Sea Kayak Around Vancouver Island

Sea Kayaking Around Vancouver Island covers a full circumnavigation of Vancouver Island. If you are interested in a grand expedition, a week of summer touring, or a weekend excursion, this guidebook will give you the information you need. Each chapter covers a section of the island providing ample information on points of access, interesting sites, safe routes to travel, hazards to avoid, and comfortable campsites.

Until now, surprisingly little information has been available to those who want to paddle Vancouver Island's many waterways. Enter Gary Backlund and Paul Grey. Building on the success of their first book, Easykayaker: A Guide to Laid Back Vancouver Island Paddling, the authors have compiled a comprehensive reference book for paddlers of all skill levels. In Kayaking Vancouver Island, the paddling duo guide their readers through trips ranging from a lazy day excursion in Victoria's historic Gorge waterway to an exciting multi-day voyage around Meares Island in Clayoquot Sound. To research the book, the authors traveled from Sooke on the southern tip of the island to Port Hardy in the north, and from Zeballos on the west coast to Gabriola Island off the east coast. Along the way they interviewed local guides, outfitters and historians to get the most accurate information about their destinations. Combining a guidebook format with journal-like entries from their own travels, the authors cover everything from launch sites to lunch sites, which currents to avoid and which tides to ride. The book is also rich in local mythology, folklore and history. Writing with safety and (mostly) easy paddling in mind, Backlund and Grey rate paddling skills required for each area along with trip lengths and distances. They provide an insider's guide to local conditions and brief readers on tides, currents, charts, marine weather and coastal regulations.

For the experienced and novice alike, this comprehensive guide leads paddlers through some of the best kayaking waters on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Twenty trips are outlined, covering prime paddling destinations within Barkley and Clayoquot sounds, including the Deer Group, the Broken Group Islands, and Vargas, Flores and Meares islands. Each trip is headed with important information on tides, currents, safety considerations and launching. Included in each route description is practical information on the different land jurisdictions, campsites, suitable landings and paddling conditions. Sidebars embellish the history of shipwrecks, examine the Nuu-chah-nulth people and introduce interesting characters like Salal Joe and Fred Tibbs. Others detail some of the natural history of the west coast with topics ranging from grey whales to barnacles. This edition also provides well-researched information on the parks in the area, including Pacific Rim National Park and several parks within the BC Parks system.

In their successful, internationally published book A Boat in Our Baggage, Maria Coffey and Dag Goering described their year-long, worldwide expedition by kayak. Since then, they have continued to travel many parts of the globe, including some of the last truly wild places of the British Columbia coast. Their latest adventure - a 1,000-plus kilometre journey circumnavigating Vancouver Island in its entirety - is detailed and illustrated in Visions of the Wild. Coffey and Goering set off from their home on Protection Island, BC, in July 1999. For three months they confronted some of the most exposed, storm-battered coastlines British Columbia has to offer: infamous places such as Cape Scott, Estevan Point and the imposing Brooks Peninsula, all of which have become the sites of shipwrecks and fatalities. The voyagers experienced deadly currents, whirlpools and enormous waves, were buffeted relentlessly by wind and rain and spent many a wet, miserable camping trip ashore. But they also explored the serene waters of Nootka Sound, the Gulf Islands and the Broken Group Islands, where they saw stands of ancient rainforests interspersed with raw clearcuts, and spectacular vistas of ocean and sky juxtaposed with intricate coves, rocks and reefs. They had encounters with whales, bears, wolves, sea lions and puffins; and as they stopped at different Native villages, fishing ports and old homesteads, they made friends with many of the diverse people who call the island home. Brimming with breathtaking colour photographs and compelling journal entries from all stages of their exciting kayaking journey, Visions of the Wild is at once an inspiring chronicle of the adventure of a lifetime, and a beautiful book of photographs that rejoices in the untamed spirit of Canada's west coast.

This paddling guide to Desolation Sound and the Strait of Georgia provides historical travel information on a part of the Inner Passage between Vancouver Island and the BC mainland. Follow the Marine Trail up the east coast of Vancouver Island with perhaps a digression to Hornby or Denman islands. Or tackle the savage inflow-outflow winds of Jervis Inlet to reach the jewel of Princess Louisa Inlet.

The Gulf Islands are a group of a dozen large islands and hundreds of smaller islets located around the southern tip of Vancouver Island. Spectacular scenery, low rainfall and the many protected waterways offer ideal paddling conditions. Protected from the pounding waves and extreme weather associated with the open coast, the waters in this area provide hours of paddling for the novice and experienced paddler alike. Hundreds of kilometres of shoreline offer countless hours of intertidal exploration. Quiet coves, pebble beaches and sandy shores allow for putting ashore, exploring inland, setting up camp or for simply gazing seaward.