Today was my first solo kayak camp! I rented a kayak from Deep Cove and paddled 18km to the Granite Falls, a marine access only campsite. I had to rent a kayak as my folding Oru Bay St kayak isn’t great for storage, it would be difficult to fit all my camping gear. Some lessons were definitely learned on this trip, notably, trust your gut and don’t rely solely on the advice of the kayaking center guy who despite my concerns about the marine weather forecast, said it would be “pretty chill”. Spoiler alert – it was not chill. I was not mentally prepared for a battle with white caps for several hours, especially solo, but I made it and was glad for the experience in the end. After this trip I’m definitely interested in doing the Paddle Canada Level 2 sooner than I originally planned to practice capsize and rescue in rough conditions, and will certainly beef up my trip planning before my Desolation Sound trip. But once I got to camp it was beautiful – there’s a 150ft waterfall and all of the campsites overlook the fjord. I fell asleep to the sound of the waterfall and hit the ground running hella early the next day before the wind started (5am wake up, on the water at 6:15). It took me 3 hrs to get to Granite Falls with the wind and waves pushing me there. Surprisingly, it only took 3.5 hrs return, I thought it would be much longer without the help of the wind but I think I was so afraid of getting caught going against yesterday’s conditions that I booked it back asap. Overall, I would definitely do the trip again but would go for 2 days next time so I had more time to explore the end of the fjord.
