Saturday, August 30th. 06:15:00 AM.
I loaded up the Cherokee and headed north up the 405, joining the 5 a short time later. I hate The Grapevine. Too long and too steep, and the Cherokee gets sucky mileage – especially when I’m trying to maintain 70 mph up the grade. Eventually, I hit the 99 and headed up the Central Valley. I used to take the 5, it being the faster road; but gas prices are lower on the eastern road, and it’s fast enough. The so-called “scenery” is better, too.
Nineteen hours later I pulled up in front of my friend’s house – soon to be “my” house – in Birch Bay, Washington. It was still fairly early, so we hung out a while before I crashed and burned.
The morning dawned bright, which is a little bit unusual on the wastern coast of the Pacific Northwest. (But only a little bit unusual.) It turns out that I arrived during an exceptionally dry period. We went to an eatery in Blaine for breakfast. Odd place, that. It was in a small hotel and was decorated with 1950s and 1960s vintage whiskey decanters. All of the tables were full (Birch Bay is a seaside community, and it was Labour Day Weekend), so we sat down at the counter. They have a game they play called “pull tabs”. You buy a little pice of paper and pull the tab to see if you won anything. We didn’t play. There was an old guy who was apparently the owner, who grunted a lot. Talked a lot as well. It seemed that he was driven to talk to everyone in the place. Not that that’s a bad thing; I’m just not used to it. After breakfast we went back to my friend’s place and watched vids.
Tuesday morning we headed the four miles to the Canadian border. The border guard asked us what we were going to do in Canada, apparently oblivious to the 2-1/2 and three-meter kayaks tied to the top of the Jeep. He didn’t stamp my passport.
From there it was a short drive to the ferry terminal at Tsawassen. I had noticed a blue Yamaha ahead of us, and while we were waiting for the ferry I met the rider in the snack bar. The rider was an exceptionally cute blonde girl, tall-ish with blue eyes and a (Joe Rocket?) jacket to match her bike. (Or is that “moke”? I’ve heard some motorcyclists want to call their non-Harleys “mokes” to differentiate themselves from their cruising brethren.) I told her about my brand-new R1 and she said, “Your bike has more balls than mine.” She was on a YZF-600R. (That’s Y-ZED-F.)
But hers was not the only motorcycle waiting to board the ferry. There were a gaggle of rallyists whose desination – the end of the rally – was Nanaimo. They’d started in Tijuana. I love my R1, but it would be a pain in the arse to make such a long trip on it. Literally. There were two of the hard-to-get Yamaha FJR1300s in the pack, plus several BMWs and Hondas. Harleys were in the minority. Finally, we drove aboard the ferry for the two-hour trip to Nanaimo.
The nice people at the Nanaimo Film Commission had comped a room for us. They left a nice package of information pertaining to the research my friend is doing for his next film. (I’m probably going to shoot some or all of it.)
After getting settled in the room we drove to Englishman River to find some petroglyphs. We hiked all around the trail, but no 'glyphs were to be found. While my friend was rock-scrambling to get over to the waterfall, I asked some people who had been playing in the water if they knew where the glyphs were. They said we were in the wrong place. I listened to the directions, but didn’t catch them all. When my friend got back from his hike, we decided to leave. I suggested we try to find the right place, since it was on the way back to Nanaimo. Although I didn’t get the directions exactly, I’d retained enough to get us to a small shooting range about 100 meters away from where we wanted to be. What we found was a little disappointing. Top Bridge is a bit of a party place for the local teens, and there were more “modern glyphs” than ancient ones (of which we saw two).
The next day we took a short hike to Petroglyph Park. Interesting place, but not well maintained. We returned to the hotel and met a First Nations documentary filmmaker from the Cosalish tribe. We chatted with him and his cousin for a couple of hours about my friend’s project (my friend being very keen on involving the aborignal people in the film he is making about them).
Off to Bamfield! We took the road up to Port Alberni, and then drove through a very small town and a residential area. We came to a dirt road. This was the only road to Bamfield. Fifty miles of rutted, rocky, washboard dirt road. The speed limit was posted at 70 km/h – about 45 mph – and I wondered if they were joking. I’d spent much of the trip wishing I had ridden my R1 (impossible because I had to haul my kayak), but now I was bloody glad I was in an SUV! The Cherokee was made for this road. 70 km/h was a little fast for some of the turns, and once or twice I hit rocks that put me into a small skid. But indeed 70 km/h was a good speed, the suspension rebounding harmonically with the washboard.
The sun was going down when we made Bamfield. Our hotel hade a handy pub across the parking lot. My friend and I shared halibut and chips and an oyster po’boy. (Well, an oyster burger; which except for the bun and the lack of immediately-available Tabasco® sauce was as near as you can get.) It was hot wings night (CDN$ 0.25 each) so we started with a dozen of those. They used Louisiana hot sauce, but I prefer Frank’s when I make them at home. They were good, though!
