Hornby Island is magical in the Fall- Part 1

By Keith and Heather Nicol

     We decided with the good weather continuing that we should get to one of our favourite places for a mid autumn visit. Hornby Island is just a stones throw from Courtenay but we hadn’t been there for many months so decided at the last minute to plan a quick 2 day trip. We phoned Ford’s Cove Cottages (http://fordscove.com/) and they told us they were booked for Saturday, October 20 but that if we could come on Friday we could get into a waterfront cabin for the night. So we headed off from Courtenay to catch the 9:00 am sailing on Friday with our car piled high with hiking boots, mountain bikes and sea kayaks. From past experience we knew Hornby Island was a great place to do all three. But as we drove down we could see fog forming and breaking up over the water so hoped that the forecast for “fog lifting” would hold true. 

The fog lifted about noon making for a great afternoon paddle

    Although we sailed to Denman Island in clear weather as we drove across Denman enroute to the Hornby Island ferry terminal the fog reappeared and it got thicker as we crossed to Hornby Island. Since we planned so hike and bike the Middle Bench trail we carried on with our plan but instead of great views we had to content ourselves with simply walking/biking through the forest. But around noon the fog did start to lift and so we decided that with the flat calm seas that we should put in at Whaling Station Beach for a paddle to Flora Island off the eastern tip of Hornby Island. 

 

There were lots of sea lions on Flora Island

       In past sea kayak trips to Flora Island we had seen orcas but on this trip we were surprised to see big populations of seals and sea lions hauled out on the rocky islands. The loud barking of the sea lions could be heard just as we rounded Cape Gurney but we had no idea there were so many. We gave them a wide berth since many of the sea lions appeared to be huge stellar sea lions with many California sea lions also in the mix. Stellar sea lions may be over 3 meters long and males can weigh up to 2500 lbs whereas California sea lions weigh in at about 1/3 of that!   I just wish I had brought my telephoto lens!!  

Heather walking along the Helliwell Park Coastal trail

   After looping around Flora Island we paddled back to Whaling Station beach since we also wanted to get in the 5 km hike around Helliwell Provincial Park. With the sun glinting off a flat sea we couldn’t have had a better day for one of our favourite walks in the Comox Valley. By the time we finished it was 5:00 pm so we decided to head over to Ford’s Cove and our cozy fully equipped cottage for the night.  The cottage was ideal for our purposes and its large west facing deck would normally get a great sunset except that with cooling late afternoon temperatures, fog had reappeared along the water.  We headed to bed hoping it would clear up by morning!

   

Our cozy waterfront cottage at Ford's Cove