Moonshine in Brooks Photo: Rob Lyon

We spent eight days ashore at Hansen's as a series of major low pressures hammered the coast. We pitched our tarps, tents and hammocks the first night, shunning the dark, dilapidated, mousy looking interior of a cabin perched in thick salal above the beach. As the skies unloaded and the rainforest floor quickly engorged with water, our tent sites became streambeds. Coupled with storm tides pushing up to the edge of the forest, the cabin looked less the hell hole it had at first glance. After one extraordinary night of wind and rain, Cedar cut a tree bough and swept out the cabin while the rest of us fought through ten-foot salal to raise siege ladders to the mossy walls and tear down the plywood covering the windows. We pronounced it homeÉall of us but Colin, truth be told, who endured the height of nature's fury for a week straight, suspended from the inhospitable ground in his skookum Henessy Hammock.

The lagoon was a blessing and we made good use of it. We paddled out each day to fish, crab or gather barnacles off a nearby reef, while a sea of white horses galloped steadily north off the mouth.

We surfed in a decent break in the lagoon, getting a feel for the way our open boats were intrinsically more like a surfboard than a kayak. We made repairs here too - on Cedar's Seda Revenge that he pearled onto the beach, chipping a big chunk of Gelcoat off the bow; on my Aire Sea Tiger, which I punctured while jigging cod, and on Colin's leaky Heritage Expedition stern hatch that explained his rakish trim on the water.

Given the protracted, close quarters for our extended layover, we remained on good terms with each other. We were all pickers but myself, as luck would have it, and the tiny guitar that Martin sent out for the trip was a popular item. As was George Gronseth's book of kayak misadventures: Deep Trouble. We poured through this eye opening book in turn and discussed the mishaps in detail. Frankly, our consensus was that if the kayakers in the book had been dressed for water conditions and paddling open boats, George would have missed out on a book contract.

North of the Brooks
As the weather gradually lightened, skies waxed blue and the air temperatures warmed into the seventies, while our storm driven seas, like a team of runaway horses, were reluctant to settle down. We made two aborted attempts to leave the lagoon. I don't know if you could even call them abortions as I had serious doubts about delivery. Still, we used the opportunity to try our hand at paddling steep, storm driven swell off the mouth.

Paddling into these monsters, we climbed toward the sky, then dove deeply toward Neptune's locker, and when we were ready to duck back into the lagoon, we peeled off the crest of a fifteen-foot wave and dug like crazy into the tightest turn we could manage.

We made it off the beach for good on the 21st of August and paddled disturbed but gradually gentling seas around Cape Alvarez into the sanctuary of Sea Otter Cove. We spent that night camped in a moss carpeted glade under a yawning maple canopy. I was nursing an eye infection and could not even focus within a couple feet of my face without intense pain to the optic nerve. I had brought an antibacterial ointment along that I'd been using for several days with no results, and I was beginning to worry.

"It was a day to fall in love with the ocean all over again...to the west, the sea was a gorgeous cobalt blue with spotty white-caps..."

A short while after we arrived a sailboat entered the cove and tied up to a mooring buoy. Mikey paddled out to bum some tamari and find out where the boat was heading, in case my eye didn't improve by morning. The boat, Serenity, was making a circuit of the island and heading down the coast to Winter Harbour in the morning, and yes, if we needed, skippers Steve Berg and Patty Carp, were willing to give us a tow.

Sure enough, come morning I was in dire straits. After an hour of carefully stringing out our kayaks in a line behind the sailboat, rather like a line of ducklings behind their mom, we weighed anchor. A couple of hours later we untied our little fleet at the gas dock in the deserted looking village of Winter Harbour.

While the guys flopped on the dock, I found a pay phone and put in a call to my eye doctor at home. Sure enough, he told me, I had the right medication, but if it didn't kick in overnight I should hightail it to a clinic. The nurse who hung a shingle here had left town and the nearest medical facilities were a long way down a rutted logging road to Port hardy.

I sat on my Therm-a-Rest chair in my tent that night in the glare of the security light over the public washroom, nursing a can of O'Keefe's XXX Stout, listening to the air compressor humming on the dock, the mosquitoes buzzing in vain all around me, and feeling pretty bum. Civilization, bah!

Good news next morning, though. When I pressed my finger against my eye there was a noticeable relief in pain...the old eye was on the mend. I got up early and called my doc to tell him I was healing. Mikey had a cup of matte brewing down on the dock, chatting it up with a couple of sport fishermen. Within the hour we were back on the water and feeling like a million bucks!

We kept on the move that day, crossing Quatsino Sound at slack tide, bidding adieu to the lovely lighthouse on Kains Island at the entrance to the deep inlet. It was a day to fall in love with the ocean all over again...to the west, the sea was a gorgeous cobalt blue with spotty white-caps. Seagulls circled around the rocky bluff of the light house, calling on a vigorous breeze which was warm and had that scent of the mystery of life wrapped up in it.

We paddled across the broad entrance to Quatsino sound, watching fishing boats, both commercial and sport, motor past. We past Kwakiutl Point and stopped at a lonely looking islet for lunch. Then we crossed Klaskish Inlet where I hooked several scrappy salmon on a handline and an unweighted fly trolling right at the surface. It had been a lovely, stimulating day on the water, but the weather forecast predicted yet another system heading our way. Colin was our point man and went on ahead this day with a two-way radio to scout out a beach along the rugged shore south of Heater Point.

Colin found a decent spot with a moderate shore break and I went in first. I picked my set and headed in. I heard a shout behind me but had no time to turn around. I surfed the boat up on wet gravel and jumped out. There in front of me was a big black bear nosing in the kelp. I could hear the guys shouting behind me now and the bear stood up and got the message, loping easily down the beach and around a rocky point. I had nearly surfed right into his lap!

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