This was the first time we had taken a week off of work in the middle of the summer to do a kayak trip. Generally we avoid this time of year due to the number of people enjoying the coastal waters like us, making it more difficult to find that perfect camping spot. Initially we thought about going to a more remote location, Ocean Falls in particular, in order to avoid the congestion of the more local, and thus busier, islands. This didn’t pan out as travel requirements, including the ferry schedules, would not have left us enough time to really enjoy the area. We searched our charts and came across Jedediah Island, a small marine park located between the southern end of Texada Island and Lasqueti Island. It looked to be just off the beaten path enough to suit our purposes. After doing a little research on the island we found there was an old homestead to investigate, feral goats and sheep to look for and lots of trails crisscrossing the island for day hikes. We decided this would be the destination for our trip. We also planned to camp in the one spot for the four nights we were going to be out so this would make for a relaxing trip.Onto the trip. As the beginning of our week off coincided with the BC Day long weekend we planned to wa
it until Monday to put-in and head over to Jedediah. The idea being that the long weekend boaters would be heading home as we were heading out. We took the Horseshoe Bay ferry to Langdale on Sunday afternoon and made the short drive up to Sechelt where we had a hotel room reserved for the night. The hotel was situated just across the highway from the ocean so we were able to wander over and enjoy the pier in the bay and a beautiful sunset that evening. The pier was packed with people fishing, crabbing, and diving off the end of it. The water temperature was as warm as it was on a previous trip to Desolation Sound, so it was no wonder the people were enjoying diving and jumping off the pier.We woke up Monday morning to wind, and lots of it. Enough wind to make us start considering our alternate plans, of which we had none. Sechelt Inlet came to mind and then we dismissed it as it was likely to be a very busy paddling area due to the time of year and its fairly protected waterways. We decided to head up to Secret Cove anyways, our original put-in location, and play it by ear. We had made arrangements previously with the operators of Buccaneer Bay Marina, in Secret Cove, to use their boat launch as a put-in and their parking facilities for our truck. As we made the short drive up the Sunshine Coast we saw that the wind seemed to be dying off a bit. Once we got to Secret Cove it was pretty much impossible to tell what the outside waters were like as it was so protected in Buccaneer Bay. We finally decided to go ahead and load the boats and head out, the worst case scenario being we turn around and come back if the water conditions weren’t favourable. By the time we were loaded and ready to go it was already nine am, an hour later than our intended departure time due to our indecision of the early morning.
We left the calm waters of Secret Cove and paddled out into the beginning of the open strait. There was about a foot and a half to two foot chop but nothing we didn’t feel comfortable in. We decided to continue on over to the north tip of North Thormanby Island where we could take a look at the crossing ahead before committing ourselves. This crossing of Malaspina Strait, over to Texada Island, was going to be the longest open water crossing we had ever made. We had read that the water here could get bad, very quickly, so we were approaching it with quite a bit of caution. At just under eight kilometres of open water, about an hour and a half paddle, there would be lots of time for the weather to take a turn for the worse and put us in a compromised position. We tend to err on the side of safety and so far it has allowed us to enjoy our trips with only minor incidents that serve to remind us of the power the water has, and the respect it
deserves.
We got out of the boats on North Thormanby, walked to a little higher ground in order to view the strait and listened to the forecast on the vhf. Everything looked good, the water even looked much calmer than the crossing we had just made. It looked a long way off to Texada Island though so we started out on the crossing with a little concern lurking in the back of our minds. Everything went really well on the crossing until about the six kilometre mark. A northwest wind picked up, hitting us head on and slowing our progress from a solid 6.5 km/hr average down to about 4.5 to 5. It was also blowing us a little farther south than we wanted and we ended up having to fight our way towards the light marker on the south western tip of Texada. We followed the western shoreline up Texada for about half a kilometre to a sheltered bay where we could rest up for a few minutes. The water conditions hadn’t been too bad, we never felt threatened in them, we were just getting worn out from the headwind. I did see one river otter make its way down the rocks and into the water while paddling along Texada. After a short rest we fought the wind again as we crossed Sabine Channel and made our way to Home Bay, on Jedediah’s eastern coast. Just before getting to Home Bay we came across a group of young kayakers, in their twenties by the look of things, just heading back the way we had come and not one of them was wearing a lifejacket. We couldn’t believe anyone would make a crossing like that without a lifejacket on. They say God takes care of fools and drunks so I hoped they each qualified on at least one count. We never heard of any incidents in the news so everything must have gone alright.
