Spend the last 2 days crossing the Strait of Georgia from Ballenas Island via Lasqueti and then Texada Island and then to Powell River. Pretty good conditions, a bit windy maybe (crosswinds at first and then basically headwind for 40 miles, but not too bad). I much enjoyed the bumpy water over the super still waters in the gulf islands.
Another wonderful campsite with a gorgeous sunset made my freeze-dried camping meal beat every fancy restaurant experience…
I‘m pretty salty and crusty (with sunscreen leftovers) after 5 days of super warm weather. Felt a bit surreal to be sweating while seeing snow-covered mountains in the background.
The tides are special here. I was well aware of the big tidal ranges where 15 ft difference between low and high are pretty common (at spring tide this even extends to over 20ft). The beaches are scattered with huge logs and driftwood, all pushed to the very top end of the beach. Each night I thought, the water would come up quite this far, and only reluctantly pushed the kayak up all the way and arranged it on top of the logs (and also tied it on as a backup). Yesterday night, as I was camping on a little bluff above the beach, I woke up just before midnight hearing the waves crashing under me. The water had come up almost all the way to the logs – 2 hrs before high tide (with almost 2 more feet to rise per forecast). So I stumbled over the logs under the light of my headlamp to move the kayak even further up. Super glad I’m on a plastic boat and can just violently drag it around without worrying of breaking the hull…
Speaking of strange tides, the usual 6 hour cycles don‘t seem to be true here. Along my way through the Strait of Georgia, there usually was one mega long ebb (with a small mini flood in between) followed but the real big flood. This also explains my slow dragging… most of the time I was actually paddling against the ebb (and the wind ;)
