Well it has been a long time since my last post. Been busy buying a house among other things. I have a tonne of pictures to post, however, our last trip is what has inspired me to get back on the blog so I will start with that. We had a week of vacation time to play with and decided to plan a loose 3-4 day paddling trip up Sechelt Inlet. This would give us the flexibility to take any day trips or follow any bays that peaked our interest. We got on the road on Monday morning by about 8am and drove up Sechelt Inlet Road to Tuwanek. Tuwanek is a nice little village filled with bed and breakfasts and cottages and is a common jump off point for paddlers and especially scuba divers. We pulled up to Tuwanek Beach and loaded up the 18 1/2 foot "Two Dogs" (this is what we have named our canoe).
We decided to leave the dogs in the car as the beach was a fairly common area, with lots of cottagers and people out for morning walks. They waited inpatiently as we loaded down the Two Dogs.
Oliver - passenger in waiting.
Quiggs waiting for his command!
We were loaded up and off before 9am which was very nice. Due to the physical geography around us it was very important to understand some of the challenges of this paddle. In following pictures you will see how the mountains jut out of the water. This physical structure can cause what are known as "thermal winds" which often start blowing around 11am till 4pm (if they blow at all). Therefore the 9am start would give us ample opportunity to reach some of the beaches on the east shore of the inlet (if cover was needed). As we glided over the silky water towards Tuwanek Point we worked our way through the Lamb Islets.
The Lamb Islets
The Lamb Islets are a smattering of small islands that are home to some cottages and many birds. There was much squaking as Canadian Geese, Snow Geese and several varieties of ducks announced our arrival as well as competing for position with each other. At this point we were very excited about the flora and fauna along the way. I mentioned how it will be nice to rely on Heather's Maritime background for identifying some of the marine life.
As you came around Tuwanek Point you were greeted with beautiful views up Sechelt Inelt. As beautiful as they were my reading has told me there is more to come. For today we decided to explore all of the camp sites along the way as well as explore any of the nooks and crannies that caught our eye.Our first stop was a snack break at Oyster Beach, part of Mount Richardson Provincial Park. The majority of the park is up in the mountain, however about 8-10 years ago they decided to build two marine sites on the inlet.
I feel this expands the use of the park as well as provides additional marine camping areas to compliment the already developed Sechelt Inlet Marine Provincial Park sites (about 5 sites). The sites are quite nice with developed tent pads (areas to set-up tents), fire ring and pit toilet (nice to not have to dig cat holes!).
Having a pit toilet is a nice luxury as it makes potty time a very easy process. The fire pit is nice as well as many parks do not allow fires and both Heather and I love a good evening fire under the stars.
We also discovered what appeared to be beautiful apple blossoms. I am sure the bears and racoons love this tree come fall.
We left Oyster Beach after about a 20 minute stretch break. We had a snack and were ready to head back up the inlet.
The paddling was very easy as the wind was quiet and we were not fighting the tidal currents. The Two Dogs performs optimally in this water, her flat hull and lack of rocker allows her to track straight and long, which allows for good speed. This also saves my wrists and elbows with reduced J-strokes (correction strokes) required. The salinity of the ocean water causes us to sit higher in the water which allows for smoother movement through the water. With the sun shining, canoe gliding and ocean smells and views; this was surely a glorious day!The weather encouraged us to explore all of the little bays and points and we were rewarded with beautiful starfish, sunfish and crabs. We also were able to take in interesting sea cucumbers and sea anemones.
The star fish were by far the most plentiful. They ranged in colour from deep purples to soft pinks and reds. Many of the bays had long shelves that were only 2 feet deep which allowed the Two Dogs to get up close and personal with much of the marine life. These warm waters are hot spots (no pun intended) for a diverse marine ecosystem.
We also saw an abundance of crabs. Unfortunetely we were unable to get a good snap of the bright red crabs that came into our path. I was also personally impressed by the spiked outer skin of the sea cucumber and the bright colours of the sea anemones.
