Lots to see while sea kayaking at Point Holmes

by Keith and Heather Nicol

    Sea kayaks are great vessels for observing wildlife from seals to whales and they are also ideal for observing shorebirds, ducks and other birds. One of our favourite places to paddle is at Point Holmes since it offers ready access to scenic paddling and a variety of shorelines from sandy beaches to rocky headlands. With the sunny, warm weather of late we have been sea kayaking on a few occasions and our most recent outing to Pt Holmes was on September 8 and we weren’t disappointed. We almost always head around Cape Lazo toward Kye Bay since this is where you tend to get the best bird and marine mammal sitings.

Heather paddles past a seal sitting on a rock at water level

 On this day we were pleased to see so much variety from many seals on rocks that for some reason let us get quite close. Often seals will haul out on the many offshore boulders in this area but we have never seen 8 seals piled onto one rock like we saw on this outing. We also saw a rock with many cormorants on it which are birds we haven’t see here that much lately. There were a few harlequin ducks in the rocky area around Cape Lazo and of course loads of gulls.

2 seals watch us paddle by

We went a tide of around 3.5 meters and this meant that many rocks were exposed which gave places for birds and seals to perch on. Another bonus of paddling at Point Holmes is the fact that the boat launch has a web cam that lets you see what the tide and wave conditions are along the shore. It can be viewed at: http://www.pointholmesrecreation.ca/rampcam/. It is always interesting to see the variety of birds and other wildlife in this area and we look forward to our next kayak trip to Point Holmes.

Heather checks out a rock covered in cormorants