Esperanza Inlet 2004

Cool! I thought as three other kayakers pulled up to the

launch point. I enjoy the occasional camaraderie of kayakers

that Connie and I meet camping or on the water. And often

these brief meetings occur at launch points.

Connie and I finished loading our kayaks. We paddle

expedition-sized singles; she a Current Designs Solstice

GTS and I a Seaward Quest. Big boats, they take almost as

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much cargo as we can load into our Nissan Pathfinder.

We were at the bridge spanning the upper end of little

Espinosa inlet, roughly 6 km beyond Zeballos on Vancouver

Island. I’m one of those people who gets nervous at the

thought of being late and this was our first visit to the area

so we’d arrived at the launch point with an hour or so to

spare.

Fjord near Zeballos

The morning was one of those gorgeous Fjord

experiences when the water is still and reflective and cloud

tendrils roam the valleys midway up the sides of steep

forested slopes.

Long, slanting rays of morning sun struck a few peaks

but the sky above the low clouds offers a promising light

blue.

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We stopped a few times to take pictures, but there was

only one vehicle in the generous parking area when we

arrived, its owner already launched.

Early arrival at the outfall on Little Espinosa

A pickup truck with a double kayak pulled in across the

other side of the bridge at a short steep ramp. As the

newcomers on our side began to unload, two more vehicles

drove into the parking area. I moved our unloaded vehicle

back to the parking area and two more vehicles arrived!

Before the tide rose sufficiently for anyone to launch,

there were more than 30 people and probably 20-odd kayaks

and canoes spread across the whole of the tidal flat. Gear

was piled everywhere!

Later arrivals

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The launch point at little Espinosa inlet is where a bridge

crosses a tidal lake at the upper end of the inlet. The lake

exits to the sea through a VERY narrow slot under the

bridge and consequently it has a high exit velocity. Its speed

emptying onto the tidal flat forms a large right-hand eddy.

The fellows in the double kayak across the way had

apparently figured this out early. They were the first away

and although their loading process was made a bit more

difficult by the slope of the ramp, their boat cruised easily

into the jet, and moved swiftly out into open water.

The group of three that arrived after us had placed their

boats lower on the flats and went next. Their first intrepid

paddler drifted from the small slow backeddy near the road

into the jet, went a little ways, did a pirouette and drifted

back toward her start point. Trying again, she got turned

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again, but this time edged just enough toward the bank that

she got out of the eddy and struggled her way out along the

shore. The other two carried out easily.

A canoe and two kayaks were in place to go next so they

did, avoiding the rip by sneaking out next to the shoreline.

Nudging our laden boats closer to the water Connie and

I went next. Connie edged aggressively into the rip, paddled

hard and kept her nose pointed the right way. She rode

easily out. I followed thinking I’d stay further left and get a

better ride, but ended up missing the current slightly and

working just a bit harder to follow her out.

Moving down little Espinosa inlet was a breeze, or

rather no breeze. The water was glassy smooth and the ride

easy. Paddling side by side we carved our “W” on the water

as we passed the canoe and kayaks that had launched earlier

and were waiting for others.

At the end of Little Espinosa we went out into (big?)

Espinosa Inlet and encountered an opposing wind of

abound 5 knots coming up the inlet. Our launch timing left

us working against an incoming tide so the wind with the

current kept wind waves small, but fighting both wind and

tide cost us about a half-knot of speed and eventually cost

us an extra hour of paddling.

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We closed a lot of ground on the group of three paddlers

that left ahead of us, but opted to move across the inlet

where it widened out. They stayed on the eastern shore,

heading for a different destination. The headwind eased as

we entered Esperanza Inlet we began to feel the swell. It

was near high slack when we started the three-mile cross to

Rosa Island and the sea looked relatively calm so we went

directly across instead of taking a more cautious route

closer to Center Island and along the far shore.

Lazy three foot swells rose in front of our bows. I was

concerned for a while because Connie’s shoulder injury was

still recovering from her bike accident a year and a half

earlier. But if she had problems she refused to complain

about them.

There's one REALLY good landing on Rosa Island and

that is on the east end of the northeast side. A small cove

shelters a gently sloping sandy beach. The beach is cleft by a

rock outcrop and the larger section on the right side opens

into the trees with many campsites. A party of 10 who had

been delivered by water taxi occupied these sites. Another

party of 14 were lunching on the beach when we arrived and

getting ready to paddle on to another destination. We talked

to them a bit then settled on a log to nibble lunch and talk

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about what we were going to do.

I walked around the rock outcrop to where a large cedar

tree had fallen across the narrower beachtop and discovered

among its branches, large, square, flat, sandy places that

looked suspiciously like prepared tent sites. Branches

covered some of these locations, but two were reachable and

would make excellent tent sites. I consulted my tide book,

did some eyeball estimating and decided that the tent

locations would be safe from rising tides for a month or

more. Bingo! We had an excellent campsite!

Rosa Campsite

Later that afternoon another group of 15 paddlers

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arrived seeking a campsite, only to be disappointed.

We explored the waters of Nuchatlitz over the next few

days, encountering sea otters, deer, an uncountable number

of eagles, and saw a black bear swimming between two small

islets.

We watched surf thunder on the outer reefs and on

almost every approachable beach …saw tents. Everyone we

met was friendly and none were at all obnoxious or

intrusive, but for me the experience was changed by the

presence of so many others.

Neuchatlitz shores

But the reality is that I planned to paddle beyond

Neuchatlitz and south along the shore of Nootka Island,

and I chickened out.

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I am leery of the open sea. I've had only two

landings/launchings in very small surf, both under the

watchful eyes of experienced guides. Connie has zero open

water experience and no advanced kayak training. With both

of us dependent on my limited experience I was

uncomfortable going beyond the surf zone. Not paddling

on open water so much as my significant lack of surf

experience.

Only writing about this experience in retrospect has

forced me to examine that aspect of our trip. My lack of

experience can be overcome. There are some fine training

programs that include bigger surf landing/launching/coping

and its my job to put a checkmark in that box.

Eagle near our camp

After three nights we'd explored all the potential in our

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self-limited area and decided to cut this one short.

Returning up Espinosa and little Espinosa inlets WITH

the wind and waves took less than three hours, even with a

brief lunch stop. Arriving on a higher tide also left us with a

shorter lug to the car. We encountered a family group in the

parking lot which had camped on the other side of Rosa

Island. They were waiting for an outfitter to pick them up,

so after we loaded our vehicle we stopped by the outfitter in

Zeballos and reminded him (necessarily) that he had a client

waiting at the outfall.

But we weren't done kayaking. The turn-off for Zeballos

is so far north on Vancouver Island, it's less than an hours

drive to Port McNeil.

Exploring near Telegraph cove we found the Alder Bay

RV resort across from Alert Bay. With a wide sandy beach

to launch from we paid for a weeks parking and paddled

south for Kaicache Creek. Its a few miles farther than

launching from Telegraph cove, but much less crowded.

Kaicache was again unpopulated when we got there. But

instead of taking the grand group site on the point as we

had previously, we set up closer to a spot on the rocky beach

with a surplus of sandy level space and for a couple days we

lazed about in rare northern sunshine. We experimented

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with our newly purchased camping oven to make Pizza and

Cinnamon rolls, read, whittled and enjoyed the peace of the

northern wilderness.

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