Paddles in the Fog
I’ve often said it’s great to be back on the island where adventure is everywhere and anywhere, you just have to pick a spot and go, but in reality so far I’ve stayed pretty much in my backyard doing the usual routes. So it was great today to get out and try something new!
I met my some family - Lauren, Brad, and Kerry - at Union Bay boat ramp, about an hour north of where I live. We launched into Baynes Sound in a cool morning fog and dead calm waters.
It’s remarkably hard staying in a straight line when you can’t see the horizon or any distinguishing landmarks to paddle towards. And because of that, the first half hour of my paddle today with my family Lauren, Brad, and Kerry included a lot of “where are you going?”, “Is that the shore?”, and “I think I can see the shore, I can see the shore, is that the shore?”
Without the compasses Brad and I had, I think we would have looped back 180 degrees and wound up in Royston! But we made it across to Denman (only once seeing a boat silently gliding behind us) and hugged the shore north to Jáji7em and Kw'ulh Marine Provincial Park.
Jáji7em and Kw'ulh Marine Provincial Park is also known as Sandy Island Marine Park and includes Sandy Island – known locally as Tree Island – and the nearby Seal Islets. Baynes Sound and the area north of Denman Island is very shallow and sandy and you can walk to Sandy Island - it’s in the name, after all - at low tide. We got there right after high tide, of course, but even then we would have had a hard time getting through some of the channels.
After making it around to Tree Island with the wind just starting to come up against us, we stopped for lunch on the beautiful white sandy beach. Given the weather, it was a surprise that we were sharing the beach with a young family on a small fishing boat over for a hot dog BBQ. It was almost as surprising that their off-leash dog wasn’t picked up by the family of eagles flying around the park…
While I usually over-dress for cold-weather paddling, with multiple thermal layers and a hand-knit toque, this time I checked the Nanaimo forecast (7 degrees and sunny!) and was just about unprepared for a day in 3-ish degrees and thick fog. I was good up until lunch when the rest of the group had changed into their puffy jackets and spare toques, sitting in their camp chairs and eating matching lunches (like father, like daughter) and all I had was my paddling gear! With some jumping jacks and keeping my hands in my paddling jacket it was fine, and probably better than Brad who had no gloves on the paddle over, but I couldn’t help but think my pinky fingers and toes were a bit chilled the whole way back. And fair enough too, since I nearly froze my uncle on our -12 degree Boxing Day paddle!
As we sat and ate lunch under the NO FIRES signs and pealing eagles the clouds opened - for only a couple seconds at first - and we could see an old BC Ferry ship across the water. When the clouds lifted again and we could see glimpses of the mountains behind the ship, we crossed back to Vancouver Island for a closer look.
The 1965-built Queen of Burnaby used to run from Comox to Powell River and has a rather surprising international history (though not as interesting as sister ship Queen of Nanaimo, which now operates in Fiji!), only retiring in 2017. The ship only arrived in Union Bay last month and there’s some worry from local residents about the environmental impact it could have if disassembled for recycling (or left to rot) in its current location. We enjoyed a rare close encounter with the old ferry, paddling under the car deck and using it to spot big sealions sunning themselves on a nearby float, before heading back to the boat ramp.
Oh, and how could I forget, in the middle of the channel as we made our way back from lunch we got a visit from a small pod of porpoises! They mainly stayed behind us but did get pretty close at one point. It is always such a gift to see these animals up close. They capped off a paddle where we also saw a lot of ducks, the family of bald eagles, some curious seals, and two sets of sealions!
This adventure was really fun given it is still January and with the drama of the foggy start! It was a great reminder that new places are within easy reach and that I should make visiting new destinations a goal alongside my aim of paddling in each month. There’s no reason why new spots, given how close so many are and how well my family knows some of them, can’t be in order more often!
I was so happy for my seat warmers on the drive home…
Paddle stats: 12.40km, 2:38 moving time (4 hours in total), 1 ham sandwich, 1 hole in a glove, and a Queen (-class ferry).
2nd paddle of January and of 2022. Total to date: 29.07km.
