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Comox :
Features
An adventure tourism partnership on the west coast of Vancouver Island is sharing ancient aboriginal lands with kayakers looking for the unexplored
It goes without saying that luck, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Moreover, like beauty, harbingers of good fortune are occasionally not what you expect.
"That crow just defecated on my chapeau," I said.
"It's a sign of good luck," responded Tom, who must have been feeling particularly blessed considering the job the crows had done christening his kayak. Truth is, Tom Abraham has enough experience paddling the waters of Barkley Sound that luck isn't required. As lead guide for the Port Alberni-based kayak tour company Batstar Adventures, he is the antithesis of the saying "Better lucky than good."
I was counting on Tom's skills to lead us on an exclusive trip to get a sneak peak of Batstar's new home base on Keith Island about 10 nautical miles south in Barkley Sound. I had no need to worry, though, because Tom, as he would awkwardly tell me later, was labelled in an uncomfortably breathless fashion as a "savvy river guide" by an American men's magazine.
"Don't you call me a savvy anything," he instructed. "I really hate that."
Tom, the non-savvy but "Freakishly Above Par Kayaking Facilitator," and I would be paddling out in a pair of single-person kayaks, while photographer Kari Medig and Tom's assistant Mathius would travel in a double. This would allow Kari lots of opportunities to take pictures, or—in that quirk of photographers—have someone propel his kayak while making others paddle back and forth until the natural light justified a press of the shutter.
As we pushed off into the spring-chilled waters of Toquart Bay, it seemed that there might be something to the crow-relieving-itself-on-my-hat parable. Where earlier the skies were hung demurely low—a gauze-like hem that obscured the horizon—were now clearing as wisps of cloud drifted away, revealing the lush hills of cedar, spruce and hemlock.
"Looks like we got a good one," Tom said about the weather, as we started our paddle to Keith Island at the heart of Barkley Sound's Broken Group Islands. Almost immediately a pack of juvenile sea lions broke in front of us. Their actions seemed typical of teenage humans, reckless, senseless, aimless and punctuated with much belching.
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