Chapter 2 – More Silver Than Gray
While our guides prepare breakfast in their rudimentary camp kitchen — their backs hunched against the cold wind — the rest of us gather in a line parallel to the shore, huddled around our warm mugs of coffee and cocoa and contemplate the wind-raw, Stygianesque sea before us; black as unfiltered molasses, its wind-driven waves jumping like a mass migration of spawning salmon. A sea that, with the stubbornness of a teenager, seems determined to shed itself of its Pacific disposition. A sea that, in less than an hour, we will attempt to cross in our small fleet of sea kayaks.
This is not the forecasted gale, predicted to arrive during the night, but a sober, no-nonsense emissary sent in its stead.
Gray is the morning’s common denominator. West of us, the pre-gale winds push before it coal-smoke colored clouds, like wild animals fleeing heedless and scared before a wildfire. Across Johnstone Strait the mountain peaks of West Cracroft and Harbledown Islands are hidden behind dense gray clouds. Even the eastern sky, which is still clear of clouds, is the 40-watt gray of an Alaskan summer midnight.
A few minutes later our guides, Caroline and Scott, announce that breakfast is ready, and while we eat our banana bread, cantaloupe, and hot oatmeal, they explain to us our situation. And choices.
Scott begins. “We’re always monitoring the weather service channel, and for the last 48 hours they’ve been predicting the arrival of a gale. You have no doubt already noticed an increase in the wind and choppiness out there on Johnstone Strait. The weather service is predicting that the gale will hit our area in two to three hours. When it does, the winds will rise to 35 knots, which will make it too dangerous to cross. But, before the gale hits us, we have a window where we can cross. And when we make it to the other side, even if the gale hits us, we’ll be safely tucked on the lee side of Swanson Island.”
“But,” Scott continues, “I’m sure you’ve noticed that the sea has already grown some big, sharp teeth. As far as safety goes, I think we’re fine, but crossing the strait under these conditions will be very tiring and cold. We understand if you don’t feel comfortable going across today. If anyone’s not comfortable we can spend another day here in camp. Caroline and I will give you some time to discuss this and decide what you want to do.”
It doesn’t take us long to decide that we want to cross the strait. Yes, it will be tiring and cold but what an adventure! And in making that decision we also agree that with the gale’s imminent arrival, we should leave as soon as possible to get in front of it if we can.
We eat our breakfast quickly and disassemble to take down our tents, and pack away the camp kitchen. When I return to the beach with my tents, sleeping bags and personal gear — packed into dry bags — Scott and Isaac are already carrying the kayaks from their overnight resting place above the high tide across the beach to the sea’s edge. I drop my gear next to the sea-side kayaks and, with the help of Keith, who arrived with his gear just behind me, join Scott and Isaac in bringing the high-tide kayaks down to the water’s edge. Rush, rush!
When we have carried all seven kayaks to the sea’s edge, we pack our gear into their several hatches. The kayaks are surprisingly spacious. The single kayaks have storage compartments in the bow and stern, and the double kayaks have an additional compartment between the two seats. Our tiny fleet is comprised of three single kayaks and four double kayaks.
When everything is loaded, I step into my spray skirt, put on my life preserver and cinch it down to the tightness of an Elizabethan corset.
Our guide Caroline issues a last bit of advice before we push off. “Everyone try to stay together,” she tells us. “If you find you’re too far out in front, slow down and wait for the rest to catch up.”
Today I’m sharing a double kayak with Femke Van Balen, a 31-year old lawyer from Holland. Together we carry our elegant seacraft into the sea, and yoga-wobble our way into our seats. I’m in the front, she’s in the back: rudder control. We snap our spray skirts over our cockpits.
Our guide Scott points to an island across the strait and says, “We’re aiming for the eastern tip of that island.” Hanson Island. It seems a long distance away. Then he leads us into the boiling grayscape of Johnstone Strait.
The steeply peaked waves of the turbulent strait, when viewed from water level, look like the serrations of bread knives. Row upon row, ceaselessly cutting their way eastward.
