We looked into landing directly in the warm water flowing into the sea. This was too rocky, barnacle covered and steep even though the water was calm. So we paddled a little farther north and landed on a coble beach. We had to bushwhack through the Forest Primeval to find the walkway to the hot springs. Well, bushwhack is a strong term, apparently others had taken this same shortcut and there was a well-worn trail. The official walkway is a beautiful wooden boardwalk that goes several miles from a boat dock to the hot springs. There are toilets, changing rooms and a big covered deck to change on when it is raining with dry places to hang your clothes. As I took off my dry-top jacket, the neck gasket blew, splitting from the edge all the way down to the bottom. I have had generally bad experiences with latex gaskets and will replace this one with a neoprene one when I get home.
As we had approached I cringed every time a water taxi or a floatplane went by. I feared the spring would be crowded already. But there were only 4 other people in the water when we arrived and two of them were already leaving. I think this area would be crowded with 12 people in it at once. Hot water comes out of the ground near the end of the peninsula and flows under the walkway. Then the water spills over a rock shelf as multiple showers and collected in four pools. At high tide the ocean is supposed to come up high enough to make more lukewarm pools farther down, but I never saw this.
It was an overcast morning but the sun peaked out through the fog and reminded me that I got sunburn at the Loreto hot spring earlier this year. So I moved to a small shallow pool that was under the overhang behind the hot shower. We only stayed an hour or so.
We hiked down the boardwalk, found the side trail and returned to our kayaks. The sun stopped peaking through the fog, which became thicker. I heard a whale blow and turned to see it hump up close enough to see even in the fog! It looked like this whale was inside the shallow water between the rocks close to shore!
Don and I worked our way east poking behind every rock and looking into every slot. The shoreline of Vancouver Island here looks spectacular with trees on top of steep rocky cliffs dropping down to the stony beaches. Unfortunately the thick fog hid much of the detail from us and made photography a waste of time. Especially with the scratched up foggy wet lens of my camera.
We landed for lunch at a gravel beach that had a huge cave behind it and a vertical column of stone at the waterline. While we were napping there, the other six kayakers showed up. They had launched hours later than us and paddled past the hot springs shortly after we left. They reported that the hot springs was now packed wall-to-wall with people.
The whole group together again, we stopped at a creek to filter and purify drinking water. Then we started moving faster to make it to camp. The fog blew away and the sun came out but now most of the coastline was low with trees coming down to the beach. As we approached Hesquiat Point we saw waves breaking there. Ken Kelton went inside the breakers and showed us that it was OK. So we all tried surfing! I managed to get several controlled rides, even with a big bathtub of a fully loaded touring boat! One big set broached me with a huge foam pile but I rode it out. I had quit and started leaving when Don Fleming landed. When I talked to him he said that his hatch cover blew off in the surf and was lost. He walked the shore looking for it while a few of us trolled back and forth offshore but could not find it.
We paddled on to Ronesue Point and landed in three different places before we could agree on a good camping beach. In the end this indecision resulted in two of us camping on one side of the point (exposed to the wind) and the rest of us camped on the other side (out of the wind). We still got together for meals.