COAST&KAYAK Magazine The magazine of Pacific coast adventures and recreation
Volume 24, Issue 2
SUMMER 2014
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Getting you there From the Arctic to Baja, we’re guiding the way to adventure destinations
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Inside Introducing...
This issue’s cover
by Neil Havers Mark Perrin looked like he was having so much fun in this photo, we just couldn’t resist sharing it. Some forms of recreation are about “having arrived,” being at a place to enjoy that place, but kayaking is all about the journey – and there is more than one way to get there, including being suspended in the air off a cargo freighter. Neil Havers did the artwork and design for this issue’s Get West advertisement, and so had a different reason than most to tag along on a journey aboard the Uchuck III. For more on his trip, as well as Mark’s, see page 40.
Vignettes from an Arctic refuge
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Chuck Graham has contributed several articles to Coast&Kayak over the years, and when he approached us with the idea for exploring the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge we were willing to put kayaks aside for a change to present a refreshingly different look at where paddling adventures can take you. Bring bug spray.
Baja: Three perspectives
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Occasionally things collide in a surprisingly convenient way, and so when three people affiliated in vastly different ways with Coast&Kayak Magazine all shared their Baja adventures, rather than just pick one article we thought we’d present a potpourri of impressions and images.
We’re now offering one full year of Coast&Kayak Magazine (3 issues) delivered to your home for just $5. Why? We’re reducing and eventually eliminating free distribution copies over the next few years in favour of subscription and sponsored copies. That means free copies will become much harder to find.
Crossings
32 Alex Matthews diverts from his usual Skillset format to chat with Graham and Russell Henry to get their expertise into what’s involved in planning and executing long crossings. The Henry brothers should know – their recent journey involved many overnight adventures in their paddle from South America to Florida.
First Word �����������������������������������������������������������������������4 News ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������6 Trip Planning ��������������������������������������������������������������40 Plan your West Coast adventure ������������44-45 The Gulf Islands ��������������������������������������������������������46
Plan your Gulf Islands adventure ������������������ 47 Day Trips �����������������������������������������������������������������������48 Plan your Desolation/Discovery trip ����������� 49 Planning and Safety ���������������������������������������������� 50 Gearing Up ����������������������������������������������������������������� 52 SUMMER 2014
But we still want to be accessible. So we’re slashing our cost in the hopes you’ll meet us half way. You’ll still be able to read us online free, of course. But there’s value in the print medium. And for now, it’s about the price of a latte a year. So how to take advantage? Go to
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The First Word
Did life just pass me by? Summer 2014
Volume 24, Number 2 PM No. 41687515
Find Us: Online: www.coastandkayak.com Back issues: Turn the carousel on our back issues page, click on the issue you want to read. Contact Us: General queries: kayak@coastandkayak.com Editorial: editor@coastandkayak.com Advertising: kayak@coastandkayak.com COAST&KAYAK MAGAZINE is an independent magazine available free at hundreds of print distribution sites (paddling shops, outdoor stores, paddling clubs, marinas, events, etc.), and globally on the web. Paid subscriptions are available for those who prefer home delivery. Articles, photos, events, news are all welcome.
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A great thing about running a kayaking magazine is all the opportunities that go with it. For instance, I have the chance to travel the world to the best kayaking places the globe has to offer... Wait a minute. That’s not happening. In fact, this winter had me nary within the seat of a kayak at all. Not even from the back deck of the boat/office, and heck, it can’t be any easier than that. I’m already on the water. There’s a funny thing about life. The little things get in the way. I can’t blame the weather, though I have to admit it’s tough to be motivated to fight my way into a drysuit and set out on a blustery grey day with temperatures hovering near freezing. But what really kept me off the water was a series of small circumstantial blips that combined to knock the socks off my off-season kayaking plans. For instance, Coast&Kayak launched a fancy new Gear Guide this spring (I hope you’ll browse it, it’s available free online at coastandkayak.com). It was produced using some technology that failed miserably. The production was meant to flow automatically, but it didn’t. The thing ended up being built almost entirely manually, and so a month disappeared due to a technological glitch. Plus there was (and still is, at the moment) the swim grid repair. That’s where the kayaks get launched, and a spate of late spring rain kept the fittings off and the renovations in an in-progress stage for weeks and the kayaks under a layer of work materials. The whole thing was unusable for the entire spring. A small detail, I know, but these things add up. It’s hard to kayak if you can’t launch. This winter I had hoped to do more kayaking in Baja, but a lack of kayak rental locations kept me mostly off the water there as well. Oh, some cheap sit-on-tops could be had for a couple of hours for a ridiculous price at the major tourism centres I would sooner avoid. In the end I was able to borrow the personal surf kayak from the owner of Todos Santos Eco Adventures (thanks Bryan and Sergio!), but overall it was like Ireland all over again: heading to a great kayaking location only to find no way to get out on the water. Not like BC at all, where good locations have a place to rent boats. We are blessed that way. I think I’ve got it figured out for next year though. The Gear Guide will be automated by then, the swim grid will be repaired, I’ll take my own kayak down on my next Baja trip and it will never, ever be rainy and cold again. All problems solved. Look out, world, here I come. - John Kimantas editor@coastandkayak.com
Ph: 1-866-984-6437 • Fax: 1-866-654-1937 Email: kayak@coastandkayak.com Website: www.coastandkayak.com Physical address: Aboard the Rainy Day, Somewhere on the Pacific Ocean The world’s only magazine published from aboard a boat (that we know of, anyway). © 2013. Copyright is retained on all material (text, photos and graphics) in this magazine. No reproduction is allowed of any material in any form, print or electronic, for any purpose, except with the permission of Wild Coast Publishing. Some elements in maps in this magazine are reproduced with the permission of Natural Resources Canada 2010, courtesy of the Atlas of Canada. Also, our thanks to Geobase for some elements that may appear on Coast&Kayak maps.
