Friday, 29 May 2015

Sea kayaking around Goose Spit with the Comox Valley Paddlers


Starting out in Comox Harbour

by Keith and Heather Nicol
     We had not been back to paddle in the Goose Spit area of Comox since mid November 2014 so we decided to join the Comox Valley Paddlers for their Wednesday evening paddle on May 27.  The Comox Valley Paddlers run regular Wednesday evening paddles in various locations and it is a good chance to meet some other paddlers and find out about new destinations to explore. It was another calm, sunny, warm evening so conditions were ideal for getting out on the water. We arrived at around 6:15 pm and had our kayaks in the water by 6:30. Over all there were 2 canoes and over a dozen sea kayaks in our group led by Frank and Anne Mccullough. 
 
The lighting was perfect for pictures

 We set off on the protected Northwest side of the spit and our plan according to Frank was to paddle around the spit and then head east along the cliffs toward Pt Holmes. Along the way we saw several standup paddle boarders, some other sea kayaks and a few seals. The previous Wednesday we had seen an Orca whale on our paddle near Royston!  We pulled out on the southeast side of the spit and had a somewhat longer carry to get our kayaks back to the cars. Overall we had paddled about 7.5 km and we were off the water by 8:30. This is one nice aspect of paddling Goose Spit is that you can do a loop around the spit and since it is quite narrow in many places so it is feasible to pull out on the opposite side you started on and return to your car. For more information on the Comox Valley Paddlers see: http://comoxvalleypaddlers.ca/
Coming ashore at Goose Spit with the mountains of the B.C. mainland in the distance

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