Next morning we punched out through a bigger surf than the evening before, but made it through with only a few hundred pounds of water pounding our
decks and sluicing up between our legs. I was last off the beach and came up sputtering on the other side of a four-foot wave that met me at the door!
Water drained quickly out through the scuppers in the hull as we shook ourselves off and headed out across Brooks Bay to the base of a very long point
of land.
This enormous protrusion of land, extending six miles out into the Pacific and three miles wide at the tip, was potentially the most challenging
point of passage in all of British Columbia. I knew of three gnarly kayak episodes at a single spot on the southern tip of the cape, and we would
approach rounding the cape with extreme caution. Fundamental to that was finding a spot to stage our camp very close to the tip.
One glance to the west confirmed the weather forecast we'd heard immediately before leaving the beach. Sea conditions out toward the tip of Cape
Cook (The Brooks) were a lumpy white. We quartered our open boats into choppy seas, riding up, tipping down, up, and down. You could see a clear
demarcation of calmer water across the bay in the lee of the peninsula where we were headed and we lowered our heads and pushed on for well over
an hour until we made shore. Meanwhile it was spitting rain and clouds lowered heavily with misty shrouds over the mountainous coast.
It would have been nice to slip into the lagoon and explore, snorkel for crab and shower in the waterfall there, but we all felt as though the eight
day layover had carved all the fat off our expeditionary animal, and there was a general desire to push on now whenever possible. We did not
anticipate sea conditions conducive to paddling around the tip for several days, but hoped to find a decent beach with a creek very near the tip.
I was the lead boat as we glided over a shallow reef single file when I caught sight of something looming in my peripheral vision. At the same moment
I heard someone shout. A five-foot wave had materialized out of nowhere (or so it seemed) and was barreling toward my boat! I braced the wrong blade,
then instantly the right one, and skidded along on my rail for about twenty feet. What a rush!
"We could see a paste of white caps to the west and hear the wind slicing like a cleaver over the top of the ridge to our immediate left;
something was definitely brewing on the other side."
We could see a paste of white caps to the west and hear the wind slicing like a cleaver over the top of the ridge to our immediate left;
something was definitely brewing on the other side. We hugged shore, paddling in a ragged group in the thin wedge of calm air and jumpy seas.
The water was steely gray where shafts of light pierced the scattered cloud and mist. While the guys split up to check out landing potential
in a couple of spots, I paddled out toward the tip of the westernmost point to see if I could spot Solander, and get a visual on our position.
I must have been only a hundred yards from shore and just caught a glimpse of Solander when a wall of wind slammed into my boat, flipping it up on
it's side for a moment and scooting me like a leaf out to sea!
Once the boat flopped down and I got my balance, I dug for all I was worth, getting nowhere, losing ground even. I felt a quick flush of panic bolt
through me. I didn't often get panicky on the ocean anymore, but I knew this scenario as my deepest fear... being swept out to sea. It is an
immensely potent fear and even though I am good at dealing tactically with challenging conditions, it was the thought of losing control out here,
I realized, that terrified me.
After what was probably only a matter of seconds, albeit very long ones, I felt the slightest give in the space ahead of me. I inched my way back
to shore with much relief, stopping a minute to get my breath and ease my racing heart. Then I could hear Cedar on the radio saying he had found
a decent cove with a sand beach and a fine creek. It looked as though we had discovered the base we had hoped for at the tip of the Brook's!
South of the Brooks
As expected, we were stuck on the beach for several days as the north Pacific rocked and rolled. The view out of our pocket cove, though, was
stellar! Enormous swell rolled in to our cove, reared back and broke clean over one large rock at the entrance that must have stretched thirty
feet in the air! We were pretty much down to our staples at this point, oats, beef jerky, Clif Bars, quinoa, oats and brown rice, and because
we couldn't get out to fish we gathered limpets and barnacles at low tide; steamed and dredged in olive oil and tamari they were quite tasty.
I ducked into my tent amid howling winds and sheets of rain one night and lay back on my pad, watching the tent walls dimple during the strongest
gusts and thinking over our progress to date.
People seemed comfortable in their boats and we had paddled some pretty lumpy water. The inexperience of Cedar and Colin had always been my biggest
concern, yet I had not hesitated to bring them. The west coast of Vancouver Island was billed as advanced by all guidebooks I'd ever seen; I had
no argument with that. But it was a thin margin for error out here, I believe, more than anything else, that made it so. If one had effective
answers for that narrow margin, one could go along way to ensuring a safe passage--that was the premise.
I had learned to paddle coastal waters as a kid by taking my old long board and a pack with fishing line and a couple of pbj sandwiches and
exploring up and down the coast. I felt safe because I knew all I had to do was hang on to the board and hustle my ass ashore when things
looked dicey. Well, the same thing applied, really, to a boat that is little more than a surf board with a seat. Experience, especially as
it translated to years of inside paddling, training, and certification even, before graduating to the open ocean, is overrated. Sure, if
you want to do it in that sexy looking new Arluk you just bought, you'll need all the experience and technique you can master, maybe a
rabbit's foot to boot... but if you are less anal about the boat and more psyched about paddling God's backyard, you could take a quality open kayak,
put on a dry suit and ease yourself safely in that direction.
Preparedness is the great equalizer to that slim margin for error. With the right boat and the right dress code, we can parlay a modicum of
water experience into a learning wilderness coastal journey. The one caveat to this bold philosophy is good common sense. Preparedness isn't
worth a toad's wart if you aren't emotionally grounded and level headed. Good smarts, a well adjusted personality, together with passion and
reverence for immersion in the deep, primal energies of the open coast, incidentally, are primary selection criteria for candidates like Cedar
and Colin.
High pressure finally returned. We launched through turbulent, unpredictable water at the mouth of the cove one morning in early September.
After slicing through churning soup near shore we pierced a wave or two and made it into the secondary, where we noticed some nasty looking
units careening in from different angles and kept a sharp eye out till we made it into open water.
The book on rounding the Brooks is this: Stage as close to the tip of the cape as possible and get on the water early. Winds recorded at
Solander reach 20+ early in the day during a typical high pressure. We paddled out a quarter mile offshore between Solander and the massive
kelp beds fringing the tip. In bad weather one could paddle in the kelp, but risked a nasty flip if their nose pearled under snaky strands
of bull kelp as big as a man's arm. Best to stay offshore a ways. The swell was four or five feet that day, and winds were light.
Paddling was upbeat and uneventful, and we soon approached the southern tip of the cape.