The next stop was Nine Mile Beach which is the last camp site before you hit the mouth of the Salmon Inlet. We decided to glide in and take a look around. The beach was large and very inviting and made for a nice sunny pit stop. This was a nice clean site that offered a sunny beach setting as well as a woodsy forest feeling when in the camp site area.
The dogs pointed out that the winds were still quiet and now would be a good time to cross the Salmon Inlet. When the Salmon Inlet converges on the Sechelt Inlet it can often create confused waters as the tidal current can mix with the flow of the Inlet. We needed to be extremely cautious of our crossing as the water can become even more confused if the thermal winds become active.The dogs were right so we pushed off and decided to have lunch on the other side of the Salmon Inlet crossing.
When crossing, a glance to the north east (up the inlet) will provide you with beautiful views of the Earl Range to your left, the Pacific Range to your right (home to Tetrahedron Park) and the icefields of the Tantalus Range at the very end of the inlet. The Tantalus Range is just west of Squamish and is an area that Heather and I hope to explore this coming summer. It provides a variety of hiking and snowshoeing opprotunities.Our lunch destination on the other side of Salmon Inlet was Kunechin Point, which is a Provincial Park and bird sanctuary. It is also a favorite spot for scuba divers as there is an artifical reef on the west side of the point.
A large naval ship, the HMCS Chaudiere, was sunk on December 5, 1992 by the Artificial Reef Society of British Columbia (with others). There are camp facilites on the point (two raised wood tent pads) and on the bay to the east of the point (pit toilet, fire ring and tent pads). We enjoyed a lovely lunch of french baguette with cream cheese and smoked BC Salmon. This was topped off with a nice tart Granny Smith apple and a piece of chocolate (life is hard). The cherry on top was the absolutely stunning view up the inlet. We remarked at how there are similar places, but they are flooded with people (Banff, Lake Louise). We were totally content having this space to ourselves.
Heather and her main-squeeze enjoying our lunch stop views.
As we were feeling good and making excellent progress we decided to push forward and head for the Narrows Inlet (runs parallel to Salmon Inlet and perpendicular to Sechelt Inlet). We paddled further up Sechelt Inelt which was a fairly nice paddle with mountains shooting straight up out of the water. We went under large powerlines that run all the way from the end of Salmon Inlet.
There is a large hyrdo dam at the end of Salmon Inlet where Clowhom Lake runs into Salmon. Quite impressive considering the mountains to contend with. As we approached the mouth of Narrows Inlet we needed to cross Storm Bay first. Storm Bay is best known for the few cottages that are left over from a group of flower children that moved out this way during the "back-to-the-land" movement of the 70's.
The wind was starting to pick-up so we elected to not explore and to get past the mouth of Narrows Inlet to the more protected waters within the Inlet. The water was choppy but nothing the Two Dogs hasn't been in before -- Two Dogs laughed as she still had 6" of freeboard!We entered the Narrows Inlet and were amazed at the incredible views. Narrows Inlet is much nicer to paddle as it is more sheltered than Salmon Inlet.
We were tired from a long day of paddling and bit of a fight through Storm Bay. We decided to stop at a mountain stream and have a snack and nap before the final push to our camp on Tzoonie Narrows (the actual narrows in the inlet). Heather and I nibbled on some GORP (Good Ole' Raisins and Peanuts), however, our GORP is a little more exciting. We like to have peanuts, almonds, smarties, marshmallows, raisins. We all lazed around for about 30 minutes and took in the views.
Quiggs was especially enamoured by the beauty around him. We filled up our water bottled from the ice cold mountain stream -- refreshing! We decided it was time to move on when we were apparently getting a little crazy? Sun-stroke? It had to be something, I was clearly not myself -- yeah, right!
Jarrod thinks the views are spectacular!
We paddled on and found our campsite at the mouth of the Tzoonie Narrows, set-up camp had our traditional "first-night-in" dinner of steak and camp potatoes. We had a small fire and were in bed before the stars came out.
This is the mountain on the Earl Range across from our campsite. It was quite jagged and rocky. There was smatterings of snow in different areas and you could hear a powerful mountain stream pounding down the mountain. It was actually nice to fall asleep to.-DAY TWO-
We slept in until about 9am and had a nice granola & bannock breaky and pushed off with very loose plans for the day. Come on! Look at our surroundings, why worry about plans?
