January sea kayaking at Pt Holmes, Comox Valley

 by Keith and Heather Nicol

     We don’t normally make New Year’s Resolutions but this year decided to try and get in a sea kayaking outing in every month of the year in the Comox area of Vancouver Island.  We normally have our ski box on our car during the winter so putting 2 sea kayaks on is awkward but this year we knew we wouldn’t be travelling outside the region to ski given the Covid 19 outbreak. Since we store our skis in our locker at Mount Washington we decided to leave the kayak racks on and try to get out through the winter when the weather cooperated which would be a first for us. 

                                               Heather enjoying the sun for a January sea kayak outing

    Much of the early part of January was stormy and windy which was great for piling up snow at Mount Washington but it wasn’t great for sea kayaking. With a forecast of snow for the last week of January we decided that we better take advantage of the sunny weather on January 21. With light NW winds forecast we knew that the boat launch at Pt Holmes would be a good place to launch since it faces to the south.  Temperatures were around 5-6 C so we decided to mainly paddle in the sun and first headed to Cape Lazo to see what birds and other wildlife we could see. The snow capped mountains of the BC Mainland loomed in the distance and we paddled past numerous small flocks of Harlequin ducks. Once we had paddled to Cape Lazo we decided to turn around and paddle into the sun to warm up. We proceeded past the boat launch to for another kilometer or so before heading  back to the  boat launch. Overall we paddled about 4 km and we were out for an hour enjoying the sun and being back on the ocean. So if you like to sea kayak think about heading out this winter when the weather and sea conditions permit. 

                                                                Paddling along the shoreline at Pt Holmes