Day 6 Nuchatlitz/Nootka Island Sea Kayak Trip

May 23/07

WX 0400
SYN: a High over S Van weakens today
stalls over Cape Scott & dissipates
rebuilds over Charlottes
mod to str SE in morn eases to mod in aft & shifts to light

W coast Van I South: winds light rising to SE 15-20 offshore
veering to SE 15-20 in aft, SE 25 W of Estevan Pt late aft.
winds easing to light overnight 1 m swell
Outlook: winds light rising to moderate NW

May 23rd/07 19.07
little sandy cove north of Ferrer Pt., Nootka Island (near Louie Bay)

I feel very very content & at ease, competent, on this trip. Sarah and I really know what we're doing. You couldn't do this trip without knowing what you're doing, and even more so in May. There's no one else out here.

We can paddle, and we can camp. This is our area of expertise. This is what I've spent the last ten years learning, and this trip feels like the reward. A perfect trip where we have all the knowledge to make the right decisions, and right decisions are crucial.

We know how to read the charts & find our way around, shift scale when the chart changes, use the tide tables to know where to camp & how far to pull up the boats. We know how to interpret the marine forecast & paddle or not paddle accordingly. Our camp's bomber, everything set up tight, and our systems are efficient. We make distance, good mileage, and we have lots of time to tool around and explore whatever we want. We have time in the day b/c we're efficient with our cooking & our camp setup. There aren't a lot of fuckups that cause big time wasters. None at all, actually. It's sweet.

I look behind us from where we're sitting on the beach, with our hot drinks & charts, Sarah's night to make dinner, and I see a tight little set up -- her tarp, my tent, staked out right & not going anywhere. The boats where they're supposed to be. We can leave our camp and walk way down the beach, knowing we're all set -- food's put away, nothing's going to blow away.

Tonight we'll eat dinner, I'll go fill up water for tomorrow, we'll listen to the weather, and plan our next paddling day -- destination Calvin Creek, outer coast of Nootka Island. Sweet.

still May 23rd, still the little cove, actually kind of big cove

We left Nuchatlitz proper this morning and went southeast into Nuchatlitz inlet. Our first stop was the grassy knoll, that I think I'd heard about from Kelly, & Sarah had asked Lennie at the last minute where it was. It's really cool -- this big round hill out into the ocean, with no rock. All earth, & covered with grass, thimbleberry bushes, and wildflowers. Not even salal. There were columbine and strawberry flowers & chocolate lilies & stonecrop & Indian paintbrush & a yellow snapdragony looking flower. Leading up to it was really pretty vetch.



Oh and on the paddle up to it, before we got out, there was a big black bear walking the beach. The first we've seen. We saw two minks today as well, and sea otters and of course bald eagles. And ravens, heard some ravens.

We were so stoked paddling today. Even though it was grey & rainy, we were warm, and it was just such an interesting paddle. Sarah's favourite paddling day of the trip so far, and probably mine too. We got to see so much cool coastline, and there were all these surges and boomers, and intertidal life getting exposed & then getting covered up again. Paddling that takes a little bit of concentration if you want to get close, & is really fun. Also there were a ton of sea caves. We knew there were probably burial boxes in a lot of the caves; a few people told us they're everywhere in the sea caves. But the idea of going back into those big dark caves & searching for burial boxes is really freaky.

We did stop at a beach Lennie had told us about, where he said there was a burial cave, or burial boxes. I had a real feeling it was at the right, where there were some cool sea stacks & space behind them. Sarah thought the other side, or up against the cliffs, so we started looking there. but when I went a little ahead to the place where I thought, I climbed up these rocks and over some logs & it opened up, and then there was a trail at the back. It's funny the way I sense this stuff. I really do. It's like I can slow right down, and get into a space where I'm wandering but focused, and I'm just going by intuition, almost being led. That's how I found the cooking cave before, with the rocks for cooking, the smoky roof, & the pounder. And I've found trade beads that way too. And in Alaska I just saw stuff. It jumps out at me; I see it.

Anyway, we went up the trail, which was wide and old, and it kind of stopped, except went up to a flat cleared lookout. Except Sarah realized this huge tree had recently come down right across the trail. We didn't want to climb through there, and maybe step on or grab stuff unexpectedly, and we didn't feel like bushwhacking, so that's where we stopped. But I'm sure that was the site, even though Lennie didn't say where at that beach. I have to ask him. [I did ask him, after the trip: he said it was up against the cliffs, where Sarah had thought.] And Sarah & I both thought, if it's all buried under that fallen tree now, that's good. It's protected.

We got to our campsite, sandy, explored. Missed this great water source by walking over it further upstream where it was all shallow, & looked brackish. When I went back for water I found it was clear and awesome. Sarah & I went back again just for the walk & to fill our Nalgenes so we didn't have to use any of the old water, & we found it would actually be a great little swimming hole. More of a bathing area.

Before that we listened to the forecast while we ate dinner and drank wine, and it was the best forecast you could ever ask for, perfect perfect for rounding Ferrer Point tomorrow and attempting the outer coast. The outlook's really great too, so it looks like we're off to Calvin Creek tomorrow. (Don't say it too loud). We're getting up an hour earlier tomorrow, 6:30, and we're having a fast breakfast of hot granola. Once we round the point, we have 3 hours of committed paddling, 8 nautical miles I should say, without landings, before our beach. I'm excited to go for it.