We got to Home Bay and saw the old homestead right away, it is located directly across the bay from where we set up camp. There was another group of kayakers there just finishing packing up and getting ready to meet their water taxi for the trip home. There was also another small group about to leave on their powerboat, after that it looked like the site was ours. The only problem we found with Home Bay was that when the tide was out, it was really out. The entire bay empties and it is quite a chore to haul gear over the soft, clam filled mud of the bay. As it was only one thirty we tied a line to the boats and then attached a rock to the other end and basically just waited for the boats to float to us as the tide came in. It didn’t hurt us to get this break before having to set up camp as we were pretty beat from the paddle over. It’s a beautiful camping spot with lots of room for a large group. We set up at the eastern edge of the campsite, with nice views across the bay and back out over Sabine Channel. The only downside we discovered later was that the wind would blow right through our site. Small price to pay we figured. As we were setting up our camp a pair of triple kayaks pulled up to the beach. Four adults and two young kids set up at the other end of the beach. A really nice bunch of people. Gayle, Susan, Wendy, and Mike. We got the feeling that Gayle was a fairly well travelled kayaker. Their plans were to stay until Saturday so we ended up spending some time with them over the course of the week. Lila cooked up a nice chicken stir fry for our supper and then we basically settled in and watched the sun disappear over the trees, a beautiful sunset to end the day. We did notice a group of people had arrived by boat and were milling around the homestead for some reason. I got the binoculars and found they all had some pretty fancy camera equipment, pointed over in our general direction. After about an hour they all piled back into their boat and left and it wasn’t until I got up later and looked behind us that I saw the huge full moon on display in a dark blue sky. It was as spectacular as the sunset was.Tuesday arrived and with it came the wind. We had planned on exploring the island on foot today so it didn’t matter that we weren’t able to get out in the boats. One of the benefits of a relaxed trip like this is the breakfasts. We (Lila more often than not) can take the time to make a big breakfast like this morning’s one of omelettes and toast. It really does beat oatmeal and a juice box. After breakfast we headed out for a walk over to the homestead. The home was actually used up into the 1990’s, the time that the island was sold and turned into a marine park.
There’s the home there, along with several outbuildings in various states of disrepair. The home and the workshop are all sealed off so you can’t get into them but there is an old barn out back in the orchard that is still accessible and holds equipment once used to work the land. The rooms in the home were very small and you could see signs of updating that had been done over the years, such as wood panelling in a couple of the rooms. The shop still had some of the old tools in it, a set of old storage drawers, and benches and shelves, you can almost imagine working in it now. We continued on past the home area and out around the orchard and barn. It really is amazing that all these structures and trees are still here just the way they would have been when the island was operated as a working farm. We then walked through the back pasture and started along the trail that would take us over to Deep Bay, on the northwest side of the island. We are finding that this island is also very popular with the power-boaters. There are a couple of bays on the island’s western shore where they can anchor and then come ashore to wander the trails as we were doing. You can’t walk very far without running into someone here. It seems busy but not crowded, if that makes any sense. The trails are easy walking and we got to Deep Bay and found a few power boats and a couple of sailboats anchored there. We made our way back towards Home Bay and then took another trail that went over to Long Bay, situated a little ways south of Deep Bay. At one time there was a wild horse, named Will, living on the island. He was a huge attraction to everyone who visited but he passed away in 2003 and has been buried beside the trail which goes to Long Bay. As we walked past the bay, on a search for a geocache in the area, we heard sheep up in the nearby hills. We made note of the spot and would try to find them when we returned this way. We located the cache on a small hill overlooking Jervis Island to the northwest. The views are beautiful here anytime you can get a bit of altitude. We started back and found a game trail up into the area where we heard the sheep. We didn’t have to follow it very far to find a small herd of sheep up in the bush. They were really skittish because as soon as they saw us they took off, about twenty-five of them in all. We got back to camp for lunch and then just lay around relaxing for the afternoon. One nice item we brought with us on this trip was a hammock. It packs down to nothing yet when set up two people can sit in it comfortably. It really is a luxury to be able to sit up off the ground.
