August 18-22 Broughton Archipelago (#s 62-66)

Ater our Kyuquot trip, we figured that we were far enough up island that we should do a trip in the Broughtons, so we took Natural C-lection  for a 6 day cruise amongst the islands and channels north of Johnstone Strait. We had our two Feathercraft Wispers on the boat's roof rack and found that the boat and wispers worked very well as a "mothership" system. We managed to get in 5 paddles during our 6 days. I had previously paddled as far as Echo Bay with the SMUS experiential groups and it was neat to see some of the areas further afield.We were blessed with decent weather and minimal winds throughout our trip.

August 18 Sophia Islets

Monica and I anchored in Growler Cove and launched the Wispers for a paddle out to the Sophia Islets.This was our first attempt at "mothershiping", and it was very successful (except that I forgot my GPS!)

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6 km (est), YTD 768 km

August 19 Village Island/Mamalilaculla

After a foggy morning in Blackfish Sound and a visit to the earth embasy on Hanson Island, Monica and I went to Village Island to visit the abandoned village of Mamalilaculla on Village Island. I had been here several times with the SMUS groups and it was good to see this spectacular sight again. Quite reminiscent of places we saw in Haida Gwaii.

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2 km, YTD 770 km

August 20 Burdwood group

After a night in Echo Bay marina, we went to the Burdwoods for a paddle. We had the "kayaker beach" to ourselves that day, shoretied the boat with our anchor buddy and went for a nice paddle around several of the islands in the group. The camp site is an excellent one. The seals around here seem much darker than in Victoria.

5 km, YTD 775 km

August 21 Lacy Falls

After spending the night in Watson Cove and going for a short hike to see an old cedar we paddled back to look at Lacy falls again close up. These falls are very pretty. we noticed that the flow was noticeably less this morning than it had been the afternoon before.

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5 km, 780 km

August 22 Booker Lagoon

At the recommendation of Anca and Max of Kwatsi Bay Marina, we went into Booker Lagoon at high slack, set our prawn trap, found a private cove and then went of a paddle to explore the lagoon. I went a bit further than Monica and chatted with another boat (Y-Knot) that was anchored in another cove on the SW arm of the lagoon. The prawning was successful and we had an amazing bear watching experience after dinner in our cove. A sow was teaching her two cubs to turn over rocks for crabs and such. They were only a couple of hundred feet away from us and completely ignored us for about an hour!

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7 km, YTD 787 km