 The
Huntsville Times
August 28, 2005
Kayaking
the Inside Passage
Floating
with whales is worth roughing it
By Gina Hannah
Times Staff Writer
The
Inside Passage, British Columbia
 First
you hear them.
Off in the distance,
there’s a brief rush of wind. Your eyes scan the horizon for
several seconds.
Then you see
them.
A stream of
water shoots straight up into the misty early morning ocean air.
Then a shorter burst of water, and a span of tail smacks the surface
as a humpback whale calf frolics with its mother about a football
field’s length away from where you float n your kayak. It’s
a once-in-a-lifetime sight.
And you haven’t
had breakfast yet.
There’s
more than one way to see the Inside Passage – the 950-mile
stretch of water off the coast of British Columbia and Southeast
Alaska. A kayak won’t get you form Seattle to Skagway, Alaska,
during a week-long vacation. But is you don’t mind sleeping
in a tent for a few days, a group kayak tour gives an up-close view
of Northern Pacific marine wildlife that you just can’t get
from the deck of a lodge or a tour boat.
Yeah, you’re
roughing it. But a week of paddling and hiking is good for the body;
a week without TV, e-mail or mirrors, good for the soul.
 Our
Adventure, hosted by Northern Lights Expeditions sea kayaking tours,
took us island hopping in the Queen Charlotte Strait, where we saw
bald eagles, sea otters and porpoises. Seals followed us much of
the week, bobbing their dark heads into the water to hide when we
turned to look. A sea lion, lounging on a high rock surrounded by
his harem of cows, sat up tall as we approached to show us how big
he was.
At low tides,
we stomped through rocks and sea lettuce along the shore, where
clams squirt water as high as 5 feet into the air, creating a natural
fountain. We saw 24-leg sea stars the size of dinner plates. Barnacles
spewed water out of their shells, making a sound like gentle rain.
Each day brought us different weather and wind conditions, from
glassy and foggy to windy and choppy, offering what our guides said
was a full kayaking experience.
Bioluminescence
On the night
of the summer solstice, we put in after dark, only headlamps with
red lenses to guide us. We drifted about 20 feet off the shoreline
before Luke, one of our guides, instructed us to turn off our headlamps.
“Now smack
your paddles into the water,” he said.
Glowing sparks
tumbled from our paddles and trailed off the bottom of our kayaks,
a Harry Potteresque magic. Bioluminescence, a chemical reaction
in some animals that produces light, was heightened by the absence
of light pollution. Like mischievous children, we used our paddles
to stir the dark water, disturbing the plankton below and forgetting
how late it was. After all, it had only been dark about an hour.
Northern Lights
offers four-day and six-day camping based kayaking trips, week-long,
four star wilderness lodge-based kayaking and “mothership”
live-aboard sea kayak tours, all based out of Port McNeill, BC,
on Vancouver Island’s northern tip.
 The
meals? Forget about Ramen noodles and instant oatmeal. Breakfast
was pumpkin pancakes or Tasmanian Toast (like French Toast, but
with cream cheese and raspberries smeared between the slices of
bread). Lunch was typically portable: tomato-mozzarella-basil sandwiches
and chips and hummus, or something equally tasty. Dinner was grilled
salmon one night, fresh vegetable lasagna another, California rolls
the next, with salad and other side dishes. Meals were prepared
by our young guides (where did they get the energy after paddling
all day?) and we travelers were happy to help prepare vegetables
or wash dishes.
Including snacks
(each kayaker got a gallon-sized bag of gorp – good ol’
raisins and peanuts, along with a granola bar and chocolate bar
– to last them the week), there was plenty of food on hand
to offset the calories burned during a day’s paddling.
And we were
plenty tired by nightfall (about 11 pm in late June) to sleep soundly
in our forest tents.
On Friday afternoon,
we sat on the beach surrounded by our gear, waiting for the boat
that would take us back to civilization. We all agreed on two things:
We were ready
for a shower.
This was an
adventure we weren’t likely to forget.
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