Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Balaclava Island ( BC ) Paddle July 2014


July 12- 20, 2014

God's Pocket area, are a group of islands northeast of the very top of Vancouver Island. We camped at Nolan Point on Balaklava Island.

Paddled out of Port Hardy around 7:30 am and followed the coast line up to a point across from Duncan Island where we crossed over in a light fog.  Once across we padded past Blyth Island and the Nobel Islets ( one has a light on it ) on our way to Nolan Point on Balaklava. Arrived around noon on this 11 mile paddle. We camped there with a few other folks but all in all it was sunny, peaceful and quite.

Paddled each day, first around Bakaklava, up to Clam Cove ( water source), toured the Light House and chatted with the lighthouse keeps ( east side of the island), visited God's Pocket resort on Hurst Island, paddled around Hurst Island many paddles along Browning Wall on Nigei Island, and Port Alexander. The sea life ( jellyfish, sea stars) along Browning Wall were incredible. You can find culturally modified trees close to the Nolan Point campsite.

We had the opportunity to watch some of BC's finest put out a 'root' fire about a half mile from our campsite. They said the fire probably was burning in the root system for about ten days before the smoke appeared. A good reminder to have your campfires close to the beach and not in the forest.     

We saw Orca's, sea otters, wolves, ton's of sea birds, eagles, ravens some breaching whales from  a 1/4 miles away ( in big swell and 20k winds ). No raccoons or mice visited, deer flies visited occasionally, some mosquitoes but all in all bugs where not a big pain.    



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