The hardest part about winter kayaking is the shortness of the days. On the winter solstice, we only get eight hours of daylight. Camping at this time of year means long, long hours lying in the tent in the dark, and even a champion slumberer like me can only sleep for a maximum of twelve hours at a time.
If you bring someone with you, the two of you can fill the time enjoyably with conversation, but the problem is recruitment: it isn’t easy to find other people whose idea of fun includes sleeping outside in the middle of December.
The best thing to do is just to go solo and bring a Kindle to read in the evening, which this time of year, begins at four o’clock. The many, long remaining hours of the day afford the perfect chance to catch up on reading.
On this trip, I got through two Frederik Pohl novels and a Cordwainer Smith. I never thought I could burn out on science fiction, but ingesting that much in such a short time was really pushing it. It was weeks until I could stand to think about aliens, spaceships, or lasers again.
The main attraction to winter kayaking is the lack of any other people. I spent five days in the southern Gulf Islands and went the whole time without seeing or speaking to another person, not even a park ranger. My only companions were the animals, and there were lots of those: I saw sixty-two species of bird and six species of mammal, including harbor porpoise, harbor seal, Steller sea lion, a family of eight river otters, a pod of orcas, and a few mule deer.
Route map. This area can be crowded in summer, but it was deserted in December.
I picked this area because the distances between campsites are quite close. I didn’t want to spend too much time on the water because of the shortness of the days.
This was a five-day trip, but I was expecting bad weather on the second day (Saturday, 20 December), so I planned to spend one of the days on shore. My intended campsites were Sidney Spit, D’Arcy Island, Rum Island, and Portland Island.
In the event, I skipped Portland in favor of spending two nights on Rum, which became one of my favorite campsites. Rum Island reminds me of Strawberry Island in the San Juans: the perfect size for one person to explore on foot and feel like he has really gotten to know the place.
I found grand fir, Douglas-fir, lodgepole pine, madrone (arbutus), and a few western redcedar, as well as Oregon grape, sword ferns, and of course lots of salal. This is all typical rainshadow flora for our region, and I do find it a very attractive species composition.
Signage on Rum said there are prickly pear on the island, but I didn’t find any. I’ve found prickly pear on some of the northern San Juans, so I know it can occur in this ecosystem, but I must have just missed it on Rum.
Rainbow at Sidney Harbour. No other boaters but me to enjoy this spectacle.
Crossing Sidney Channel. Even though all the islands were in view, it was still helpful to have a GPS to identify them.
Early morning on Sidney Island. My gear was covered in frozen condensation.
Paddling south down Sidney Channel
I took the ferry from Anacortes to Sidney. This is by far the fastest and cheapest way for Seattle-based paddlers to access Vancouver Island. The other options are the Port Angeles–Victoria route, which is a two-ferry proposition from Seattle, or the Tsawwassen–Swartz Bay route, which means a three-hour drive to Vancouver and a long border crossing. The border crossing on the Anacortes–Sidney route is always short and quick, and the drive is only 90 minutes from Seattle.
Thanks to Greg’s excellent posts on WCP, I was easily able to find parking in Sidney. I launched from the small public beach near the ferry terminal, and left my car in the pay lot a five-minute walk away at 2nd and Bevan. I recommend this arrangement to others.
The weather was cooperative most days, with winds at around ten knots. Rain was patchy and light for the most part, except one of the days on Rum, when it rained most of the afternoon. On Saturday, the winds were substantially higher, perhaps around twenty knots, higher than my personal safety limit, so I spent that day on Sidney Island.
Sidney was closed for camping due to hunting, but there were no hunters present when I was there, and I suspect there have been no hunters present at all the whole season—the deer were numerous and completely incautious of humans. I got within twenty feet of an adult and forty feet of a juvenile. This would not have been possible if these animals were being actively hunted.
Camping on Darcy Island. Darcy is the southernmost campsite in the Gulf Islands, unless you include Discovery Island.
GPS showing hibernal solstice on Darcy Island. The day is only eight hours long.
River otter clan at Darcy Island. This was the largest assemblage of river otters I’d ever seen.
Fierce otter teeth. Otters often devour their prey alive.
The bird life was phenomenal. I’d been worried in recent years by the greatly reduced numbers of common murres in our region, but that situation seemed to have totally turned around now—common murres were everywhere.
Several times I saw them in flocks of up to twenty, flying over the water in V formation. Scattered groups and individuals were all over the place. There were the most numerous alcid I saw on this trip, even more so than pigeon guillemots.
The highlight species, though, were ancient murrelets and long-tailed ducks. I hadn’t seen ancient murrelets in ages, but on this trip, I saw at least twenty-three of them. They were in two areas: Haro Straight near Wymond Point on Sidney Island, and in the channel between Blakely and Lopez Islands in the San Juans. (This latter group I saw from the ferry.) These beautiful alcids were down for the winter from the Queen Charlottes and Alaska.
The long-tailed ducks were in a group of eight near the Sidney ferry terminal. From a distance, I mistook them for winter-plumage pigeon guillemots due to their color, and I didn’t bother putting the binoculars on them. But then I heard them honking, and I thought, “Pigeon G’s don’t sound like that.” I put the glass on them and was flabbergasted to see these gorgeous birds, a species I hadn’t been expecting at all.
To my surprise, I saw not one rhinoceros auklet, the first time I had paddled this area and not seen this species. I have no idea where they all went. They’re one of my favorite alcids, so I was very sorry to have missed them.
Sunrise behind San Juan Island. From the southern Gulf Islands, the United States lies due east.
Dunlin at Wymond Point, Sidney Island. To a dunlin, British Columbia is a warm, sunny wintering ground, at least in comparison to the Arctic, where this species breeds.
Ancient murrelet near Wymond Point. This species is one of our most strikingly colored alcids.
Ancient murrelet. Like the more familiar marbled murrelet, the ancient murrelet nests in old-growth forests, except ancient murrelets nest on the ground, while marbled murrelets nest in the tree branches.
Common murre in winter plumage near Wymond Point. Its “bridle” resembles the temple of a pair of eyeglasses, giving it an alert, intellectual appearance.
Sunrise and the Olympic Mountains. Of all the mountain ranges in our region, the Olympics look the most remote, wild, and forbidding.
Northbound up Haro Strait. The low-angle winter sunlight created a washed-out world of watercolors.
Black turnstones and surfbirds. These two are the most approachable shorebird species in our region.
Making tea on Rum Island. If god were a kayaker, Rum Island would have been his first creation.
Beachcombing on Rum Island. I stayed an extra day, the better to enjoy this magnificent setting.
View from tent on Rum Island. There are only three tent pads on Rum, but in December there’s no fear of overcrowding.
Long-tailed ducks at Sidney Harbour. Two males on the left, one female on the right.
This trip was great. I really enjoy solitude in the outdoors, and there was plenty of that. Rum Island was a terrific discovery for me, a real kayaker’s paradise, and I was so happy to have had it to myself. There were many cool wildlife species, and even the weather treated me kindly.
The tides even gave me a boost from Rum back to Sidney, so I didn’t miss my ferry. The course I wanted was due west, but the ebb was flowing south and west. I pointed the boat north and paddled up against the southerly trend of the current, and the westerly trend of the current carried me due west at four miles per hour (6 kph).
It’s always so much fun when the tides help rather than hinder, and the Rum–Sidney crossing was a great example of heading not being the same thing as bearing.
A pod of orcas swam by the ferry between San Juan and the appropriately named Orcas Island. They were even more fully at home in this beautiful setting than I was.
—Alex Sidles