Gary's and Toni's Excellent Island Adventures

We Discover Kayaking . . . At Last!

For a kayaking adventure, this began on a very unlikely day. It was the last day of January amidst monsoon-like rain. We were attending a Tourism Nanaimo networking session at Moxie’s Restaurant (yummy!) in the north end of Nanaimo, and started chatting with this woman sitting beside us over wine and crabcakes as we all dried out from the trip in from the parking lot. The weather was quickly forgotten as we exchanged business cards and discovered that this very engaging woman, Jan Kretz, ran her own kayaking adventure company called Adventuress. Now, kayaking to us seemed to be the quintessential West Coast adventure, but we hadn’t tried it yet. Obviously, opportunity had come knocking.

As we talked more with Jan, we found out that her business is geared toward women (the wild woman in all of us!), but welcomes their partners as well. Also, she customizes the kayak trip to match the needs, experience and abilities of her clients. (Gary is a seasoned backpacker and canoeist, but I have no athletic prowess to brag about in any field – or body of water for that matter.) Listening to her, I realized that with Jan in charge, I was totally comfortable with the idea of heading out onto the ocean in one of those teeny tiny tippy watercraft!

Enchanted April - At Least for Kayaking!

Our schedules and the weather forecast came together late in April. It was a sunny, clear day, about 20°C,  with virtually no wind. We headed off to Nanoose to meet Jan at her home. It was like getting together with an old friend, except that she had a front yard full of kayaks! Our “group” that day was just the two of us, which was great, but Jan has other guides who join her when she is putting together a package for a larger group. (As I write up this Adventure on the July 1st weekend, Jan is off with a group for four days to the Broken Group Islands, part of Pacific Rim National Park. What a perfect way to celebrate Canada’s birthday!)

We had received excellent instructions beforehand regarding appropriate clothing and other things we needed to bring (i.e. sunscreen, drinks, hats). We started our afternoon with a hands-on comprehensive but very relaxed introduction to the kayaks and accompanying safety equipment. We practised getting in and out of our boats and adjusted the foot pedals for comfort and support. We learned several paddling strokes and what to do if our boat flipped. Jan proved to be an excellent teacher, and we felt quite prepared to venture out onto the water.

The Beach and Beyond

Jan trailered the boats to the beach, about a block from her home. We went through all the safety protocols again as we prepared to launch our boats, and then we were off. Jan put us through all our new strokes before we headed out into Northwest Bay. The sitting paddling position proved to be surprisingly comfortable and the boats were much easier to maneuver than a canoe. What a feeling to be that up close and personal with the ocean! We even had a harbour seal pop up nearby to check us out.

After trying out our new skills in the Bay for a bit, we headed out to more open water towards Mistaken Island. It was a bit breezier here and the water had a bit of a chop. After several minutes into this part of our outing, I told Jan that the wild woman in me really preferred the placid and protected waters of the Bay for my first kayak outing. No problem! She immediately proposed we head in toward the land where there was a log sort operation where sea lions (2000-pound critters) tend to hang out. When we came in closer to the area, we could see the logging operation had the coolest little boats to manage the logs. They looked like mini-tugboats on steroids as they bullied the massive logs into position. Sea lions watched aloofly from a distance. And speaking of distance, with Jan in charge, we were very conscious of maintaining safe distances from the wildlife and the industry, while getting close enough to enjoy the new experiences.

What a wonderful day to be out on the water! It was sunny but not hot, and although my paddling technique left me with sleeves dripping wet to the elbows, I wasn’t at all cold. We finished our paddle with a race across the Bay back to the beach. I generated so much speed that my hat blew off – no great loss as you can judge from the picture – that wild woman was definitely emerging!

As we were gathering up gear from the beach, I asked Jan, more out of curiousity than anything, how often she actually had kayakers tip. (She had done such a good job preparing us that I hadn’t really felt any anxiety about having a problem if I did tip.) She replied that she’d thought she was going to finish with a perfect season the previous year, and then on the final outing (a Full Moon Howl – doesn’t that sound like fun?) she’d had one woman go over. Jan added that she suspected this had been more planned than accidental as the woman had been wearing a wetsuit and didn’t seem particularly interested in getting back into the kayak once she’d upset. As I had discovered, for precarious-looking boats, they are amazingly stable.

With all the right ingredients – gorgeous scenery, a dash of wildlife, great weather, a very hands-on activity, and a wonderful new friend – this had been a perfect Island Adventure. We know we’ll kayak more and we know we’ll see more of Jan. You should check out her website at http://www.adventuress.ca if you’re looking for an adventure, or even just dreaming of one!

Take care. There are more adventures in the works. Our Latin dancing in February finished and then became Swing dancing in addition to Ballroom dancing in May and is continuing as Ballroom through the summer with maybe a dash of West Coast Swing or Argentine Tango added in. We’ll keep you posted. (The thing is, I’d rather dance that write!)

Have a great summer. Go kayaking!

Toni and Gary