out, our mink friend could be seen searching out beach campsite.

Took a short rest at Kunechin Point. HMCS Chaudiere is purposefully sunk here as a reef. Three buoys mark the spot for divers to explore. Next stop was Storm Bay, a tidal flat quite far in. First real set of structures on the Inlet we’ve come across other than fish farms. Stopped for Lunch (keeping constant vigilance on our kayaks and the rising tide) and then headed NE.

The tide at this point carries us almost effortlessly. We have to stop on the point before Tzoonie narrows due to it being peak tidal flow and not knowing the state of the narrows on the other side. As we wait, some go for a walk along the sea line towards the point to get a look. they left with bear spray, bangers and whistles. We are in bear country. They found a dead carcass of what they figure is a deer. While they went of on their mini adventure, I fixed the broken VHF radio with a chocolate bar rapper. A battery contact had fallen off and I replaced it with the foil. Macgyver got off easy with a paper clip.

Once the tide and wind settled down we launched and headed in. We setup camp on a beautiful jut out next to the narrows. Direct sunlight wasn’t going to last long due to the high mountains on the West side of the inlet. We used what time we had to take an invigorating wash down in the sea. Dinner was chorizo, ginger, bell pepper and polenta mash. The bear cache wire was broken at this site, so we struggled for hours to get something appropriate. I ended up having to climb (more like shimmy up) a tree to try to get this to work. That attempt failed when we couldn’t get the food high enough. We had to pull the horizontal cable back to it’s original side and go from there.

Pulled the star chart out at night, but the bright moon made it difficult to see many.

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Wake up without the need to travel.

Bliss.

Glenn & Doug shared their skills with us. Glenn covered light weight backpacking. Heard the tales of Bruce Knight who builds his own light weight gear. Backpack is made of parachute material, his sleeping pad is the back support and the poles to his tent are the structure of the pack. This was shown at a leaders club night. Glenn’s advice is to have only what you need. Before the trip split the gear into 2 piles. Need & Nice. After the trip split the gear into used and not used. Light weight packs should be aimed for 1/8 your weight.

Doug put on a brilliant photography skills session, covering classics for composition such as 1/3rds rule, power points, flashes and ISO. Learned about the brilliant option on camera for slow synch flashes which is used for low light conditions with one bright spot. Took lots of abstract photos I plan on framing onto my apartment walls.

Saw a mink (or similar) dash out onto the beach and dart back to cover midday.

Had a sharing meal that night. Brownies, freeze dried ice cream, barley risotto, polenta, chicken tacos, and sausage & pasta. Had a very relaxed campfire till late at night.

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We just made the 7:25AM ferry

The line was stopped in front of us. The staff asked how long we were. We clocked in at 40″ (kayak trailer), while the car behind us was 42″. On we went. The car behind us did make it on, but only by having to go on sideways.

We looked at a provincial park to launch from, but went with the government wharf. Took some time to get going, but we did beat the couple that had to go for gas. Most of the group went off to visit a shop nearby and returned (after more then enough time) with sandwiches, cat food & a pond net for fishing. Ellen (the wife that stayed behind to guard the parking spot) grew up in Spokane and ate oysters and muscles. Now why this is pertinent is a discussion about the red tide warnings. She was quite adamant that she grew up eating them for years during the summers, and never had a problem. Just before we launched a massive (30″?) canoe was trailer-ed in and launched.

One of the doubles did try to make a run for it. What will become of our fearless travelers?

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This is a triumph. I’m making a note here, huge success.

Over the next few days, I’ll be posting my log from the trip. For the most part it will be straight from sheet as I wrote it. As a note log it is point-form-esque and does tend to bounce around. I will try to edit in details that I realize are missing from my original thoughts to make a complete picture.

You can see all the pictures from the trip now, or you can see the choice ones that I’ll pull out for each post.

Credit Flikr User MckaySavage. Creative Commons License Attribution 2.0

All seven days next week I’ll be out kayaking here, on the Sechelt Inlet.
[googlemaps http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=sechelt+Inlet&sll=49.891235,-97.15369&sspn=42.285864,79.013672&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Sechelt+Inlet,+Sunshine+Coast+B,+Sunshine+Coast+Regional+District,+British+Columbia&z=10&ll=49.611201,-123.824016&output=embed&w=425&h=350]

You will be able to follow along with the adventure (ok, well perhaps just where we are) at http://tinyurl.com/Kayak10.