Explore by sea kayaking in the Courtenay area of Vancouver Island

by Keith and Heather Nicol

Paddling to Denman Island

     We love sea kayaking since it is a great way to see a landscape from a different perspective and also can get you up close to various types of marine life. Our kayaks arrived from Newfoundland in late October, 2014 and since then we have been out kayaking twice. The first time we ventured out was on Saturday, November 1 and we put in at a day use area just south of Courtenay with a plan to paddle to Denman Island. Our first stop was an oyster “farm” that was a couple of hundred meters from shore. We were told that they did not have a good harvest this year and they thought that part of the reason were the very warm temperatures this past summer.  From there we headed to Denman Island and landed on a sandy beach where we had lunch. We then paddled north along the shore of Denman Island for about 20 minutes before turning back to our launch point. This seems to be a great area for sea kayaking since the water should be quite protected and the fact that Denman Island is just 2 km or so away means you can be there in 25-30 minutes. 

Exploring Tree Island

Paddling along the edge of Tree Island

 Our next trip was to Tree Island (also called Sandy Island) which we did on November 4. Again the weather was perfect for paddling since winds were light and the sun was out. We put in at Argyle Road just north of Union Bay. This seems to be the closest put in to Tree Island but even from this launch point it is about 4 km (1 way) so you need to have an eye to the weather.  It took us about an hour to reach the sandy beach on Tree Island and this included stopping to take some photos of some small porpoises (likely harbour porpoises). These animals were fairly fast and seemed to pop up quickly in different spots which made taking photos difficult. We enjoyed walking on the sandy beach at Tree Island and even in November we could feel the sun’s heat. On the way back we detoured to check out some loud sounds which turned out to be numerous sea lions that were hauled out on a log boom near the shore. We fully recommend this paddle and enjoyed all there was to see from the water. 

We have posted many blogs on where to paddle in the Courtenay - Comox area and they can be easily found on this blog by typing `sea kayaking in
Courtenay - Comox`in the search bar in the top left margin of the blog

Paddling back from Tree Island with Denman Island behind