Last Saturday, we went to Deep Cove for a winter kayak tour. After our last trip was cut short due to the inexperience of others in the group making it unsafe to continue, we got one place free on the winter trip. We arrived around 10:30 on a cold autumn morning, to a beautiful misty view across the water of Indian Arm. As we were going out on the water, I didn’t take a camera, so most of the pictures here are from Deep Cove’s website and Facebook etc. But they are typical of what we saw, the weather on that day, etc.
Kayaking out of season was an opportunity to try kayaking in a dry suit, and wow, is it nicer than a wet suit! Choose the clothes you want to wear underneath for warmth, keep your feet dry – apart from the neck seal, its all very comfortable, warm but not too hot. You vary what you wear underneath for the weather, so apart from very warm weather, it seems like the way to go. Our instructor had something even nicer, a separate dry top and trousers that sealed together with a roll-seal at the waist. Will need to look into options, but dry suits are pretty expensive, unless you shop here. Something to consider when home, being able to kayak in colder weather is very nice.
We used the same boats as before – smallish sea kayaks, with foot-pedal controlled rudders. We left the rudders out of the water though, we’re both so used to pushing on foot braces when we paddle, that we’d end up rocking side to side using the rudders. And they weren’t really bad to paddle straight, lovely stable boats. You’d really have to try hard to capsize one.
The water seemed pretty calm to me, a few feet of gentle swell, and waves around 1-2 feet tall. The instructor asked us how we were handling it – I was confused for a bit, but said it was fairly typical of a calm day on the Forth. He seemed surprised, and said they generally didnt take groups out if it was any worse than that. I guess Deep Cove is so sheltered, they take the sheltered water for granted. However, I suppose on the Forth there’s always a power boat standing by for rescues – in Deep Cove, you’re on your own. For at least the 20 foot swim to the shore.
This was a tour, not a lesson – all about exploring Indian Arm. There are several locations on Indian Arm where there are old pictographs from the Coast Salish First Nation – two in particular are easy to see from kayaks, and we went to both locations. It’s inspiring to see, in some ways, they are so old – and yet they are just ochre – colour mud painted on the rock. Its hard to imagine how they climbed the rock to paint some of them – I could imagine them climbing a steep rock face from a boat. No-one quite seems sure what the symbols are, or what they mean. One that looks like a crab (and might indicate crab fishing spots) is apparantly a bumblebee, but no-one knows why.
More interesting to me, though, was the variety of houses along Indian arm. I’ve struggled to find photos online that do them justice – there are a huge range of houses, from huge wooden mansions on little islands, to tiny shacks – some of them with road access from behind, others with boat access online. A quick look on Google revealed that the houses range in value from around $290k, to over $20million. The largest one that was pointed out to us, sits empty most of the time – the owner lives in Vancouver proper and rarely visits.
It was a great trip – we saw seals, lots of sea-birds, bald eagles.. amazing scenery, great kayaking weather. The wind and rain started to pick up as we were on our way back, but we were ashore, changed and on the bus home before it caught up with us. Deep Cove is an amazing place for kayaking – if we’re ever back in Vancouver, a trip up Indian Arm is right at the top of the list – possibly even a camping trip by boat, or a long day trip. In the summer, it’d be such an amazing, warm, sheltered place to kayak.
We need to check out the West Coast of Scotland when home too.
That evening – Carribean food, rum and good company at Reef in East Vancouver. A great way to end a great day.