Wednesday morning. The moment of truth. We took the 'yaks down to the boat ramp and put-in and paddled out Grappler Inlet. We had intended to visit the Broken Islands, but as it turned out we actually visited the Deer Group. We made our way across Trevor Channel and made landfall on Helby Island. After a short break we paddled past Sanford Island and over to Fleming Island. There was an inviting-looking sea cave on the southern end, but the crashing waves dissuaded us from attempting to enter it.
There were other caves, though. We found them on the western side of Fleming Island and we paddled into them. Since the tide was low, we could see sea stars on the walls. After a couple more landings we rounded the northern end of the island at Robbers Bassage. There was a nice rocky beach there and we took another break. At this point, I offered to let my friend try my Ocean Kayak. He took that to mean that we would switch off for the next leg, and that I would be in his Cobra.
I found the Cobra less stable than my Ocean Kayak “Drifter”. But it had much better hatches, and I wasn’t sitting in 5cm of water the whole trip. On the other hand, my own kayak is faster and the extra stability is great. I also have a rudder, which is not an option on the Cobra.
While I like my own kayak better (except for the sitting-in-a-puddle thing), I did like my friend’s boat. He initally liked mine, but after a while he found the seat to be pure torture. (I never had that problem.) And the worst part was that this was our longest leg in open water – about three miles. We were well out from the island and there was no question of landing. He just had to tough it out. My butt was okay, but I was getting a little tired. We were paddling against the wind, against the current, and against the swells. And we were on the return trip, so we were tiring anyway.
We finally made it back to Helby Island. We rested a bit since it was another 2-1/2 miles across the channel and up the inlet to get back to the boat ramp. Though the tide was on its way back in (as I mentioned in the last paragraph), there was still some beach, and the island boasted a really great cave that would be mostly submerged at high tide.
I haven’t measured the distance accurately, but I reckon we must have paddled about 16 miles in eight and a half hours. We were ravenous when we got back (we snacked on ginger snaps on the trip, but that’s all) and I eagerly devoured my halibut and chips, plus half of the moz sticks.
On Thursday we headed back up the loose, rocky 50-mile washboard. We went to Port Alberni and hooked a left to Sproat Lake. This was a much shorter paddle – only about a kilometre to the petroglyph wall, then back-tracking a bit to look at the Martin Mars (“Philippine Mars”) water bomber that was parked in the lake. Then back to Nanaimo for the ferry back to the mainland. (Good God, Canadian women are cute! Especially that one on the ferry. She must have been cold. Well, anyway…)
On Friday we paddled put-in at Drayton Harbour, just up the road from my friend’s house. The put-in point was rather disgusting. There was the carcass of a cleaned salmon and a few dungeness crab carapices rotting in the sun. But we launched. I don’t remember the name of the inlet we went up, but I want to say “Dakota Creek”. We paddled farther up than my friend had been before. The water was scummy-looking. I think it was dust that had settled on the still water. I have no idea how far inland it goes, but the tide was going out and we had to get back before we found ourselves slogging through the tidal flats.
Saturday was not a good day. It was the day I had to start back to Los Hidious. I mean “Los Angeles”. I bought an old Beaulieu 5008-S super-8 camera off of eBay, and the seller lived in Renton. Might as well save myself $30 shipping. I called the guy when I hit downtown Seattle, but I got his VM. I left VM and proceded to our arranged meeting point. After 15 minutes of waiting, I tried to call again. Again, there was the VM. Then I checked the number I had dialed. Then I dialed the correct number. He said he’d be 15 minutes, and arrived a half-hour later. My fault, though, for calling the wrong number an hour earlier. But then I somehow got on the 405 and didn’t realize it until I was in Bothell. Bloody! The diversion for the camera, and then the turn up the wrong road cut into my driving time on what is always a long, gruelling trip.
It was nearly ten when I started out, and I reckoned I wouldn’t get throuh Driver’s Purgatory (Oregon) until eight in the evening. If I drove straight throuh again, I wouldn’t get back to L.A. until six or seven in the morning. And the last hours would be torture. And I’d sleep in a hot apartment and feel like crap for the rest of the day. Or I could spend the night in Redding and drive all day.
I chose the latter. I stayed in the same Best Western I always stay in when I decide to stop. I got there around 23:00, got to sleep around midnight, and then awoke six hours later. From eight in the morning until four in the afternoon I drove. And drove. And drove.
Well, I’m home. I’m not too tired, but I have to work in the morning. The Cherokee is covered with 100 miles of dirt road and 2,500 miles of assorted other road grime and bugs. It looks like hell. Too bad. It’ll get washed when it gets washed.
I had a great trip. The paddling was excellent. Although I really like rain, I appreciated the dry weather we enjoyed on our excursion.
If only I didn’t have to come back!
(Yes, I bought Lottery tickets. 
)
