Messing About in the Broken Group Islands

by Erik Olsen on

One of my favorite outdoorsy quotes from literature comes from the book The Wind and the Willows, and goes:
“There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” So
true.

Which leads me to post this article about paddling the Broken Group
Islands in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve of
Canada. The writer, Matt Jackson, explores this gorgeous region, battles curious and lethargic sea lions, checks
out the lively tide pools, and generally gives a wonderful impression of this “shattered jigsaw puzzle of rocky islands
and islets” that lies between Bamfield and Ucluelet on the west coast of Canada’s Vancouver Island. It’s a longish,
satisfying piece and worth a read.

Photo of the Day: (9/06/05) Channel Islands

by Erik Olsen on

Folks, today I am departing a wee bit from convention and am
posting my own photo as POTD. I know,
sounds a bit self-serving, but hey, I hope you don’t mind. I’m actually an
avid photographer, even if I’ve not posted much to Flickr. I’ve kind of
kept the Gadling Flickr area as a place for readers to use, but I
decided to add some stuff anyway.

This photo was taken at the Channel Islands about a week and a half ago. I was there, as
I wrote yesterday, for a bachelor party for a buddy of
mine. A great place to do such a thing BTW. The photo here was taken during a hike over the top of the Santa Cruz
island, the largest of the group. That’s one of the guys who came along, Tom Morrell from Santa Cruz. Good
dude.

Sean Penn the (Doomed) Sailor

by Erik Olsen on

We’ve bashed Sean Penn enough here that we almost feel
bad for giving him a hard time for his recent efforts to help the folks in New Orleans, but hey sometimes he brings it
on himself.

Turns out Savior Spicoli set out to do “whatever I
can to help”, by launching a boat in the drowned city of New Orleans. Unfortunately, he did not have his sea legs about
him enough to realize that there was a hole in the rescue vessel, which promptly started sinking as he furiously
scooped water out of the boat with a plastic cup (but not before finishing his rum and Coke…just kidding. I added that
part).  Onlookers who apparently knew better warned Penn that there were already too many people in the boat,
including his personal photographer. One of them quipped, “How are you going to get any people in that thing?” Sean, we
love you, we really do, and any day you want to invite us out for a surf with Eddie and yourself, we’ll be there, but
my goodness at least bring some duct tape next time. It works wonders.

Channel Islands Sea Kayaking

by Erik Olsen on

Last weekend I traveled down Route 101, past the yawning golden fields and kitchy nut shacks to Ventura. From there,
a group of friends and I hoped aboard a boat and zoomed across the scalloped swells of the Pacific to reach Santa Cruz
Island, the largest island in Channel Islands National Park.

The island is a dry, barren place made of a mixture of volcanic rock and powdery limestone, and is one of the least
visited among California’s National Parks. It is an idyllically quiet jewel of a place, where the restrictions on
development make it seem a million miles away from California (rather than the 20 miles it sits from Ventura). The
islands are well-known among sea kayakers for offering some of the best paddling in the world.

We arrived on a Friday afternoon, after catching the 12 pm boat, and hiked from the small pier at the Scorpion Ranch
inlet to a primitive campsite about a mile away. We immediately set up camp and set about exploring the island, roaming
over its grassy slopes and catching glorious views of the sea and the towering cliffs. I wont go into detail about some
of our daily activities because  we were there for a bachelor party and as we all agreed, “what happens in the
Channel Islands stays in the Channel Islands” (do you have any idea how much it cost to airlift in strippers? Just
kidding). No, our behavior was tame. The experience was more Robert Bly than frat guy hijinx. The high-point of the
trip was the sea kayaking tour we took on Sunday morning around the island. A group of a dozen of us paddled around and
through some of the gaping sea caves that are carved into the island’s cliffs, some of which are actually tunnels that
roil with churning swells and require helmets lest a swell lifts your boat and smashes your head against the rocky
ceiling (yes, that happened to a few of us).

I cannot recommend the islands more as a place to escape the city and to experience the kind of outdoor thrills and
exertions that make life worth living. Five stars.

(photo by Erik Riegler)

Paddling Price William Sound

by Erik Olsen on

A few years ago, a couple of buddies and I paddled Prince William Sound for a week. This was easily one of the most
epic trips I’ve ever done. We were forty miles away from any big towns, and I don’t recall ever seeing another person
during that whole week. I wrote about the trip in a piece for the LA
Times a while back, and so was very pleased to read this
piece in Canoe/Kayak Magazine about a similar trip.

Instead of heading out of Valdez, as we did, this trip heads out of Whittier, an ice-free port in Alaska, and a former
strategic military post 65 miles southeast of Anchorage. They paddle around Lawrence Glacier and Blackstone Glacier,
and the description of these places brought back some fine memories.