The sky was a low overcast ceiling that pressed down on us from above, occasionally sprinkled a little rain, chopped off the tops of the islands and prevented us from seeing a background of mountains that we didn’t get to see for several days. We had planned for our first day of paddling to be a short one. A shakedown paddle around a few points to a place called Ideal Cove that sounded ideal. Our outfitter, Scott, recommended that we go past the cove and camp just around a little point. He gave explicit directions to this point, warning us that the tide was going to be very high and camping would be difficult to find. We asked him for advice on several other areas that we would be camping in. He mashed his finger down on several places and assured us that we would be able to camp there.
When we got to the designated point near Ideal Cove, the camping was not immediately obvious. The forest came right down to the high tide line and then there was thick brush that was difficult to press through. When I worked my way through this brush I found myself in a Forest Primeval. The ground was uneven and covered with crossed downed trees. The soil and dead wood had 10 cm of moss growing everywhere. Devils Club, a nasty thorned leafy plant, was prominent under the canopy. There were few places you might be able to set up a tent or two and no place to set up the 5 tents that we had. Returning to the beach and crashing through the underbrush a mere 50 meters away we stumbled on the campsite that Scott had directed us to. Here the soil was flat and previous campers had cleared several areas making it possible to camp above the high tide line.