"Orcas!" I said. Lexie and Caleb, our Sea Kayak Adventures guides, were asking me and seven others about our overall objective for a six-day kayaking trip. My co-paddlers and I were attending a night-before, planning-and-get-to-know-each-other session at the Haida-Way Inn in Port McNeill on the northeastern tip of Vancouver Island.
Photos courtesy of Paul Malboeuf
Day 1: We arrived at God's Pocket Resort after a bracing boat cruise through the Queen Charlotte Strait, on a tour organized by Sea Kayak Adventures, which has exclusive use of the resort for lodge-based sea kayak tours.
Kayaking British Columbia
Adventurers have punished their minds and bodies on human-powered odysseys for centuries. Every week, it seems another modern-day Thor Heyerdahl embarks on a feat that most of us can't even fathom, and often for the fame that comes with success.
While some people are content to simply watch killer whales, sea kayakers have a yen to experience them.
The payoff for investing a few days and a little muscle power can be huge, as another eclectic group of adventurers learned this summer in the fabled orca waterways off northeastern Vancouver Island.
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Kayak in God's Pocket, BC
by Molly Feltner, SmarterTravel.com Staff - December 8, 2008
Sea Kayak Adventures has a great itinerary for veteran sea kayakers seeking for a new destination to explore or beginners who want to try a multi-day excursion without having to rough it: A six-day trip in British Columbia's God's Pocket Marine Provincial Park based out of an island resort in the middle of the park.
Not only will you get to experience a spectacular region seldom visited by other kayakers—at the end of a good paddle you can unwind with a yoga session and a hot shower followed by a made-from-scratch meal in the comfy God's Pocket Resort to which the company has exclusive access.
"The lodge is a jewel and it is the only structure allowed in God's Pocket Provincial Park," says Nancy Mertz, co-owner of Sea Kayak Adventures. "This virtually uninhabited island chain provides sheltered kayaking next to nutrient-laden currents where salmon gather in huge numbers. The salmon are eagerly sought after by the northern resident subspecies of orca, bald eagles, and seals. Not a trip goes by that we don't see humpback and minke whales, dall's porpoises, and sea otters. As we kayak along our emerald isles and rocky points, we can look across the Queen Charlotte Strait to the snow-capped peaks of the BC Coastal Range—just spectacular. So we have incredible scenery right in the heart of spectacular wildlife and yet are close to shelter from the elements if need be."
During the trip, you'll kayak for about four hours each day with a break for lunch in between. In the afternoon you'll have time for hiking on the island and a yoga class before a happy hour on the resort's sun deck and then dinner. If you want a break from paddling for a day you can hang out at the resort or, if you're scuba certified, go diving with the lodge's host, who is also a dive master. "Jacques Cousteau named this area the world's best cold water scuba dive site," says Mertz.
This trip departs June 29. Other God's Pocket trips not including yoga begin every Monday between July 6 and August 3. Prices include transfers to God's Pocket Resort, lodging, meals, kayaking equipment and instruction, yoga, and guides. Transportation to the trip start location in Point Hardy, British Columbia, is extra. Round-trip June airfare from Los Angeles to Vancouver, starts at $451, including taxes, on US Airways. From Vancouver, it's an eight-hour drive to Port Hardy.
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"The group that participated in the whale watching were all overwhelmed with the experience and it clearly put an exclamation point on an otherwise fantastic trip and forever memorable experience"
