Sea kayaking to the Royston Wrecks

 By Keith and Heather Nicol

      With the warm evenings continuing in the Comox Valley of Vancouver Island we decided to show my brother, Bruce and his wife Mary Ellen, the Royston wrecks from the water.  We were also joined with another kayaking friend Christy. There is an informal boat launch just to the north of Royston Rd at the Royston Seaside Park. By informal we mean that you simply drive over a smoothish gravel/cobble beach down to the water. It is best to do this paddle on a relatively high tide since this will reduce the distance needed to drive over the gravel beach. We launched on a 3.5 meter tide and it turned out to be a popular spot on August 1 with several kayakers and paddle boarders launching when we started at 6:30 pm. In the picture below we are making our way toward the "wrecks" from the launch point.

     The Royston wrecks are just about 500 meters away and make for a very different paddling experience since you can paddle right up to the remains of several ships that were intentionally sunk as a breakwater in the late 1930’s. At that time logging was important in this area and trees cut here would be towed to saw mills in New Westminster on the other side of Georgia Strait. But in the fall and winter strong south east winds would create problems for establishing log booms in the harbour at Courtenay and a breakwater was needed. Over time 14 “wrecks” were sunk in this area and included old whaling boats, schooners, freighters and tugs. They even included the "Melanope", a 79-metre 3-masted sailing ship built in the mid 1870’s. Not much is left of these “wrecks” now but they are ideally suited to viewing from the seat of a kayak. 

  We also saw lots of purple martin using the nesting boxes that have been created for them in the same vicinity of wrecks. Be sure to check out the wrecks if you want a different paddling experience.