Codville Lagoon to Nootsum River (Day Trip)

Codville Lagoon and entered Fisher Channel. We saw two of the large inside passage boats - first a cruise ship and then the Queen of the North.

Once we got into the Fisher Channel we did some salmon fishing (no luck). We sailed down the channel to Walker Point and entered the Burke Channel (the south way around King Island). Going up the Burke Channel we spotted a whale! It was quite far off and only rose every 3 or so minuets but it did get close enough to be identified as a Humpback whale.

We came to our destination - the mouth of the Nootsum River. Jan anchored the Curve of Time in the harbour and put two kayaks in the water - Dan and Bob in one Kayak, Paul and myself. The bay has a large logging site at the mouth of the Doc Creek - we paddled over and took a look.

There are two parts to the logging operation - one is a large dock where the logging company could use to load vehicles and the other is a log loading yard. The yard has a large mobile crane that lifts logs from trucks and dumps them into the ocean. Once in the ocean, the logs stay inside a large boomed off area until it would be taken to a logging market.

We rounded the bay and stated kayaking up the Nootsum River. The river is broad and slow so we didn't encounter much resistance. The banks are broad and grassy and would make excelent grazing areas for deer.

As we got further up the river, we saw a few spurs off. The first (below) was a short but deep channel covered in a thin layer of foam. As we kayaked up the channel we heard water - the channel ended abruptly with a small waterfall. Further up the Nootsum, we encountered some shallow channels cut out of the flat banks - more a dranage ditch than a creek. The channels go a ways in but they are pretty difficult in a two person ocean Kayak.

About an hour of kayaking since we left the ocean, we finally left the tidal region and entered the running river. The river was dark brown from cedar tanin and it runs - fast and shallow. Paul and I took a shot at kayaking up but the river was too much for our double ocean kayak.

We kayaked back down the river (surprisingly faster than the way up) and back to the Curve of Time. Remember that Humpback in the Burke Channel? It (and some friends) was still there! The whales were circulating the channel and we took some time to watch. While I was downstairs grabbing my camera, one of them breached. Oh well. The humpbacks would come up, blow twice and then dive for between one minuet and three and then return to the surface. The whales seem complely oblivious to us - they didn't change course.

We got back to Codville Lagoon and pulled up the prawn trap. Fresh prawns! It was getting dark and it was raining. The trap is on 300 feet of line - it takes a lot of effort to pull it up, but the prawns are worth it.