— Brinestorm

I and four other paddlers did a two-week kayak camping trip to the west coast of Vancouver Island. We were there from late June through early July. Because we traveled from Northern California with our own boats and equipment, we drove 2,280 miles round-trip in order to paddle less than 60 miles.

Oh, but what an amazing sixty miles. In the video above you’ll see us launching and landing via a crane aboard a diesel freighter, encountering a mola mola after I ran over it (which I chronicled previously), hiking on Nootka Island, riding a rusty “zipline,” feeding anenomes, tidepooling, and doing a whole lot of paddling in conditions that varied from long, steep swell to placid waters, from sunshine to heavy rain, from clear skies to dense fog.

All I can offer from this experience are slices of my own perspective over those two wonderful, intense weeks. To get the barest sense of being there, you can watch the short film in this post (or on Vimeo – either way, viewing it in HD at full screen is recommended), or view my photos on Flickr. While I’ve written about the boat I used and the mods I made to it in the past, be sure to keep an eye on this space (and my Twitter and Facebook accounts) for more lessons and learnings from planning and executing our own trip.

Stay tuned for more soon!