Broken Group Islands - Lots of pics | SouthernPaddler.com

Broken Group Islands - Lots of pics

bcwetcoast

Well-Known Member
Feb 11, 2012
92
0
I'm a little late in putting this together.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I along with 4 other couples spent a week kayaking the Broken Group Islands. They are located on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, at the mouth of Barkley Sound and are part of the Pacific Rim National Park.


As you can see, if you stand on your tippy toes and look west, maybe put on your glasses, you can see Japan. Most of the water in among the islands is fairly sheltered, a few of the channels and the outer islands can get pretty lumpy. As a couple of people on our trip had all of two evenings kayak practice, we didn't do a lot of adventurous travel.

There is camping available on the Islands, but the campsites are pretty rustic. All that is provided are pit toilets and the campsites are located where there is a sandy beach where the boats can be pulled up on. There is a fee for camping, but none for just paddling or boating and anchoring. There are no Rangers or Parks staff on the Islands, they are located near Tofino (Long Beach) another area of the park. The lodge where we stayed has the contract to collect the camping fees, so there are a couple of university summer students whose job is to boat out to the campsites each day and collect the fees.

Given this lack of support, people are expected to be pretty self reliant.

Our journey started in the town of Port Alberni, where we boarded the coastal freighter/ferry for the trip down the Alberni Canal to Sechart Lodge where we stayed.



Here is the Frances Barkley sitting at the dock at Sechart Lodge. The trip takes about 4 hours depending on the number of freight stops it has to make.



Here is unloading feed for a Black Cod fish farm




Here is Sechart Lodge where we stayed. My wife and I wanted to camp, but for a few people in our group, roughing means going from a 5 star to a 3 star, so camping was out of the question. This was and old logging camp and is still used from time to time by forestry crews working in the hills behind the lodge. It is also the stopping off point for kayakers who are going to camp on the Islands. There is also a water taxi available from a relatively close road access point.

Meals were served buffet style and they provided a packed lunch for the next day. One nice thing, and I'm not sure how they were able to do it, was that you could bring your own bottles of beer or wine to the meals. This led to a relaxing evening and allowed different groups who were staying at the lodge to mingle and socialize with others more.













Some random shots of the scenery where we paddled. Mrs Wetcoast is in the blue plastic kayak. I bought these Necky Elsia used from the local kayak rental shop cheap. They worked really well for this trip as I didn't have to worry about them on the barnacle encrusted rocks.

We also saw a bunch of different wildlife. The highlight was a group of Grey whales feeding in the area. These are the same ones that winter in the Baja so apparently are quite used to people and boats. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures as they surface faster than I could get my camera out. (I know without pictures they didn't exist).

The most exciting was when one surfaced about 100' from my boat. We had watched it surface a fair distance away in this large bay, and it looked like it was traveling around the edge. Then all of a sudden it came up in the middle of our boats aiming towards friends of ours in a double about 200' away. All I could hear was the husband yelling "PADDLE PADDLE".






Seals




Bear

Scrawny island deer (not a lot of food)



And more eagles than we knew what to do with.

One day we travelled to the outer islands, which is about 12 miles from the lodge. Most of the group weren't strong enough to round trip it so we arranged for the water taxi to come and pick us up and take us back to the lodge.


A few more random scenery shots.












Thanks for sharing a bit of my corner of paradise. Sorry about the picture thumbnails. This is the first time I've done this and haven't figured out how to change picture size.


 

bcwetcoast

Well-Known Member
Feb 11, 2012
92
0
They didn't have to outrun it, they paddled perpendicular to its path. However, the next time we saw it surface it was 1/4 mile away in the opposite direction. There it decided it would be a fine time to jump out of the water. Spectacular.