We figured that we would paddle further up the Narrows Inlet and explore this waterway. We were in search of waterfalls, as we have read that there are a few sets that fall off the mountain into the Inlet. We paddled for about 2 hours and stopped for a snack break. To this point we only had a few streams and bald eagle sightings to our credit.
We layed out and looked up at the mountains for awhile. Oli was especially taken by his surroundings...
We chatted for awhile and decided to paddle a little further up the inlet. Calculting on my GPS we realized that we had another 15km to the end of the inlet (30km return). We didn't feel like another 30km day following yesterdays 30km, and decided to loaf about on the inlet until we felt like heading back. As always, our layed-back-well-researched-loose-plans-backcountry-tripping approach worked for us again.
While paddling along the south-east shore we came upon a nice rushing moutain stream -- I love cold water! Along with this mountain stream came a sandy little spit. To fill you in, the sunshine coast is not known for its sand. Mostly rock beaches, beautiful but not good for lying and walking around on (not like the Atlantic). Heather loves lying in sand, she finds it soothing and reminds her of home. Seemed like a great spot to stop for a break and some lunch. I grabbed the canoe and paddled it around to the protected cove where we would stay. We decided to hike up along the moutain stream before we had lunch. It was amazing how the mist from the stream cooled us as we walked along the banks. We both love the sound of running water so this was a magical place for us, and a nice walk.
We ate lunch on our sandy spit and laughed at our enjoyment of this small piece of sand. Heather and the boys layed about and enjoyed the sun! Who could blame them, it was a beautiful day. I layed in the sun for a bit, but, my skin colour doesn't agree with the sun overly well, so I chose to find a shady spot. I spent about 30 minutes staring through my binoculars at a bald eagle perched on a nearby tree.
I had other ideas. Me and that frigid mountain stream had a date! How could I not take a dip in this crisp water? As the water was shallow it didn't allow the Nestea-Plunge that I generally prefer. Unfortunately, the slow but painful method was all that was available. After I got in, I figured I would ride this powerful stream out into the inlet -- it was amazing how strong the current was!After Heather warmed up under the sun, I convinced her of taking a little dip in the stream -- how many chances are you going to get to take a dip in a nice cold mountain stream. If you can believe it that logic worked. She had to think about it, but, after a short while she took the plunge and enjoyed the rush (no pun intended).
We decided to paddle back and enjoy an early evening around camp.
As you can see, days in the backcountry are hard on these pooches. Quiggs got back and dug in for a good hard sleep. I always like to remind them that we do all of the paddling! This is one of the reasons we love going camping, the dogs always get wonderful exercise (not to mention us).
We walked around the camp and picked up a few trails and explored for about an hour. After that we realized how hungry we were, so we grabbed a bite to eat. After dinner the bugs were becoming active so we put on our bug jackets and watched the tidal water sea life along the shore. Barnacles are actually a really neat creatures. To finish the night we had a fire until the sun went down and had some great discussions about life before calling it an evening.
-DAY THREE-
We woke up fairly early, had breakfast, broke camp and were on the water by 8:30am. It was a nice calm morning and seemed like a perfect day for a paddle home.
We were not sure if we were going to go all the way home today or stop at one of the other camp sites along the way for another evening. We paddled out of Narrows Inlet and across Storm Bay. As we got to Storm Bay the wind started to kick up. It wasn't too bad so we decided to cross over Sechelt Inlet right away, as that was where the closest camp site was. When we got into the middle of the Inlet the wind started blowing and before we knew it we were in meter high waves (sorry no time for photos). We had to turn the boat into the wind as to not get broadsided by the large waves. We paddled as hard as we could with no progress to show for it, as Heather likes to call it we were on the canoe-treadmill. We paddled hard for about an hour and I was trying to slowly edge us across the inlet. This meant slightly turning the bow between waves. At about the hour and half mark Heather remarked that she was not sure she had much left. I admitted that I was fatigued as well. I asked for another ten minutes of hard paddling so that we could get close enough to head to the other shore. Our moment came and we turned all eighteen and half feet of the Two Dogs and rode the waves into shore. We were absolutely exhausted, to say the least. We found an old logging site and pulled our boat out of the water and figured we would wait out the winds. Heather found a nice "sleeping rock" as she called it and took a nap. 
