Port Hardy to Bella Bella BC paddle

Port Hardy, BC to Bella Bella,  BC paddle

August 7th thru August 19th, 2016

8 paddlers all with quite a bit of open coastal paddling experience. I will document my view of this wonderful journey.

We started the planning process months ahead, who's driving, ferry tickets, valid passports, hotel reservation before and after the paddle, where to leave the vehicles  while we are paddling, who's sharing cooking duties ect. The original paddle plan was agreed to by the group, which routes, camp sites, water access ect. You will see we did have a Plan B route should we have weather related delays. The proposed paddle plan follows: (Note mileage is statute miles and for the most part 'point to point'. Some team  members paddled 138 miles some 155 miles)

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Sunday, Aug. 7 – Paddle 9 miles from Carrot Park on west shore of Port Hardy. Travel around Duval Point to a BCMT campsite on Bell Island in God’s Pocket Marine Park(10). No water.  Carrot park has long beach at low tide 10:30 am.  2.5 mi crossing, 20 mi NW fetch

Monday, Aug. 8 – 13 miles total. Paddle across Gordon Channel (major shipping/cruise ship lanes) 5 miles to a rest stop on Kent or Deserters Islands.. Then paddle 7 miles on to a BCMT campsite in Shelter Bay.   Water at creek in NE corner is likely year-round.

Tuesday, Aug. 9 – Paddle 15 miles to a sand beach BCMT  campsite on the north side of Buccleugh Point.   Caution: both sides of Bramham  Island but esp the north side may have very high currents.  This is the mouth of Seymor inlet the home of Tremble Island AKA Turret rock and Nakwakto rapids.  Max ebb is 11am, max flood 5pm, slack=sunset 9pm, Max ebb 12pm. Not good tides to ride around the east side Bramham  Island.

South Burnett  is protected from W to S wind and swell, exposed to N.  Water.

N Burnett  is protected from N and W.  Water. ‘Magic cabin’.

Wednesday, Aug. 10 – Paddle 17 exposed miles around Cape Caution  to a red sand beach BCMT campsite. Water. Max flood 6 am, slack 9:30 am. Last landing 4 mi before cape is 51.140162, -127.725536 Beach at 51.181949, -127.778684 1 mi N of cape. Another 5 mi N of cape is last landing before RSB. Possible landing in hidden bay at 51.232837, -127.783176

Thursday, Aug. 11 – Paddle 11 exposed miles north to Open Bight BCMT campsite on the NE side of Cranstown Point.  This crosses Smith inlet that may have currents (and channel winds). Flood 8 am, Ebb 1 pm, flood 7 pm. No obvious rest spots- take what you find! Point N of Shield Island 51.319799, -127.738345 may be beach.  Kelp head south narrow mouth bay 51.349608, -127.788360.  Water at creek at far E end of beach.

Friday, Aug. 12 - Paddle 11 miles (first 6 mi exposed crossing) north and camp at the BCMT campsite on the north side of Fury Island .  No water.  There is also a cabin in the woods that can be used. This crosses Rivers inlet that may have currents (and channel winds). Flood 9 am, Ebb 2 pm, flood 8 pm. Fill water N of camp before crossing to islands! No obvious rest spots- take what you find! Water in creek to east on Penrose Isl. Lots of islands and some shallows should be passable at 3pm low tide of 7.8ft.  Option Safety Cove BCMT camp 6 m NW on west side of channel.

Option to go west around Calvert island only for excellent conditions.  Camp behind Blackney Island no water.  Slightly shorter than Fitzhugh sound. Exposed. 5 nm crossing 290 heading. 19 mi to Blackney.  Another 15 to north beach, with very few rest options.

Saturday, Aug. 13 – Paddle 11 miles north to camp on Addenbroke Island and visit the lighthouse . No Water. No documentation of camping on Addenbroke; lighthouse keeper has sent people to Fifer bay to south. Options: Green Island “picnic’ to north (this requires a 4 mi crossing, but is still 18 mi to N beach).  Possible sites on west side of sound, N end of Calvert island  look steep but have water and sandbar, would put us 5mi closer to North beach. 

Sunday & Monday, Aug 14-15– Paddle 18 miles north, then west in Kwakshua Channel, and camp on the BCMT campsite at North Beach .  Explore the area for a second day.  Water stop about  2 mi Crossing. May be affected by morning flood, afternoon ebb, but channels are open at both ends so will not have huge currents.

Options- 45 mi following the ferry route from Addenbrooke to Bella Bella.  No BCMT camps, but Namu is used.  This is short route used by most inside passage paddlers.  We could use this to catch up if storms put us behind schedule, or make Hakai dangerous.  Another catch up route is to bypass North beach and go direct to Trinquet, about 26 mi, or stop at Serpent island 22 mi.

Tuesday, Aug 16 – Paddle 16 miles east up Hakai Passage, north between Stirling and Nalau Islands, then west through the Serpent Group (has BCMT camp) to Triquet Island, and camp at the BCMT campsite in a deep cove on the northeast side .  (exposed to Pacific) No Water  If windy, it is possible to skip Seerpent and head north of Manley island adding 3 miles.

Wednesday & Thursday, Aug 17-18 – Paddle 15 miles north east of Spider Island, around Superstition Point, (exposed to Pacific from 122 to 127) and through the McNaughton Group to BCMT Island 145 campsite and camp for two nights (133).  Explore the Prince, Admiral, and Tribal Groups on the second day.  15 ft high tide about midnight.  No water.  Fill water on Hunter island.

