We left the shelter of Gooding Cove in a steady rain and threaded our way between the islets and reefs bordering the south coast of the inlet, gradually making our way to the outer coast again at Kwakiutl Point. Seas were lumpy with a 12 knot wind blowing out of the northwest. Paddling in deep water was not bad, but around the reefs the swell would thicken and rise and curl at the top and boom like thunder over reefs and exposed rocks. Glancing at the depth finder readout every so often, I winced when the numbers dropped into the low twenties and teens. Getting rolled up suddenly into a big curling wall of water would be no fun at all.

It looked hairy out toward the point as we approached. We checked the charts and decided that ducking inside of the tiny island at the tip might save us a few white hairs. We needed to slip through a reef on the other side of the point to reach a tiny island where we hoped to hole up during the storm. The swell pushed us steadily into the calmer waters of the cove between lush beds of kelp, then broke over the shallowest reef, where we threaded a careful line coming in.

Entering and leaving bays and coves with big seas breaking at the mouth offered some of the most vibrant moments. Paddling beside enormous walls of breaking white-water was unnerving. Busting out from a beach through a steady line of surf was predictable compared to this. There was no guarantee that a particularly huge swell train might not rise up like a whale’s mouth at any moment and swallow our boat. We would sit and study oncoming seas and try and get a feel for a swell/wave pattern of some kind, but our hearts were usually in our mouth on our approach into particularly reefy bays and coves. I was appreciative of my polarized Costa del Mar glasses to help get a read on the water. Quality, contrasty polarized lenses were something I learned to wear on rivers when I ran big rapids because of how much better I could see what the water was doing. The trick for sea kayaking, besides a long billed cap like the one Simms makes for fly fishermen, is Rain-X to keep lenses from beading up.

Once inside the Kwakiutl Point, we had avoided some of the major action out off the point. Still, we paddled out through more breakers and boomers on the reef surrounding the point and soon were out off the reef again and looking to dip back inside.

A little island between Kwakiutl and Lawn Points was our destination. If we’d wanted to reach Brook’s Bay on the other side of Lawn Point we could have made a big arc around the whole area, but not only were their 30 knot winds in the forecast, we knew this little island to be a sweet haven. On the our last trip through the area we had stopped here for lunch. Oddly enough it had been one of our few tense moments among the group as we lunched on the bight. Between apples and sardines we had argued about whether to hold up or move on. Ironically, a shot of two of us looking intently at our lunch appeared in the last Kokatat Catalog... little did they know the pic had captured an ebb of spirits, not our grim determination to press on.

This time around though our spirits topped out with the barometer as we settled in to a lovely islet for a couple of blustery days. The island is bone shaped connected by a clam shell and cobble isthmus. Both ends of the bone have high bluffs with weathered trees surrounded by deep surge channels cut into the reef. Tunneling up to the top through eight foot salal we could see old fishing floats and Japanese pop bottles among the jumbled driftwood in these black rock crevasses.

"We got spanked here with gales running for a couple of days straight and galloping fifteen foot seas..."

Hiking to one end of the island to fly fish for rock fish one morning, I jumped at a sudden disturbance of gravel behind me. A huge old six point buck was on his feet looking at me! I recall seeing this old feller here a few years back as well. There were worse pasturages than a private island demesne for a dignified old stag like this guy.

Not much later an old bald eagle missing several primaries, flew overhead to a towering snag at one end of the island. Not a spring chicken myself, I felt a bit of empathy with the island denizens. As we found no reference on our charts; we dubbed it Buckkeep Island.

We got spanked here with gales running for a couple of days straight and galloping fifteen foot seas. It was sunny and very windy. Colin flew his kite that he had brought along to keep up with my sail. I climbed the tallest hillock, looking out through hoary fir branches at a frothing seascape; the view was deeply moving somehow and reminiscent of other such views on the Oregon and California coasts. I climbed tall rock reefs at low tide, swam flies through briskly moving channels, and we always had fish for dinner.

When it finally came time to leave, we were reluctant to go. Next stop, weather permitting, was to find the Cape Cook Lagoon and check it out. This was a brackish lagoon on one side of a big sand bar that was unique to the north coast and purported to be loaded with Dungeness crab.

We slipped out through a channel in the reef the next morning. The sun was bright and warm and winds were mild; seas had settled into about a three to four foot swell. Once we rounded Lawn Point we were in Brook’s Bay proper, an enormous corner of ocean created by the Brooks Peninsula that stuck out like a six mile long sore thumb.

I admit to a fascination with this particular Cape or Peninsula, as many kayakers do. Epic and forbidding, it’s anomalous topography and peripheral location survived glacial advances during the last ice age. The interior is mountainous with stunted forest and rocky ridgelines and sub-alpine type meadows. As prevailing weather is out of the northwest in summer months, the north side of the peninsula gets whupped like a bad mouthed step child. Nearly every beach exposed to the north requires a surf landing when the high is in. We looked to be in between systems for a while with frequent paddling windows, a good thing when kayaking the area.

We paddled out around the booming reefs of Lawn Point and pointed our bows south. There is a waterfall in behind an island in Klatskino Inlet and we headed in that direction, pulling some good looking Coho flies that Paul Elworthy from Tyee Tackle had sent along for us to try. We had just entered the broad entrance to the inlet when we noticed a sailboat motoring in the direction we were headed. We stopped and watched as it closed on the little island with the waterfall. We hung a U and headed back out into the bay. The paddle across Brooks Bay took nearly two hours and along the way we hooked and landed a big king salmon. Kayak fishing has it’s merits, but landing and dealing with a big fish is not one of them.

Once you get a fish to the side of the boat and to hand, you haul it aboard. The fish is flopping in your lap with the hook in its mouth and your hand around its tail. Then you administer the coup de grace with the stick of driftwood you remembered to bring along. With luck, all goes well and the fish is stored in the dive bag clipped to the deck line behind your seat.