Mothership Meanderings: Clam Bay

June-July 2003

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
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by Alan Wilson

One of our favourite anchorages in all the Gulf Islands is Clam Bay. Nestled between Thetis and Kuper Islands (separated by a shallow, dredged canal), Clam Bay is large enough to hold dozens of boats comfortably. It has good anchoring depths and holding ground, and good protection, depending on wind direction.

While it's a reliable anchorage, Clam Bay's other attributes are what really keep drawing us back - for it lies at the heart of some lovely paddling. The distances aren't great and the waters are generally calm, making these routes perfect for paddlers, whether you launch from a mothership or from shore; whether you're looking for a pleasant day paddle, or are on a longer paddling journey throughout the Islands.

From your Clam Bay anchorage (or for non-mothership paddlers, by car ferry to Thetis Island from nearby Chemanius on Vancouver Island) you can paddle:

• east from Clam Bay through Porlier Pass to Dionisio Pt. Park

• southeast to Wallace Island Marine Park and the shallows around the Secretary Islands

• south to Salt Spring Island and the southern Gulf Islands

• west through the Cut to circumnaviage Kuper or Thetis, or to cross to Ladysmith Harbour on Vancouver Island

• north to Blackberry Point (the premier undeveloped Gulf Island paddlers' campsite on nearby Valdes Island)

• north to Pirates Cove Marine Park on Decourcy Island, and on to Gabriola Island.

Laurie approaching Porlier Pass lighthouse. We put the flag on her kayak to increase visibility to boaters in the Pass.

Lovely sand beach at Dionisio Point on the north tip of Galiano Island. The site is a provincial campsite.

During the past year we have overnighted a couple of times in Clam Bay and both times enjoyed paddling experiences from there.The first time we paddled out through Porlier Pass and the second, around Kuper Island. Both trips were approximately 10 kilometres in length.

PORLIER PASS TO DIONISIO POINT

Timing is everything with coastal tidal passes, as David Pinel reported in our last issue. So we chose a day when the tidal range in Porlier Pass was minimal (midway between the new and full moons), with slack occuring around midday, and set off from Clam Bay, paddling east towards the northern tip of Galiano Island.

Porlier Pass, like Active Pass and Gabriola Pass, can be dangerous, with currents up to 8 knots and much turbulence as the waters of Georgia Strait flood and ebb through this narrow constriction.

On the far side of Porlier Pass lies Dionisio Point, with a vista across Georgia Strait to the mainland mountains. It's a Provincial Park with good camping for paddlers.

We timed our passage with the last of the flood current and paddled past the old red and white light station.

The fingers of rock stretching out from the Galiano shore actually provide some welcome backeddy push when paddling against the current. I've often seen underpowered boats labouring the current in these passes, while at the same time I've drifted effortlessly, right along the shoreline in the backeddy. But of course there's a burst required when you eventually hit the current head on.

All boaters have to handle tidal passes with care. Even with power, rushing currents can endanger larger vessels, so most boaters try to transit at or near slack water. Thus you can encounter quite a bit of traffic at these times, in boating season, with considerable turbulence from boat wakes.

As David Pinel pointed out in his article, paddling in current passages is fraught with dangers, which escalate with the speed of the current and the degree of turbulence (such as wind opposing current), with standing waves, whirlpools, etc. But if you time your passage to half an hour either side of slack, or times of mimimal tidal range as we did, most are paddleable.

Your reward at Dionisio is a beautiful sandy beach and a rocky, Garry oak encrusted outlook. We landed in a gentle surf on the beach and had our lunch.

On our return through Porlier, after a nice picnic, we enjoyed a building ebb current carrying us along and a bit of adrenaline rush when negotiating some standing waves in the Pass.

AROUND KUPER ISLAND

Laurie and her ever-present camera in The Cut between Thetis and Kuper Islands (moderately high water).

At Easter this year, after a rainy start to to the weekend, it cleared on Sunday and we headed down from Silva Bay on Gabriola to Clam Bay through a beautiful, glassy calm sea. As soon as we anchored, we launched the kayaks and geared up for the paddle.

With a nice little ebb current, we paddled some and drifted some through "the Cut", the dredged canal between Thetis and Kuper. Parts of this channel dry at lowest water and you need to give way to skippers of deeper draft boats transitting the area, who may have their minds on the possibility of grounding in the shallows.

The Cut opens into Telegraph Harbour, a busy spot with two marinas, a store, pub, restaurant, coffee shop, a crowded anchorage, sea planes... Phew! But this is a very good place for boaters to wait out bad weather as it's extremely well protected.

We were glad to keep right on going along the much less developed west shoreline of Kuper, stopping on a small rocky ledge for lunch and a stretch, then pressing on south to Tent Island at the southern tip of Kuper.

The cliffs of Tent Island are honeycombed with bird nests in the weathered sandstone. Don't approach at nesting season.

The cliffs on Tent are fabulous bird habitat, as witness the guano-encrusted nesting holes on the weathered rock face. It wasn't nesting season, fortunately, so we were able to approach, but keep your distance and use binoculars when the birds are about so as not to disrupt species at risk, like cormorants.

Rounding Tent, we pulled ashore below the high tide line for a rest and had a chocolate bar, studying the chart, noting the endless paddling opportunities the area has to offer. Then we relaunched and paddled back up the east side of Kuper with a gently building flood current over the low tide flats, passing scant inches above the waving eel grass clumps and some of the biggest clam shells I've ever seen! We ambled slowly along, sometimes just drifting, marvelling at the profusion of shellfish.

Unfortunately these days it's dangerous to harvest shellfish due to red tide and the potential of paralytic shellfish poisoning. But we could well imagine why the aboriginal people of this area were known as a 'clam culture'.

Finally we reached Penelakut Spit and rounded back into Clam Bay. We were tired but happy, ready for a glass of wine, looking forward to a nice dinner and quiet evening at anchor before returning to Gabriola the next day.

Note: Kuper and Tent Islands are home to the Penelakut people so don't go ashore above the high tide line without permission.

© Text and photos by Alan Wilson. All photos taken with a FujiFilm Finepix F401 digital camera.