T he low clouds and fog of dawn had given way to sunny midday skies by the time we motored out through the sportfishing fleet tucked into Telegraph Cove, British Columbia. People bustling about the docks watched as we silently motored by and must have thought the two of us, in our slender boat with a noiseless motor, were about to do something foolish. As we left the cove and entered the expanse of Johnstone Strait, I wondered if we were doing something foolish.
I had gained a fair bit of boating experience over the years on various lakes and oceans, though never in this part of the world, and Craig had experience on Canadian lakes and around the Channel Islands of California. Out in the strait, we soon passed a whiskered sea otter lolling about on its back and gradually caught up to a spread of eight sea kayaks in bright white, yellow, green, and red heading east along the shore, the paddlers all torso, hat, and elbows as they wigwagged their dripping black paddle blades left and right over decks that rose only inches above the water.
To the west was the even greater expanse of Queen Charlotte Sound and to the east were the steep-sided fjords and jagged mountains of the distant interior, which is where we were headed. The boat was as tidy as we could make it. The boat tent, made of slippery white Tyvek the CommercialWrap version , was rolled up against the midsection of the port rail while clothes, electronics, food, and kitchen gear were stowed in watertight plastic bins under the seats or stowed loose inside the two lockers under the amidships benches.
The lb lithium battery was wedged under the seat next to the port locker with pencil-thick, licorice-black wires running to and from charge regulators and buss switches mounted inside the locker and from the locker to the solar panels resting on deck. The floor and bow platform were cluttered with fishing and crabbing gear, anchors and anchor lines, and three collapsible jugs that held a total of about 6 gallons of fresh water.
We had planned our outing for mid-August to catch the best weather the BC coast has to offer and to avoid the more extreme tides and currents that accompany the full moon.
