One of my favourite activities on Vancouver Island when I was younger was kayaking.
I would load up my kayak with all the gear I would need for several days on the water and, either by myself or with others, would head out to sea to visit the many islands and beaches in the Salish Sea and off of Tofino on the west coast.
It was thrilling and relaxing, and I enjoyed the opportunity to get away from my day-to-day life and spend time just enjoying being one with nature.
Unfortunately, hip problems and surgery in recent years have severely curtailed these journeys as I can’t sit in a kayak longer than a half hour at a time without my hips starting to scream at me to stand up and move around.
But I do have my memories, and there are a lot of them.
One of my first big solo trips shortly after I moved to Vancouver Island was an island-hopping expedition in which I left from my beach-side apartment in Nanoose Bay and headed for the Bellenas Islands for lunch and then paddled across the strait to Sangster Island, which is near the southern end of Lasqueti Island, where I spent the night.
I set up my tent and got a fire going and was getting ready to go to sleep as I had a long day of paddling the next day, when I heard a low keening sound coming from the grassy field just off the beach where I had set up my tent.
Being new to the region, I couldn’t identify what I was hearing, but my fevered imagination was picturing a starving cougar that had drifted to the barren island on a log and now saw an opportunity for fresh meat.
I started yelling in the direction from where the noise was coming from and jumped up and down to make myself look bigger in the hope that I would scare whatever it was away, but the keening sound continued unabated.
I built up the fire, which was easy as the beach was full of dry driftwood, so I could see the field more clearly in the dark and sat by the fire for the rest of the evening anticipating an attack.
The unnerving sound continued all night long and when dawn finally broke, I tore down my tent as fast as I could, loaded up the kayak and shot out of that bay like a bullet.
(I later discovered that the sound was actually a tiny and harmless tree frog, a creature I had not encountered until that point. It’s amazing what one’s imagination can conjure up.)
About five hours later, I finally arrived at my final destination; Jedediah Island Marine Park, located near Texada Island, which is a popular destination for kayakers from Vancouver and the Sunshine Coast.
It was late in the season, however, and I didn’t see anyone else, so I set up in an apple orchard that was owned by the family that once lived there.
As I was cooking lunch, an old horse, a leftover from an abandoned farm, came over to make my acquaintance and then walked to the nearest apple tree, which was full of ripe apples higher in the tree than the horse could reach.
The animal made it clear that he wanted help to get the apples down so I picked up a long stick and started hitting the higher branches, which brought a cascade of apples down to the ground.
I left the horse to its meal and continued to make my lunch.
About a half hour later, something from behind knocked me hard off the log I was sitting on and, as I lay on my back, the horse was staring down at me and started gesturing toward the other trees in the orchard.
I spent the next two days at the horse’s beck and call before I started to head home.
Kayaking is a lot of fun folks, so get out there while you still can.
robert.barron@cowichanvalleycitizen.com
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