The rain arrives when we’re perhaps a third of the way across the strait. At first it’s gentle and slow. The drops hit the water with the “poip” sound of a stopper being pulled from a vial. But it quickly builds in both volume and intensity, and soon the raindrops are the size of acorns, and they dash upon the hulls of our kayaks with a sound like typewriter keys whacking against the platen with the fervor of someone writing an angry letter. The acorn-rain nipples the surface of the sea, and increases still further until the sound of it blurs into white noise, and our target, Hanson Island, disappears behind its thick veil.
The wind, out of the northwest, grows stronger and the waves grow taller, until they’re two feet high and choppy. Roller coaster waves. Femke and I try to roll over the crests of the waves as smoothly as we can. When we do, we slide smoothly down the backside of the wave. But sometimes in our aggressive paddling we catch a little air as we pass over the crest and this causes us to slap down on the backside of the wave and that causes the next wave to crash over us, which strikes us near the bottom of our rib cages, which hinders our forward progress.
After about thirty minutes of paddling, Caroline yells out that we’re halfway across. The waves have grown even larger. After another ten minutes of paddling, we have passed far enough through the rain that Hanson Island becomes visible once again.
It’s like kayaking through three miles of class III rapids. After an hour of non-stop paddling the muscles in my neck and shoulders feel like wire in a fence brace that’s been drawn tight with a twisted stick, and they’re burning like a Texas science book. My glasses are frosted over with sea salt adding another coat of gray to this gray day. But I can’t stop paddling to clean them.
As we near Hanson Island the rain stops, and a few minutes later, we pull into the island’s protective lee. I give a sigh as big as a whale spout. We are halfway to camp. We still have to cross Blackfish Sound, which our guides inform us, is as wide as the strait we just crossed and will most likely be just as rough.
We paddle slowly around the protective side of Hanson Island to allow ourselves time to catch our breath and give our muscles time to re-oxygenate. I clean the sea salt off my glasses.
We paddle through a narrow passage between Parson and Harbeldown Islands, and then the narrow passage opens onto Blackfish Sound, which we will cross next. We can see waves churning two feet high. Caroline tells us that Blackfish is the Haida (a native American nation that inhabits the British Columbia mainland and many of its islands) name for Orcas. And Blackfish Sound is the perfect name for this strait, at least on a stormy day like this. I realize that whoever named it undoubtedly meant sound in the nautical term meaning a narrow passage between islands, but today it could have been named after the sound an orca makes when breathing. The waves crashing against the rocks are spraying water ten to fifteen feet in the air with the sounds of spouting blackfish: Pashoo. Kachee. Hawhoosh.
Crossing Blackfish Sound is very similar in intensity and duration as crossing Johnstone Strait. A few more twists are given to the stick that tightens the muscles in my neck and shoulders.
As we progress, we pass Malcolm Island and then looking to the northwest, into the wind, we see nothing but open sea and the curve of the earth. North and northeast of us we see the first of a long chain containing hundreds of islands, and our guides steer us into them and we enter the Broughton Archipelago. Our guides choose an island with a beach inside a protective elbow and lead us into it just as the last of the clouds dissipate. Camp.
We carry our kayaks to a safe place above the high tide mark, and while our guides prepare lunch, Mark strings up a clothesline near the center of camp and we strip off our wet outer layers and hang them across the line to dry in the sun.
It’s a beautiful camp with ferns, tall grass and red alders growing along sea edge and behind that the tall Sitkas. Old Man’s Beard, a type of lichen, hangs from the branches of the alders like faded prayer flags.
I stand on the beach in the full sunshine. After a day of cold ablutions, it feels good to stand with my back to the sun soaking up its heat. My shivering shadow falls on the gravelly beach like the hole left by the missing puzzle piece.
Our view from camp is to the northwest and north and we can see island after island, extending away and away, all of them covered in towering alders and spruce that catch the day’s soft light like Tuscan steeples. Beautiful.
British Columbia’s run for Miss Congeniality may be at stake today, but her beauty crown remains tightly intact.
