Paddling the shoreline Photo: Gary Luhm

San Joseph River (Quatsino Sound area) to Cape Scott, Vancouver Island, BC - Saturday, July 14, 2001
"Look Out!" A steel gray wave rolls toward me steepening with an ominous black face. My camera is out, ready to snap a picture of paddling partner Tim Walsh as he threads his sea kayak through the near-shore kelp. It was Tim, paddling inside of me, who shouted the warning. We are four hours into a twelve-day trip and already I'm getting a little complacent.

The stretch we will paddle along the West Coast of Vancouver Island is open ocean. It is known for pounding Pacific surf and weather that is not only unforgiving but unpredictable.

As we launch near the mouth of the San Joseph River there is not a gnat's breath of wind. The forecast for our first day is uncharacteristically calm; a light wind; one- to two-meter swell. The river runs west to the Pacific, through old growth Sitka spruce, Douglas fir and cedar; on the bank, salal, salmonberry and bunches of sedge grass. We pass a patch of chocolate lilies; the flowers looking like small brown bat stars in a sea of grass.

I immediately begin snapping pictures as we paddle downstream. The channel widens, influenced by the tides, and we see a mink scurry away from the shore, disappearing in the green floral maze of the riverbank. A kingfisher scolds, chattering at us as it flies from branch to branch. We see common merganser and dipper.

The river turns south, widens, and we see out into the bay. I get my face wet punching through small surf at the river mouth, and then we are out into San Josef Bay. The overcast sky brightens to white with some patches of blue. A common loon flies laboriously around us, circling twice. Tim calls this a good omen. An osprey swoops down and strikes for a fish, misses, and flies toward us before flying off. We see our first marbled murrelets in bunches of four or six. For today, murrelets will be the most commonly sighted bird.

An hour-and-a-half into the paddle we reach Hanna Point and plow through the first of many beds of kelp. The kelp bed is a thick tannin-brown mat; an acre of sinuous tubes. The softball-sized kelp bulbs bob and weave in the swell, trailing their medusa-like fronds. Kelp is a kayaker's friend. It slows the breaking waves, provides a sea anchor, and reveals the direction of currents. Every shoreline rock and headland is surrounded by kelp.

We break for an hour at Helen's Island outside Sea Otter cove. Tim turns on his VHF to check the weather; listening to the cycle of marine forecasts until we get the update for Cape Scott. The forecast downgrades the wind, so we decide to push on to Guise Bay where a beach will offer protection from north and west swell, and we will have access to Cape Scott. We paddle a glassy sea. Besides the murrelets floating off shore, we see rhinoceros auklets, pigeon guillemot, and Brandt's cormorant.

We work our way across a photogenic kelp bed; waves breaking on an off-shore rock provide a striking backdrop. This is where I pull out my camera and hear the warning shout from Tim. My instant assessment is that the wave won't break on me. I shove my camera into its dry bag, and wait for the wave to pass, hoping it will slide under me. The wave passes me and goes for Tim. Tim isn't so lucky. He's twenty feet inside of me. I see the wave curl, white at the top, and hear Tim's expletive as he disappears from my view. He emerges, as much through, as over, the wave. His brace worked. The wave didn't grab him and send him side-surfing towards the rocky shore. He only got soaked. I laugh and so does Tim. We continue our paddle north to Guise Bay.

Cape Scott, Day 2: Guise Bay to Otter Cove - Sunday
I am sitting in my tent beside Guise Bay drinking coffee. My tent door is open. It's 5:30 am. There are no mosquitoes, no no-see-ums. A Swainson's thrush, up before me, is greeting the gray dawn with its hysterical ascending song. A fox sparrow joins in. Together their song is as regular as the crash of waves on the beach.

Guise Bay is a small crescent of pale sand facing south. Our camp is tucked in to the west end off the sand, on a gravel beach. Tim and I prefer gravel to sand. Sand gets into the tent and into gear. Gravel doesn't. For sleeping with a Therm-a-rest pad it's very comfortable.

Towards the east end of the beach, I can see two groups of hiker tents pitched among driftwood logs above the beach. They are about 600 yards away. Although this is wilderness, with only an eight-mile hike in, there is plenty of human company. I am startled suddenly by the distant howl of a wolf. A bit later, I hear the "WO, WO, WO, WO" of a loon.

"Historically, this Cape has been a treacherous place for boats and men."

I look up to search for the loon. I spot a sea otter instead, a hundred yards offshore. He is the first sea otter we've seen. He has a whitish coat and cream white head. His eyes, nose, and ears look coal black in the gray light. With binoculars, I see he's rolling around with a big crab on his belly. The otter takes a few minutes to demolish the crab. Then he turns on his belly, pikes and dives. In less than a minute, he is up again with something small. He dispatches it quickly and dives again.

A little later, Tim crawls out of his tent, and we check the weather on his VHF radio; "Winds strong, twenty-five to thirty knots, north to northwest. We decide not to paddle. We walk the arc of Guise beach across piles of decaying kelp. I stomp a bunch of little, bleached kelp heads that go "Pop! Pop! Pop!" like a string of firecrackers. At the end of the beach, we head into lush rainforest on a maintained, but muddy, trail. In twenty minutes, we are at Experimental Bight. The Bight faces north and, unlike Guise Bay, is being hammered by waves. We watch a lone sailboat, pitching and listing in the rough seas.

About noon, we are back in camp for a quick snack of fruit, carrots and canned fish.

Our afternoon goal is the Cape Scott lighthouse. We head back across the nearside-beach to the lighthouse trailhead. We cross driftwood logs and find the trailhead to the lighthouse. We hike through a forest of Sitka spruce, cedar and hemlock, leaping across muddy patches and treading carefully on slippery, old planks. After two miles, and a short rise, we spot some yellow diesel storage tanks that fuel the lighthouse generators. Up behind them we find a greenhouse, and behind this, a close-coupled set of red-roofed white buildings. They house the lighthouse keeper, assistant keeper and diesel generator. A wood platform helipad sits behind.

The lighthouse itself sits on a steel cross-frame stand just 15 feet above the level of the lawn. The grounds are park-like, 200 feet above the Pacific with unobstructed views. There isn't much wind. Looking down though, and out toward the Scott islands, the sea roils with whitecaps and confused clapotis from reflected waves. Historically, this Cape has been a treacherous place for boats and men. We are happy not to be paddling.

by Gary Luhm, WetDawg Correspondent