To Sea for Myself: Reflections of a Solitary kayaker

I’m a purple dot on an immense, rippling azure field, pushing toward some undefined target, glacier-covered peaks above me, feeling it, all five senses engaged, being both the purple dot and the vastness of British Columbia’s Howe Sound, deliriously, intoxicatingly alone. At times like this, with the music of life ringing in my ears, that I understand, viscerally that I am totally alive, a sentient being in an almost incomprehensible universe.

You could drop San Francisco in Howe Sound with room to spare, and I had it all to myself one August day in the middle of a heat wave, and for one of those seemingly endless Canadian summer days, I explored the passageways and corners of both the sound and my own mind, both filled with more convoluted channels than can be explored in a single lifetime.

This was just one of many days, alone in a kayak, often in unknown, previously unexplored waters, where I’ve come close to understanding the notion of rapture.

Howe Sound was the highlight of a spontaneous kayaking trip from California north until, well, until I decided to turn south again. A stop in Seattle with a chance discovery of a book on kayaking British Columbia, primed my imagination and led me onward.

The Sunshine Coast lived up to its name that week, with temperatures into the low 90s, a waterfall dropping from the steep side of an island, a welcome cool shower.

Between Gambier Island and tiny Woolridge Island my solitude was shattered by the approach of a seaplane, which landed near me and taxied past me to a cache of logs anchored to Gambier. A man got out, checked some logs, jumped back in, and the plane took off again, returning me to the cathedral-like, almost surreal surroundings: snow-capped peaks so close I felt I could almost be covered by an avalanche. Rolling out of the kayak for a swim only added to the incongruity of this primal landscape.

Looking north from the channel between Anvil and Gambier islands, Mc Nab Creek on the distant shore caught my imagination. The one low place along the coast, a possible beach, backed by 16,000 foot, snow-capped Mount Wrottesley, the combination seeming so incongruous, so mysterious, so inviting, gave me a destination. After a long, hot and tiring paddle across the channel, I pulled into the shallows, seeing the shore, not quite a beach, the creek working its way down from the forested slopes, the whole place inviting me to look but not necessarily to land. Rather, I stepped out of my kayak in the shallows and took a refreshing swim.

Moments like these speak to the essence of solitary paddling, a combination of outdoor adventure, exercise and Zen-like meditative states. This was one of dozens of unforgettable experiences, and if it’s true that all you do, think and see is all you ever will be, then this has defined much of who I am.

Summer days in Canada never end; they just gradually fade, the sun making tentative love to the horizon for hours, as I discovered sitting in my campsite that night, sipping a beer and watching the sun lazily angle off to the horizon at around ten at night, replaying the day in my dreams.

The next day at Sechelt Inlet was a different experience. Launching near Porpoise Bay Provincial Park, I paddled past picture book homes on little rock islands toward Salmon Inlet and Skookumchuk Narrows, the place where the tidal flow reaches class five whitewater. I never made it to Skookumchuk. As I rounded the bend at Salmon Inlet, the wind became so fierce that my hat sailed off to somewhere far to the east, and it was all I could do to paddle back around the bend and start back. At one small provincial park, I stopped and explored the thick, green forest of huge Sitka Spruce beyond the beach campground, with the fire ring and picnic bench. And then, fighting my way back, I encountered a couple of guys from Naniamo in a fishing boat who offered me beer and conversation, while I bobbed around in the building chop. Three beers and an insiders view of Canadian politics later, I fought my way back to the launch site and another night of camping under an endless twilight.

Unlike the busier Indian Arm, near North Vancouver, these more remote waters allowed me the space to become better acquainted with myself. Yet, there are Indian Arm memories, such as seeing two massive pipes running down from a high ridge, ending at two huge, round steel doors, with a big sign over them. Curiosity drove me to kayak a mile further to read the sign, which warned against getting too close, as those doors tend to open, releasing a massive flow of water.

I was drifting alone on for ten days, no agenda, no places to be, no phone, unreachable, untouchable, unapproachable. A day or two after watching the long Canadian sunset, I was on a ferry bound for Port Townsend and America’s true rainforest, the Olympic Peninsula. Sitting on the bow of the ferry, looking over the gray expanse of water, watching Port Townsend slowly resolve itself in the distance has, on each passage, put me in a reflective mood. I was leaving the busy corridors of urban Washington for something slow, damp and deeply green, and toward another adventure.

For no other reason than the name, I stopped to paddle Discovery Bay, but I discovered little to compare with my days on the Sunshine Coast, as I paddled out to where the bay met the Strait of Juan De Fuca. Then that evening, arriving at La Push, on the Quileute Reservation, another slowly ending summer day, facing perfect surf, I exchanged my kayak for my surfboard. Then, knowing my trip was drawing to an end and thinking about the wonders I’d experienced during the last few days, I backed my pickup up to the edge of the beach, put down the tail gate, crawled into my sleeping bag, and with a cold beer in my hand, I drifted off at last light, knowing that I was having a perfect experience in the perfect place on a perfect planet. There was nothing to think about, nothing to analyze, nothing to plan or anticipate. There was only the act of appreciation.

The next morning the heat wave broke, and I woke to overcast skies, a light drizzle and chop on the ocean. It was time to turn south. Then there was only one more thing that needed to be done. The next morning I arrived in Crescent City, drove straight to the beach, just north of Battery Point Lighthouse and launched into tiny summer waves. Even after a couple of hours, wandering between the lighthouse and Castle Rock, I can’t begin to guess the number of sea stacks along this two mile stretch, each one unique, each worth visiting, each a small memory.