Seniors: My old man and the sea
September-October 1994
This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
by Susan Noppe
Susan's dad isn't a senior yet, at only 55 years of age, but this is such a touching father/daughter story, we just had to include it. Susan is an engineer, adventurer, tour guide, and writer whose work will be appearing in WaveLength as often as possible.
The yellow bull kelp covers the waters around our kayaks. We paddle north through it and dense fog which keeps us pulled close to the rocky shoreline of Flores Island, navigating cautiously. Suddenly, not forty feet off the bow of my boat, a grey whale breaches the ocean surface, arches its massive barnacled back then flips its tail flukes skyward as it dives back down. Wide-eyed and back paddling, I spin around to look back at my companion who's fumbling for his camera. "Well, was that close enough, Dad?" I gasp.
Until the day before, my 55 year old father had never been in a kayak. Yet here he was now in Clayoquot Sound on the exposed outside coast of Vancouver Island thirty-five kilometres northwest of Tofino surrounded by whales. "Holy Christmas," one of his most extreme expletives, was about all he could muster. Once again, I'd dragged Dad, on his summer break from teaching high school, out on another adventure. Although a seasoned open canoeist, this was the ocean and he was still a little unsure of the stability of his new craft and the nature of the monsters surrounding it.
Earlier in the day, floating in our kayaks on calm seas with clear blue skies overhead, we had relaxed for a couple of hours and watched three grey whales from a much greater distance, a hundred metres or so, and that had been exciting enough. But we hadn't expected them here in the kelp entangled, fog-bound approach to Hot Springs Cove.
We had spent the morning navigating by compass until the sun burnt off the morning mist revealing an excellent sandy cove perfect for a lunch landing. Now, late in the day, fog encircled again, we were back to using the compass, following the shoreline and listening for the fog horns that would signal the entrance to Hot Springs Cove. The lure of soaking in natural hot springs and enjoying some home made wine kept us paddling and listening.
We couldn't have imagined that Hot Springs Cove would surpass our previous night's camping spot, on one of the Whaler Islets, a day's paddle northwest of Tofino. Almost the entire length of the 300 metre long islet consisted of fine white sand. Both ends of the islet were capped by rocky outcrops tufted by pines. An abundance of blue and orange starfish clung to the barnacle and mussel covered intertidal rocks. We had been reluctant to leave this beautiful islet in the morning to brave the fog - hot springs or no hot springs.
But by now the fog horns had reached their crescendo and were bleating more softly behind us. After two days and 42 kilometres of paddling we'd reached Hot Springs Cove.
We landed our kayaks in a small rock cobbled bay, pulled them well above the hide tide debris line and packed up our gear so we could camp next to the springs. A short forest scramble led us out onto a well maintained wood plank boardwalk which winds its way through lush green undergrowth and rain forest to the geothermal springs.
Although these hot springs host large crowds chartered in by float planes and boats most weekends, this was late Sunday afternoon and there was only a small gathering of bathers.
These springs could well be the most beautifully located ones in all of B.C.. And unlike many other hot springs, they have not been "improved." No ceramic tiles or concrete here. Not many bathing suits either.
The springs bubble up from the earth and flow out of the main stream at about 50 degrees Celsius. This stream cascades over a waterfall and then tumbles over and through a tiered network of three small sized pools each big enough to hold a few people. The last pool sits just above ocean level facing the setting sun. As the ocean waves roll in, this last pool fills with cool sea water only to be replenished seconds afterward by the warm mineral waters.
Mugs of wine in hand, we couldn't bear to leave this pool until the rosy bands of pink and orange from the setting sun had faded from the western sky.
That night, camped next to the springs atop the tip of the Openit Peninsula, we cooked our one-pot fish casserole dinner by the light of my headlamp. Cocooned in his sleeping bag, the moonlight shone dimly on my father's face. His white scruffy beard could barely conceal his sleepy smile; the long paddle had been worth it. With the sound of the surf in my ears, I drifted off to sleep imagining majestic grey whales arching out of the ocean.
The next morning we went for another luxuriating soak in the hot pools before making the trek back down to our kayaks. We obviously had carried the boats high enough because they were as we left them, tied to a large rock. We set off paddling south with plans of improvising a return route to Tofino so that we wouldn't completely retrace our steps, or paddle strokes.
Although this day was clear with little wind, the ocean swells were large enough that at times we would lose each other completely on opposite sides of the swells until one of us would bob back up on the next wave crest.
On our return trip we discovered what we came to call the lost lagoons of Bartlett Island. We would have missed them completely had we not glanced over at the exact right moment. The glance permitted a brief flash of white and then it was gone. Paddling backwards to find out what we had seen, we noticed a white sand beach hidden somewhere within the northern tip of the island accessible only by a narrow opening. From our vantage point, a few hundred metres offshore, we could make the beach disappear by paddling a few metres forward or backward.
We kayaked through the ten metre wide opening, hoping to find a camp spot for the night, and discovered another land. We found ourselves paddling in shallow, dark green, lagoon-like pools. The air was still and large gulls swooped overhead. We paddled through a short channel heading for the cove in which we'd seen the beach. The tide was still ebbing and a current moved swiftly against us through the channel. Once inside the cove, we discovered that we were actually within a group of islands that were connected by sandbars at low tide. We found a sandy landing spot that appeared as if it would remain dry at high tide and made our home for the night.
By nightfall, our lost lagoons had turned into islands by the magic of the flooding tide. Sometime during the night, my father awoke to find that the tide had crept its way within several metres of our tent door. Through lack of concern or utter exhaustion he drifted back to sleep. No worries, we remained dry. How close it came, we'll never know.
The morning low tide returned to us our lagoons. After breakfast we carried our kayaks over one of the sandbars and continued on our way to Tofino. We chose to return by the protected channel on the eastern side of Vargas Island. With the help of the flooding tide we made the final 18 kilometres in about three hours.
The normally quiet-seeming Tofino appeared to us like a city after the peace and solitude of the Clayoquot Sound waters and islands. Although we both recognized that we'd paddled too far over only four days, we couldn't help but spread the maps out the next day to look at all the other spots we should have explored as well.
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