We went for another short walk in the evening, this time south along the eastern shore towards Codfish Bay. Partway down the trail Lila spotted some feral goats on the ridge above us. The horns on some of these animals were huge. The goats didn’t spook quite as easily as the sheep so we were able to get lots of pictures of them. We got to Codfish Bay and then headed back to camp, stopping at Driftwood Beach, amazed at the huge amount of driftwood that’s been deposited here over the years. The beach faces southeast into Sabine Channel and has no protection from the winter storms coming from that direction. We got back to camp and while making supper saw that a herd of about twenty goats had made their way to the small meadow directly behind our camp to graze. I went and let Gayle and her group know and we all sat around watching the goats feed, taking way more pictures than necessary. We called it an early night after our late supper and fell as
leep listening to the wind continue to howl through our camp.Wednesday showed up along with Tuesday’s wind. No paddling again today as the forecast did not say it would be letting up until late Wednesday, possibly Thursday. So this morning, after another big breakfast of hashbrowns, eggs, and bacon, we decided to try and find our way up Gibraltar Hill. We set out past Codfish Bay and turned the gps on as there was a geocache located somewhere down this way. Shortly after starting out Lila came across a goat skull and we set it aside to pick up on our return. The skull was perfectly intact, including all the teeth except for one. Once we started climbing we came across tape in the trees, indicating the path up to the summit. It was a pretty good climb in a short distance but the view from the summit made the effort worth it. The peak topped out at about 150 metres (just shy of 500 feet) and took approximately one
kilometre in distance to reach it. At the summit was a large rock cairn with a sealed pvc tube laying on top of it. Unscrewing the end of the tube we found it crammed full of notes from people who had been here previously. The tube was about four inches in diameter and close to two feet long and you could hardly get another note in. The geocache was located quite a ways southwest of us yet so we decided to leave it as it would take another couple hours of hard climbing and bushwhacking to get to it. We made our way back down the trail, retrieved the goat skull and got back to camp in time for lunch.We watched as a double kayak pulled up onto the low tide mud flats and a father and his eleven year old daughter started packing gear across the bay to the homestead. We went and gave them a hand and got talking for a bit and the fellow turned out to be Hugh Culver, brother to Dan Culver who had died while descending K2 and whose estate was partially responsible for purchasing Jedediah Island and turning it into a marine park. Hugh is the chair of the ‘Dan Culver Follow Your Dream Foundation’ and for the past ten years has been bringing groups of kids to Jedediah to learn life and leadership skills.
Since it was low tide we were able to walk across the mud flats to the island that shelters Home Bay. That little passage is full of sand dollars. We have never seen so many in one place before. You could hardly take a step without hitting one. We climbed up to a bluff on the island and just enjoyed the view and relaxed for a bit. We then returned to the homestead site where we came across a bunch of sheep grazing in the orchard. I was able to get quite close to them this time just by freezing every time they sensed something and looked up. After a couple seconds they would go back to feeding and I could work my way closer in. This kind of excitement can only last so long so we headed back to camp where we found our neighbours had built a raft for the kids out of scavenged logs and debris. They called it the Narwhal Raft due to the driftwood horn they attached to the front of it. The kids had a blast on this as their dad pulled them around and they used kayak paddles to help manoeuvre it.After we had finished supper Lila talked me into making up some brownies in the outback oven and we took them over and visited for a bit with our new friends. Off to bed after the visit, hoping for a calmer day tomorrow.
Thursday. No wind! A quick pancake breakfast this morning and right to the boats. It felt good to be paddling again and we were both glad it looked like we would be able to get around Jedediah like we had planned. We headed north along the eastern shore, just poking along enjoying being
out on the water again. There are always certain things that stick in your mind after paddling in different areas and here it was the bright green color on some small, rocky islets off the northern point of Jedediah. It looked like a bright green neon blanket had been laid over the rocks. Add in a couple of oystercatchers with their bright red bills and it really stands out. The mind is funny in that you are unable to choose what pictures will remain in your memory, but you know when you see it that you won’t forget it for a very long time. The weather was holding out for us so we decided to cross over the northern end of Jervis Island and explore a bunch of small islands to the west of it. We got into these islands and it reminded us somewhat of the Broken Group Islands in Barkley Sound with its protected lagoons and waterways. There were also more seals in this one area than we had ever seen before. Every rocky point you came across 
