Surfin' Photo: Rob Lyon

Mikey and I untied our kelp anchors and backed our boats into open water. A stiff current picked us up and swung us along. We drifted with it a moment, then dug hard with our paddles, sweeping our boats around head on into a strong four knot ebb. "Gonna be nice to get out on the open water and away from these damn currents," I shouted over to Mikey. " How long till slack?"

Mikey looked at his watch. "Less than an hour."

"That last forecast had the front about six hours out," I said, "and the tide's just about right. A fat man could squeeze through that window. Let's grab a bite of lunch and go."

"Right on."

A strong ebb tide scoured the northeastern shore of Vancouver Island. Large beds of brown bull kelp arched gracefully from the bottom like willows in a blow. Dead ahead a pod of sea lions breached, popping up as a group, muscling five feet up out of the water with the force of their tails!

We paddled short, tight strokes against the current, then angled toward our right, ferrying across the fast water through scattered rocks toward a beach where our brethren were fixing lunch. We could see the red and white tower of the light house on the headland above, then nothing but forest as we got out in knee deep water to secure our boats below the headland at the tip of Cape Scott.

"Our boats rose and fell in the sharp cadence of swell steepening over a shallow bottom."

Cape Scott and it's venerable light house mark the extreme northwesterly tip of British Columbia's enormous Vancouver Island. It is a stunning piece of real estate, with big swell sweeping in off the open north Pacific and smashing against the firmament. It also marks the first taste of open ocean and rolling swell for sea kayakers such as ourselves rounding the rugged point and traveling south. Our destination was Fair Harbour, roughly two hundred miles from our launch at Port Hardy. Along the way the only settlements we would pass are the fishing and logging outpost of Winter Harbour tucked in Quatsino Sound, and the native community of Kyuquot, near trip end. In between lay some of British Columbia's wildest, most challenging coastline - exactly what a party of four kayakers out of the San Juan Islands, U.S., were hoping for.

Ragged clouds scudded under a tepid sun, the air cool and surly with the promise of storm. We ate jerky and mustard sardines on Ak-Moks, facing east up the channel we had spent the last week paddling down. After talking so much about it, and paddling semi-sheltered seas for the last week, we were itching to get a taste of the open ocean. Our plan was to round the rocky cape and angle quickly south into the shelter of Hansen Lagoon.

It took only minutes to paddle the short distance out to the first corner of the cape, were we stopped a moment, jockeying our kayaks around each other in brisk currents.

Mikey paddled over. "Not too bad eh?"

"Not till we get around the corner."

We hugged shore, paddling through wandering lanes in the immense kelp beds. When the lanes closed down we paddled out into open water. It was an enormous rock garden, but with the swell down and the wind fairly sheltered, it was like a sleeping giant, and I felt confident tip-toeing past. I had been here before in 1994, with a strong northwesterly blowing and no tip-toeing whatsoever involved.

Every five minutes or so a boomer broke ahead and of us and cued the guys in. Nothing is quite as terrifying as hearing a strange hissing noise and glancing over your shoulder to discover an enormous wall of water bearing down on you.

I kept a sharp eye out for standing waves and over-falls from gnash of wind and ebbing tide, and glassed the five miles or so of open channel between us and the Scott Islands in the misty distance. There was little white in the channel as far as I could see, only the stately boom of moderate swell over scattered rock along the tattered fringe of island. Twenty minutes later we rounded the last corner of the cape that sheltered the brunt of wind and swell building in the southeast.

Dark green water smashed white over barnacle-covered black rocks, spinning foam high in the air. Our boats rose and fell in the sharp cadence of swell steepening over a shallow bottom. We paddled out four abreast, directly into the marching sea.

It was exhilarating paddling head on into pulsing seas, rising sharply and falling with a smack, spray breaking and blowing in our faces, as if we were squaring off to our fates. I heard whoops and yells and there were big grins on everyone's faces. We paddled out across Guise Bay, sagging in toward shore in the lee of a rocky point, then out again into the teeth of the weather for a mile to the entrance to the lagoon. I glanced to my left where thick, misty lowland forest marched down to meet crashing wave. Low gray clouds scudded overhead. As we distanced ourselves from the shallows surrounding the cape the swell became less strident. A good two-hour push into the teeth of the growing weather delivered us to the safety of Hansen Lagoon.

by Rob Lyon

Lyon owns and runs a sea kayak outfitter / guide service in the Pacific Northwest. Check out his site at www.lyonexpeditions.com