I layed around for awhile, had a snack and decided to take a walk up the shore to see if there was a water source nearby.
I walked along the shore and headed into the woods at a clearing. As I came through the first set of branches I heard a stomp. I raised my head and there infront of me (about 25 feet) was a beautiful big bull-elk. Still stunned from the hard paddling, and amazed at his size I was dazed for a moment. When I came to I reached for my camera, but he decided not to challenge and was off in a flash (the flash wasn't from my camera!). All he left was a foot print and some fresh scat. 
I walked up a small hill and on the other side was a beautiful rushing stream. I had found what I was looking for, and assumed this was why the bull was hanging around too. When I got back Heather was up, so I told her my story and convinced her to come back to check out the lovely stream.When we got back from the stream we had lunch.
By the time we were finished eating the winds had started to calm so we loaded up the Two Dogs and we were off after our three hour wait. We decided our destination would be Halfway Beach Camp as we were still pretty tired from the canoe-treadmill. The waters will still churning but very manageable. We worked our way up the inlet and were getting close to the mouth of Salmon Inlet. We were excited as the camp was on the other side of this crossing. Moments later we realized that we spoke too soon and mother-nature had another plan. The afternoon thermal winds kicked up and we soon had to make a quick decision. We could paddle forward and land at a nearby fish farm, with the risk of gettting caught in the heavy stuff or turn back to a very rocky and small beach. We chose option two as we knew we were tired. We landed and noted that we could not stay there all night as the tide was coming in. We decided we would wait until early evening when the winds generally die down. To our luck after about an hour the winds calmed and we were ready to head to the camp. The wind was quiet and the paddling was smooth. 
As we approached halfway beach a brisk wind blew and we smiled at mother-nature as we were at our destination. As we came around the corner we were greeted by a flock of black oyster catchers. We did not get too close as they are nesting now and we did not want to disturb.Needless to say we were happy to finally reach our destination!
We checked out our surroundings and noticed that there was a tonne of garbage around. This concerned us as we were not in the mood for bears this evening. We cleaned up the mess and put it with our garbage to take back. As it was late we naturally broke off into our routine and I set-up the tent and Heather put together some dinner. This seems to be the way that we always set-up camp and it works really well for us. We had a nice meal around a fire and chatted for awhile. We walked down to the stream to pump some water so that we could have a quick start tomorrow morning if the weather allowed. We hung up our food and hit the dirt hard!-DAY FOUR-
At about 5am Heather woke up in a panic and wanted me to check if the canoe was OK as she was concerned about high tide. I told here it was fine as we brought the canoe safely to high ground. Needless to say now she had me wondering, so I got up to check.
The canoe was fine but the tide did rise quite high on this flat beach. Getting up this early offered me a wonderful chance to see the sun rising. This gave me a beautiful look up Salmon Inlet and the sun shining on the Tantalus Range and its' glaciers.
I mentioned the sailors warning and we decided to break camp early and get across to the other side of the inlet as our ending point was on the east shore. It was a cool but calm morning and we were happy to be paddling. We watched a few float planes come in and then Heather said "what is that?" We looked ahead and all you could see were fins. We realized we were seeing the porpoises. We knew there was a method to her madness (mother-nature that is). 
We were admist a large pod of porpoises -- a once in a lifetime experience. There were at least 40-50 of them and they were jumping and playing. It was amazing! We did not get any pictures that will show the magnitude of this experience, however, we had plenty of boatside visits. We spent 30 minutes floating and paddling while the porpoises played with us. They followed us for awhile and they headed off further up the inlet to give someone else a display.This was an especially incredible expereince as the porpoises have not been in the inlet for the past three years. As well Heather is very fond of the creatures as they were what fueled her childhood dreams of being a dolphin trainer. She isn't a dolphin trainer, but she certainly has a smile of a child that morning!
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