Woke to total fog this morning at 5 am, and paddled off at 6:30 am for the town of Ucluelet. Ucluelet has a population of about 1,700 and sits on the eastern side of Ucluth Peninsula, about a third of the way up Ucluelet Inlet from the entrance to Barkley Sound.
![[Clarke Island]](Photos/Clarke_Is.jpg) We camped on Clarke Island on the exact same spot where, only two months ago, I had camped with my niece and her boyfriend on their first sea kayaking trip. Clarke is one of the many beautiful islands in The Broken Group, a part of the Pacific Rim National Park. |
The 6 foot northwesterly swells pushed us along through the fog, and two hours later we heard the whistle buoy which marks Carolina channel, at the entrance to Ucluelet Inlet. Waves compress air in the buoy and activate the whistle, producing a foghorn-like sound to aid passing ships or kayakers like us. We were anxious to get to Barkley Sound and stayed in town just long enough to replenish our water supply, mail postcards, and stock up on a few food items.
Barkley Sound's Broken Group was our destination, and soon we were crossing Loudoun Channel, a body of water that is open to the Pacific and subject to strong winds and ocean swells. The northwest wind quickly increased to 15 mph, and the seas and relentless wind waves became white-capped. A boat, heading for the protection of Ucluelet, shouted at us about the gale warning, and shook his head as we thanked him and continued our crossing.
We surfed our way 5 miles across, as the wind and seas continued to intensify, and caught many exhilarating long rides that sometimes ended with dunk saving brace strokes. As we reached the shelter of Clarke Island's north end, where we landed and camped, I checked my GPS that indicated that we'd reached a max speed of 11.1 mph; fastest I've ever traveled via sea kayak!
We had paddled 18.5 miles that day, had covered 243 miles total, and we're averaging 22 miles per day; what fun!
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![[Clarke Island]](Photos/Bordelais_Is.jpg) |