Winter paddling adventures off Tofino, Clayoquot Sound

Here’s a secret about Tofino: Some of the best sea kayaking here is over the winter months! We often get a high pressure system sitting just off the coast – which leads to crisp, sunny, windless days. The swell might still be big, so you can’t land your kayak easily at beaches exposed to the surf – but you can sure get out on the water! And that’s what Dave and I did yesterday – experienced the best of Clayoquot Sound from the water!

Dave and I had never paddled a double kayak together before. We wanted to try it out – and, since we were only going out for a day paddle, rather than use up short daylight hours loading/unloading our singles from the truck, we got a rental boat from Tofino Sea Kayaking Co. (where I used to work as a sea kayak guide!).

It was just on low tide when we launched, so we first headed out towards the open ocean as the flood current started to build.

Then we looped around Lennard Island. I don’t think I have ever seen the seas this flat out here! Then we caught the flood current in, along the shores of Echachist and Wickaninnish Island, past the village of Opitsaht, and up Lemmens Inlet, Meares Island.

Yay – Dave even took a picture of me! (Being the photographer, I don’t usually get many pictures of myself – especially nice ones!)

There’s a little secret spot I wanted to check out (I actually have a lot of “secret spots” in Clayoquot Sound) where two small salmon streams – creeks, really – come out into a quiet little bay. I remembered that the salmon runs here were quite late, so I wanted to go and see if we could see the fish going up.

Turns out we had just missed the fish – but not by much. There were bear trails all through the forest here – well used! – and lots of bear poops out on the estuary, and salmon scraps littered throughout the forest. (That’s why these salmon-river ecosystems are so rich and productive: because of all of the natural fish fertilizer the bears spread through the rainforest). So, we had missed the spawn – but not by much. As you can see, the rainforest here was just so beautiful – so wild, so serene – that we were just happy to be here, salmon or not.

We were travelling so fast (double kayaks go much faster than singles, and we are both quite strong paddlers – oh, and we had the optimum tides for this route) that we even had time to paddle farther up the inlet, to historic Adventure Cove, before turning around and heading back to Tofino. Here we are just after 4pm, almost sunset… a great six hours on the water.