Whales and wild water

Phew... made it past the infamous Yuculta Rapids. But first let me back up...we saw our first WHALE! Right there in Lewis Straight as we paddled towards the Rendevous Islands. It was about 30-35ft long and did lazy laps from shore to shore. Pretty freaking cool!


Yesterday we got an early start to take advantage of the Flooding Tide and left Copeland Marine Park at 6:30 AM. The tide helped us out right up to the point that it flows the opposite way at the northern part of Vancouver Island... about Quadra Island. So coming off being jazzed about the whale we start paddling in mud (Lauri's name for it) at about a third of our previous speed. So the last 2 hours of an 11 hour paddling day was a bit painful, but it was about to get more interesting. Just as we explored the last island that we could camp on we found one tent location and off in the distance we see 7 other kayakers headed our way. Hmmm. They too were setting up to time some rapids near this camp spot... and there were no other places to camp....so what could we say? Sure join us... the Guides were great and their clients enjoyable, but man were we tired.


This morning we all got paddling before 8AM, but it turned out Lauri and I had barely enough time to catch slack tide at Yuculta due to a stupid head wind that pummeled us. What was supposed to be a leisurely approach to the rapid entrance was a rushed affair, but we made it! We intended to also pass through Dent rapids on the same slack water, but we'd spent to much energy so we pulled into Big Bay and found a place to camp... pretty damn early, but we were beat.


Sorry we haven't written more... way to much to do. Every day is a puzzle to sort out where we should be and how we are going to get there safely. We are trying to take what Mother Nature gives us, but as it turns out she has a twisted sense of humor. This area is glorious but we are on our toes ALL THE TIME! Thumb typing is not my forte... please overlook autocorrect, typos, spelling and punctuation.