He loaded up the smaller of his two kayaks, the one he had constructed himself from a kit two years ago; packed equipment for a few days of camping out, took the ferry to Vancouver Island, met up with a friend who lives in Nanaimo who made similar kayak-camping preparations and they set off for Pacific Rim National Park together.



They decided not to take the Lady Rose in to the archipelago, to paddle the ocean there instead to reach the Broken Island Group where they stopped finally and set up camp for their stay, setting off from there to trip over to other beaches than the one where they camped for some variety in environmental view and viewing sea creatures.



There's always plenty of eagles there, he told us.



They came across seals curious about their presence. And this time they saw in the near distance a few whales, likely, our biologist-son said, grey or sperm whales. The largest living creatures he had ever seen, apart from an Alaska trip he had taken years ago.



They heard them before they actually saw them. Sound carries well over the water. The whales dived, surfaced, spouted and wheezed, sounding closer than they actually were. They took to the water in their kayaks, paddling as close as they thought was useful to observe the whales. And suddenly, there was an eruption in the water roughly 40 yards from where they sat in their kayaks, and one of the whales surfaced, noisily and complacently, allowing them to observe it from closer range.



They saw colourful starfish and other sea creatures on the shore when the water washed out, close to their camping spot.

 

A foggy mist settled wraithlike around islands they paddled close to. The ocean, blue as blue can be, seemed to swell beneath them at times.

 
Photographs courtesy of J.S. Rosenfeld