Note: if swell is from west, the Simonds group is sheltered by Goose Island.  Inside of tribal group is always sheltered.

Friday, Aug 19 – Paddle 10 miles north to McLoughlin (160) Bay. Don’t go all the way to Bella Bella, the ferry is South of town. Check in at 4:10, catch the 6:10pm BC Ferry to Port Hardy, arriving at 11:30pm.  Currents are in our favor! Low 8 am, high 2 pm.  Negligible current at Bella Bella as it is at a pass with channels from two directions.  Note ferry departs for Port hardy odd number days except 17 and 23rd. Take shuttle to Lodge($7.50) or arrange for lodge to pick up.  Check in, then drive back to load kayaks. Shower, in bed at 1 am.

.................and where we paddled !

We launched from 'Carrot Park' on the Port Hardy waterfront. Beautiful day, light breeze as we shoved off. Paddled to Duval Point then crossed Golatas channel to Bell Island. Since the weather was beautiful and clear we decided to paddled on, crossing Gordon Channel. Gordon Channel is a VERY active shipping and cruise ship highway. We camped on Kent Island in the Walker Group. Loads of humpbacks in and around both the Walkers and Deserters Group. Next day we paddled to Shelter Bay. Good camping but real close to a fish farm. Moving on to Burnett Bay we did have some challenging conditions. Two swimmers attempting surf  landings was a bit unsettling ( note we paddled in 2 meter swell, plus some wind and very heavy fog). We all gathered at the south end of Burnett Bay which a two mile long flat sandy beach. We spent three days there waiting for the winds to die down, not a bad place to get 'stuck' for a couple days. There is two water sources here and a  'famous' cabin well worth exploring. (Note: the tannins in the water caused real havoc on our filter/pumps, and by the end of the trip we where boiling water for cooking). We did see bear and wolf tracks along the streams but had  no four legged visitors here or for that matter the entire trip. Rested and ready to go we left Burnett Bay very early for the 17mile paddle around Cape Caution on our way to our next camp site at 'Red Sand Beach'. Boomers in the fog and crashing surf at times was a bit concerning however this crux part of our journey was without  incident. Cape Caution is fully exposed to the Pacific Ocean and  is not merely a point, it is about a mile wide of challenging paddling. Red Sand beach  is beautiful with a nice camp site. Moving on, we crossed Smith and Browning passages on our way to our Crownstown Point campsite. This is another beautiful camp site. A real highlight of the trip was to lay on the beach and watch the Perseid Meteor showers ( I think assume is the appropriate adjective here).  We did chat with three paddlers from Seattle heading south  ( only other paddlers we would see) who were on a three month southern Alaska to Port Hardy trip. Paddling on Fitz Hugh Sound from here on is protected from the west by Calvert, Hecate and Hunter Island.  We have decided on Plan B at this point due to the three days we waited to round Cape Caution. Next stop is Fury Island. A beautiful (waterless) shell midden to camp on and it has a cabin which if empty can be used by anyone. We had a WONDERFUL Canadian couple waved us over and said they had caught too much salmon and wanted to share with us, O Yum, fresh Coho over the campfire that night was sooooo good. Next stop was Green Island, which looked from Google Earth and any documentation we read as a 'picnic' area and  it might have been many , many years before but now it was an over grown salal  bump of rock above the high water line which had to be home for the night. We had to let the boats float as it was impossible to drag them up the sheer rock face. We did move the lightest boat up to the campsite high about the high water line ( note: 14 foot high/low water exchanges during this time), always concerning letting boats float over night. They were all carefully tied bow and stern and where right where we left them the next morning. Moving on to Namo, an abandoned fish cannery we got there after a stop at a First Nations village (Heiltsuk and Owikeeno people ) at the Koeye River (note: well worth a stop here and ask for permission to land and visit their longhouse).  Namo is a ruins now, the last keepers left a year  before and since then all the windows have been broken, the factory is trashed and  I suspect all the houses have been gone over by souvenir seekers, too bad. We did explore the site despite all the Keep Out signs, careful to watch your step due to tons of nails, broken glass and who knows what is lying around.  We found a beach away from  the buildings to camp on. A creek next to where the cannery is located was a VERY active salmon stream and those d a r n fish jumped and splashed all night. Next up was to head north toward Kipling Island, then a group of  rocks with  a shipping light where we crossed Fitz Hugh Sound and paddled to Clayton Island. With the very high tides Clayton was not going to work so we went to Hunter Island. Stopping at a very large fresh water pool where we filled our water bladders and jumped in for a refreshing bath. Found a set of sea lion bones here. We traveled another mile north where we found a little island that we could all fit on ( note: 6 of us used  tents and two hammocks, three of us tent guys also had hammocks). Anyway, the water got a couple guy's wet at 2 am. After such a restless night we were off to Bella Bella and our ferry ride back to Port Hardy by 6:30am.Some folks hiked the three miles from the ferry terminal into Bella Bella for that first post paddle cheeseburger and beer. Not much happening in Bella Bella was the report back from the hikes.

It never rained once on us, weather was either thick fog or bright and sunny, quite warm days. Saw loads of humpbacks many with caves, a few grey whales, loads of sea lions, sea birds, the underwater  life along the rocks was dramatic.