June 15th Monday

From:  the east side of Cortes Island          To: Edmond’s Beach Campground on the mainland
Start time: 0600        Finish time: 1500      Distance: 27.5 km
Tide: Twin Island
0419    4.6
1141    0.6
1853    4.6
2308    3.2

     I was up at 4:30 a.m., had some breakfast and listened to the weather. It was going to be another great paddling day with calm conditions. I’ve never seen this part of the coast, from here down to Gibsons will be my first. I’m also leaving Kwakwaka’wakw territory and entering Coast Salish territory, and have no resources for First Nation place names for the rest of my trip south.
   

Sun over the mainland mountains  

 

The coast range is an impressive site 

I left the beach around 6:00 a.m. and crossed over to the Powell Islets then weaved my way through the Copeland Islands checking out most of the campsites as I went. This would be another great area to spend a few days exploring.

paddling through the Copeland Islands

Approaching Lund I met up with the first kayakers I’ve seen on this trip, they were heading out to the Copeland’s, and where happy to hear I hadn’t seen anyone else out there. My daughter-in-law told me I should stop at Lund and get a cinnamon bun at Nancy’s bakery, so that’s exactly what I did. I had the blackberry cinnamon bun with a cup of coffee - so good. 
     I was hoping to camp at the Dinner Rock campsite but I paddled right past it. I turned around and paddled back.  I didn’t see any sign of a camp and the beach was ugly boulders and slippery seaweed. I went to shore and started walking up the beach and heard two dogs barking up the hill.  They came running down to the beach still barking (not a good welcoming party) so I jumped back into my kayak and left. Where to camp now? My next marked campsite wasn’t until Powell River. I could see a few good places to set up camp but all with very unfriendly big boulder beaches covered with an assortment of slippery seaweeds. 
     I paddled around a rock bluff and there to my surprise was a small private campground with about a dozen travel trailers and a few people sitting around watching me land on the beach. I walked up to ask about a camp spot and got asked by a couple of the locals where I was coming from. Before I knew it I had three guys down on the beach helping me pack my gear up to a nice shady campsite on the lawn for only $10 a night.  They even had an old pop machine that you could buy cold beer from for an added bonus.

Edmond's Beach campground 

Most of the campers had gone home for the workweek and only a few remained. All of them seemed to be good friends with each other and with the owner of the site. Later that evening we all sat around the campfire. Somebody pulled out a guitar and I ended up playing for an hour or maybe two before going to bed sometime before midnight.