would have upwards of a dozen seals sunning themselves. We would keep our distance from them but they would still end up sliding into the water and then popping up all around our kayaks. It wasn’t uncommon to turn around and find half a dozen seals following you. We could have spent hours playing in this area but we continued on around Jervis and crossed back over to the north side of Paul Island and now started working our way down the western shore of Jedediah. I was following the rocky shoreline really closely as we came around the top end of Paul Island and when I rounded one point all of a sudden there was a big seal right beside me, within about four feet. He was just as surprised as I was and immediately came down off the rocks and into the water right beside the bow of my boat. We passed by Deep Bay where all the power boats were anchored, paddled past Boom Bay where there were a few more, and then we went up into Long Bay. We couldn’t go up the bay very far as the tide was going out and it is a very shallow bay like Home Bay is but we did come across a couple of raccoons feeding at the water’s edge. We continued on and followed the coastline i
nto Little Bull Passage. It is a very scenic passageway with high bluffs on either side. On a sidenote, we later found out that the geocache we quit looking for was accessible from a beach located in this passage. There was one more geocache we wanted to find so we followed the gps to the coordinates listed for this cache. It put us about 125 metres off the southeastern tip of Jedediah Island. I don’t think we were going to find this one either. We later read that another fellow had the same result we did. Paddled back up the eastern shore of Jedediah and finished our daytrip with a long kayak haul to camp as it was an extremely low tide. Just as we were arriving back from our day paddle a water taxi had pulled up to the rocks at the entrance to Home Bay and was dropping off six kayaks, five singles and a double, and their seven paddlers. They set up camp behind us, close to Driftwood Beach where there is a nice group site but lacks the views of Home Bay and Sabine Channel.It was only 12:30 when we got back to Home Bay so we had lunch and then kicked back on the small bluff beside camp with our books and set out to enjoy the sun, without any wind. There seemed to be a constant stream of visitors walking through the area, lots of power boaters day hiking around the island. Not much to really note about this afternoon except that it made for a really nice time, had done all the hiking we wanted to, got our paddling daytrip in, now we could just relax in the sun. When we got tired of the sun, we would cool off in the hammock in the shade of the trees.
Shortly before supper our neighbours invited us over for appetizers and a drink so we had a nice visit with them for a bit. They had got more company themselves this afternoon as three friends of Gayle’s who lived on Lasqueti had paddled over for a visit. We made our way back to our camp and had supper and then started preparing for the paddle back to Secret Cove on Friday. We took down the tarps and hammock, packed up everything we wouldn’t need Friday morning and basically got ready for a quick exit first thing in the am. The forecast had called for light and variable winds Thursday evening and Friday but as we went to bed we could hear the winds picking up again. All we could do was hope for calm weather and wait to see what the morning would bring.
We awoke Friday morning at six am and couldn’t hear any wind. We listened to the weather forecast
and they were reporting strong winds in the area. We got up and took a look and everything looked great. The Balenas and Merry Islands automated weather stations were both reporting winds under five knots so we were set to go. Lila set out a quick breakfast for us as I packed up the sleeping bags, sleeping pads, and the tent and we were ready to go in good time. With our boats loaded and our gear on we said goodbye to Gayle and company and started back across Sabine Channel. The wind was minimal and the swells were topping out at no more than eighteen inches. We cruised around the southern tip of Texada and started off towards North Thormanby. Eight kilometres is a lot of open water but the crossing went smoothly for us, it just seemed like we were paddling forever and the Thormanby Islands weren’t getting any closer. We finally made it across and got out of 
the boats for a well deserved break on the sandy shores of North Thormanby. The high sandy cliffs of this island are pretty impressive. We probably would have spent more time exploring them but we had that end of trip, rush home feeling upon us. We made the short crossing over to Secret Cove and paddled back to the boat launch at Buccaneer Bay where the trip had begun.Jedediah Island was everything we had heard it would be. You could set up camp and not be confined to your small beach area as you are at some locations. All the walking trails and the old homestead made for interesting days when we weren’t on the water. Even though there are several other designated camping spots on the island I think we would return to Home Bay. Long Bay is just too far a walk with gear if the tide is out and the other bays, while they have steeper beaches, seem to be filled with power boats. You shouldn’t come to this island in the middle of the summer and expect peace and quiet. It’s just too popular a spot with kayakers, sail-boaters, and power- boaters. As kayakers, if planning to paddle to Jedediah, I think you would need to be ready to spend some extra time here if the wind came up and kept you from paddling back across the strait, or be prepared to call the water taxi if necessary. One of the highlights of this trip was paddling around the islets just off the northwest shore of Jervis Island. Highly recommend this area. I can see us returning to Jedediah Island but probably more towards the shoulder seasons, weather permitting. While we did meet some really good people on this trip, Gayle and company, Hugh Culver and daughter Claire, and a couple who left on Tuesday in their nineteen foot Lightning sailboat, the number of people wandering through the campsite did get a little tiresome. All in all, a trip well worth doing and no regrets what-so-ever.
Total distance paddled - 56.8 km.
Related links:
Jedediah Island Picasa Web Album
Jedediah Island Marine Provincial Park
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