{"id":27760,"date":"2022-09-21T10:00:36","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T17:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com\/?p=27760"},"modified":"2023-10-25T09:32:07","modified_gmt":"2023-10-25T16:32:07","slug":"surreal-encounters-from-the-inside-passage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2022\/09\/21\/surreal-encounters-from-the-inside-passage\/","title":{"rendered":"Surreal Encounters from the Inside Passage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seventy-two days on the Inside Passage, from the first paddle stroke to the last. That\u2019s 72 breakfasts, lunches and dinners. 72 days of finding campsites. Of drinking our water dry and finding the next stream to refill it. Of wildlife encounters. Of human interactions. 72 days of being so encapsulated in the moment that I couldn\u2019t have told you what I\u2019d done the day before. Days upon days of getting rained on. My hands becoming so pruned that even the backs of them had wrinkled and turned pale, my fingers doubled in width. Meals cooked and dishes washed, sometimes in the sea, other times in creeks or tide pools<\/p>\n

A part of me never wanted it to end. The part that always wants to know what\u2019s around the next corner. That part lives within every adventurer. An insatiable desire to explore, to carry on and continue. It\u2019s what drives us through the lows and helps us reach new highs. I tried to take this experience one paddle stroke at a time. Hearing every bird and seeing every whale. But at the end, I still craved another breaching whale, another new experience.<\/p>\n

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The expedition didn\u2019t begin with the first paddle stroke. It began four years prior when I first moved from the U.K. to Canada and met two girls on their own journey north on the Inside Passage. I\u2019d never even heard of it before. But those girls planted the seed. And it grew, fast. Kayaking across the border to Alaska and beyond to Skagway took over my daydreams. It sounded so completely\u2026 wild.<\/p>\n

In the UK, you\u2019re never farther than six miles from a road, so to imagine pushing a boat out into the great northwest, where I might not see another soul for days on end\u2014I was hooked on the thought. Yet it would be a challenge beyond anything I\u2019d ever taken on before. That\u2019s where my friend and fellow guide Nuka comes in. He\u2019s the only person I know with this kind of experience. He was the first\u2014and only\u2014person I asked to join me.<\/p>\n

It was necessary to find a teammate as goal-driven as me, who shares my ambition, whose strengths cover my weaknesses, who can handle their own when the ferocity of the ocean comes for us. At the same time, it had to be someone who I am happy to share a drink with at the end of each long, arduous day\u2014for 72 days straight.<\/p>\n

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Together we lived, we struggled and we experienced unimaginable moments. You\u2019ve seen a whale on television and it\u2019s captivating. Maybe you\u2019ve seen one from a whale-watching boat tour. You can hear it, you can sense the scale of the animal. Now, swap the power boat for an 18-foot kayak. It\u2019s been seven days since you saw another human, you\u2019re tired, skin covered in salt. There\u2019s no one else around, just you and your friend. You feel so small, tiny even. You\u2019re a visitor in their home and this whale has blessed you with its presence, deciding to take a breath right there in front of you.<\/p>\n

Each wildlife encounter we had was magical. But one of my most special mornings was spent in McKay Reach. This is a deep, narrow channel running on the north end of Princess Royal Island. Our campsite was an earthly replica of Rivendell. The mountains fell sharply from their peaks down to the small flat we called home and continued on a steep drop-off where the land met the water. Waterfalls cascaded either side of us, creating a beautiful hanging mist that danced around the forest. Simply spending the night there was a wonderful experience, but it\u2019s what happened the following morning that I\u2019ll never forget.<\/p>\n

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Whilst Nuka prepared breakfast, I wandered down the beach, taking it all in, stretching my legs I heard a \u2018WHOOOSHHH\u2019 and turned my head to see a humpback whale, meters from shore. A whale\u2019s exhalation rockets with such booming power that you can hear them from great distances. And when they\u2019re up close, it sounds like a shotgun blast firing over your shoulder.<\/p>\n

I ran back to Nuka to tell him how amazing seeing the whale was and as I\u2019m explaining what just happened, how close it was and how large, over his shoulder I see something that made my eyes widen and jaw drop. Three humpbacks all surfaced at once, mouths open, vertically into the air. \u201cTurn around! Turn around! Turn around!\u201d I yelled.<\/p>\n

Nuka swung round and saw it too. I\u2019d only ever see this on TV. They were bubble net feeding, a food-catching technique that requires great coordination. One whale swims deep and releases air bubbles. These bubbles work as a sort of net, pushing fish together into a dense ball. Then, in synchronicity, the whales all lunge up toward the fish with their mouths open. And they were doing it right in front of our camp.<\/p>\n