Coast&Kayak Magazine is dedicated to making self-propelled coastal exploration fun and accessible. Safety and travel information is provided to augment pre-existing safety and knowledge. A safety course and proper equipment are advised before any exploration on water. See a list of paddling instruction locations at www.coastandkayak.com
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Coast&Kayak Magazine’s new skipper, a rescued stray named Yoshi, gets his first kayaking lesson. He’s a natural!
SUMMER 2014
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News NZ conquered, now Vancouver Island If you read just one blog post this year, make sure it’s the post ‘The Journey Ends’ by Tara Mulvany as she looks back on her efforts to circumnavigate all three New Zealand islands. On Dec. 16, 2013, she set off from Anakiwa in the Marlbrough Sounds to circumnavigate the North Island, arriving at Makara Beach on March 31. From her final post: “Memories of barefoot days, where money means nothing, but life means everything. Days where a full moon is a measure of progress, and there is never a schedule, decisions simply determined by the wind and the sea. I will miss so much about this rich, simple way of life.” In late May 2012, she and another kayaker paddled away from Milford Sound and headed north up the west coast of the South Island. Three months later they parted ways and she continued on the journey alone, completing the circumnavigation on Oct. 22, 2012. “I perfected the art of living like a hobo. I slept in car parks, in ditches and under bushes,” she writes. “More than
A selfie is the only option when you’re kayaking for months alone.
once, I washed my hair in the basin of some public toilets, and gave myself a haircut with my pocket knife. I did my laundry by hand, after all, what’s the point of a washing machine when you only have two sets of clothes – one to wear, the other to wash.” She completed the trip to come back to no home, no job and no immediate plan, but that didn’t last. In an odd chain of events, Jaime Sharp (on the cover of our Winter 2012 issue) has been staying with Lyn Hancock (author of one of this issue’s Baja segments). Jaime invited Tara to circumnavigate Vancouver Island, and
so as of press time she was on her way to Vancouver Island to start yet another adventure. You can follow Tara and read her ‘Journey Ends’ blog post as well as the rest of her entries at www.tarasjourneys.com. The longest crossing ever? A person seemingly unlikely to become a world-renowned hero, Aleksander Doba, a 67-year-old Polish man, became one nonetheless. ‘Olek’ set off in October 2013 from Lisbon, Portugal to kayak across the Atlantic and arrived in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, on April 20. It wasn’t an uneventful journey. His hope was to complete the trip non-stop, at one point refusing assistance from a perplexed crew on a commercial tanker that responded to his accidental SOS call. Hampered by bad weather just short of his goal of Florida he eventually opted for a five-week break in Bermuda to fix his rudder, which ended his attempt to make the crossing non-stop. Even so, the 6,500mile journey is being hailed as the longest open-water kayak crossing ever. His first trans-Atlantic expedition was in 2011 from Senegal, Africa, to Brazil.
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News No cause, no charity, just paddling They’re calling themselves the Catfish, and in a world of causes to add credibility to ventures, these guys are just winging it. The retired group of paddlers left Willows Beach in Victoria on May 8 with a goal of the Inside Passage to Alaska and back over the next three months. They are Alan Campbell, David Maxwell and Rob Zacharias. Their aim is Juneau Alaska by day 71, on July 17, 2014. The name ‘Catfish Kayak Group’ comes from a 1980s kayaking gang of which the these paddlers were a part. Re-supplying en route is planned at Campbell River, Shearwater, Prince Rupert and Ketchikan. In preparation, David has produced and dried 53 meals from 11 different homemade recipes. Says Alan: “Kayaking the Inside Passage means being integrated into the living/breathing energy of the coast long enough so that we begin to see ourselves and our world in new and different ways, not a bad thing in your 60s.” The paddle to Alaska is un-sponsored and is not a fundraiser. The men are, however, members of The South Island
Sea Kayaking Association (SISKA) and supporters of the BC Marine Trails Network Association (see page 40). You can track their GPS coordinates and follow them at http:// paddlingfanatics.jimdo.com/ 2014 events get early start Summer brings an assortment of kayaking events, with most in the early summer, so plan soon. Here on the Pacific coast, we’re excited to have the return of the Pacific Paddling Symposium May 30June 1 at Lester B. Pearson United World College in Victoria, BC. Sessions include everything from wilderness first aid to surf skiing, plus hosted evening happy hours. Registration is very limited. Visit www.pacificpaddlingsymposium.ca. You can find more events on the calendar at www.coastandkayak.com. Our favourite event listing so far this year is the ‘Explore North Coast Kayak Social Thingy,’ April 24-27 in Trinidad, California and environs. Huh? The organizers explain: it includes hosted paddles in coastal Humboldt and Del Norte counties in Northern
California for a wide range of skills from flatwater to rock gardens to surf. Visit explorenorthcoast.net. Raise a toast at happy hour The hosts of the Saturday night happy hour at the Pacific Paddling Symposium are Dave Pinel and Caroline Fisher of West Coast Expeditions, which will be a great opportunity to toast their recent success as winner of a Green Tourism Gold award. The multi-coloured award is earned through the Green Tourism certification program, making West Coast Expeditions the first sea kayak tour company in Canada to attain the gold standard, and one of only 14 businesses in Canada to receive the gold honour. It involved a rigorous third-party assessment with 145 evaluation criteria and a review by a senior assessor from the UK. Cheers to Dave and Carol. Two new publications online Coast&Kayak Magazine has quietly unveiled two new publications available online only: the 2014 Gear Guide and the 2014 Adventure Tour Guide. Both can be viewed in a variety of formats including mobile device apps. Read them online at www.coastandkayak.com
SUMMER 2014
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