Tree Island is a perfect half day trip for sea kayakers in the Comox, B.C. area

 

By Keith and Heather Nicol

 Tree Island (or Sandy Island as it is sometimes known) is located off the northern tip of Denman Island and makes a perfect half day paddle (or longer if you plan to explore the island or want to linger). We do the trip on an annual basis and we usually launch at the Union Bay Boat launch.  This makes it easy to launch your kayak since you can drive right to the water’s edge and there is a large car park for your vehicle.  Be sure to drop your launch fee money in the box. From here you can’t quite see Tree Island but as soon as you take a few paddle strokes out of the harbour it looms 4.4 km in the distance.

                                             Heather enroute to Tree Island - Denman Island in distance

But on this occasion we decided to try out the Argyle Road public access (49 36' 50" N 124 54' 10" W) which makes the drive down from Courtenay abit shorter but more importantly it is the closest launch point we have been able to find to Tree Island. Instead of the 4.4 km crossing from Union Bay our GPS showed a distance of about 3.5 km one way from Argyle Road which meant we could do the paddle in about 45 minutes. The big down side of the Argyle Road access is that parking is limited and it is more of a homemade boat launch over rounded cobbles etc so a high clearance vehicle is handy. However no matter which launch point you use it is an open water crossing so you want to factor in the weather and wave conditions and be competent at doing a self rescue if you run into trouble. 

                                                                            Tree Island is well named

On Thursday August 18 the wind forecast was for light NE winds which made for a very pleasant trip to Tree Island since the breeze was in our face keeping us cool. Although temperatures were forecast for the low 20’s C the following wind made it quite warm on the return trip. Be sure to bring water! We had a lunch break for about an hour before paddling back to the Argyle Shore access. Allow about 45 minutes each way for paddling depending on wind and wave conditions from Argyle Road – add 15 minutes each way if you use the Union Bay launch location. Just one more note if you do use the Argyle Road access- be sure to note where to paddle back to from Tree Island. Once on Tree Island opposite shore line looks all the same and so record your track or a waypoint at the launch point so you know where to head to your return trip. See you on the water.