A first time visit to amazing Malcolm Island – Part 1

by Keith and Heather Nicol

We spotted our first whale from the ferry

    We had heard good things about Malcolm Island from friends in the Comox Valley and its main settlement Sointula so with a good weather forecast we drove there on Wednesday, September 4 from Courtenay to check things out. It took us 3 hours of driving to reach the ferry terminal in Port McNeill and we got in line for the 1 pm ferry.  We picked up a copy of the Malcolm Island brochure at the Port McNeill tourist info booth and after a quick thirty minutes ferry ride we were driving toward Bere Point- our planned camping spot for our 3 day trip. A bonus was that we spotted a whale during the short ferry ride which we took to be a good omen for our trip. The weather was sunny with light winds and after setting up our tent at one of the forested campsites (all the waterfront ones were not surprisingly taken) we readied our kayaks for a paddle to Malcolm Point – 4.5 km away.

Orcas sometimes rub on the steep pebble beach behind Heather

    Initially we paddled along the shore where Orcas occasionally come to rub on the rounded pebbles which form a steep beach. Areas where Orcas come to shore to rub on rounded pebbles are very rare but some campers told us that a pod had visited these rocks just a few days before we arrived. Amazing! No whales on this day so we carried on to Malcolm Point where we ran into kelp beds that forced to head out away from the shore.  We had a light north wind and the weather was perfect for paddling- sunny with temperatures around 18 C. The views across Queen Charlotte Strait were impressive with ragged peaks with glaciers on some of the higher mountains. We reached Malcolm Point in time to see a humpback blow and dive 200 meters or so off shore but also noticed that the fog was rolling right toward us. We decided not to linger at Malcolm Point and paddled quickly back toward Bere Point. We got caught about ½ back and spent the next 20 minutes or so paddling directly with the waves which we knew were headed toward Bere Point. Bere Point finally came into view and we vowed that the next time we went out we would bring our GPS so that we could better navigate if we got caught again by fog.

We paddled through kelp beds with Queen Charlotte Strait behind

  We arrived back at the boat launch to a high tide which made getting out much easier. The boat launch at Bere Point is best at higher tides since it has cobbles to deal with a medium and low tides.  The fog lingered all evening so we happily made a fire to stay warm before bedtime. 

Fog caught us on our return trip- Bere Point looms in the distance