ZEBALLOS, B.C.

THE STEADY DRUM of rain through the night was not promising. Nor were the cornball jokes served up with our eggs and bacon at the forlorn Zeballos Hotel.
"It usually rains twice a week in Zeballos," said the rangy Irishman who was waiter, chef and cashier all rolled into one. "Three days the first time, four the next."
Groan.
"Spent a week in Zeballos one day. Ever hear that one?"
All right, already.

My husband and I knew we'd gambled — the weather on the west coast of Vancouver Island is never predictable, even in mid-June, and there was a more than slim chance our kayak adventure would be a very wet one. The probability got even higher when we factored in our launch site — the lonely, rain-soaked hamlet of Zeballos, a former mining and logging community in a misty valley at the end of the Esperanza Inlet.
We were here because, a month earlier, I had called an outfitter and asked him to name his favourite place to kayak in British Columbia. I was expecting to hear Desolation Sound or Tofino, or maybe Clayoquot Sound.
"Nuchatlitz, hands down," said Brian Danyliw of WeGo Kayaking. "Superb paddling, stunning scenery and hardly anyone else in sight."
It took a while, but we finally found the Nuchatlitz archipelago on a map. Off the northwest coast of Nootka Island, it looked rugged, isolated and mysterious. Perfect.
So we paid our money — $850 each, including all the gear, food and guiding — and crossed our fingers. We're experienced campers, but we had only kayaked a handful of times and never on a multi-day trip. What were we getting into? A feast for the senses, as it turned out: three days of relaxed paddling in a remote ocean landscape teeming with bald eagles, sea otters, seals and even black bears — and not a single other human being in sight.

But, first, we had to get there. From Vancouver, we took a ferry to Nanaimo, where Brian met us with three kayaks strapped to the roof of a van packed with camping gear.
Clouds gathered during the four-hour drive up and across Vancouver Island and mist hung low in the trees, snaking through the evergreens on the roadside. The rain began as we hit the final road to Zeballos — a 45-km gravel road studded with ominous signs warning: "You WILL meet logging equipment on this road, 24 hours, seven days a week."
The road ends at Zeballos, population 250, give or take a few. Named after a Spanish explorer, its fortunes have ebbed and flowed over the decades. First a gold mining town, then a logging community, it's now grappling with what comes next.
For some locals the answer is fish and oyster farming; for others it's tourism. With a handful of small hotels, a couple of kayaking outfitters and several water taxis, Zeballos is the perfect jumping off point for anyone looking to explore the outdoors without running into cruise ships or ferry boats. In early August, the place is pretty busy, according to Dan, our water-taxi man. But the day we arrived, a Sunday in June, Zeballos had the eerie beauty of a frontier ghost town, all mist and mountains and wet dogs on lonely walks.

After a night repacking our gear into water-proof bags at the Zeballos Hotel and a breakfast of corny jokes, we loaded into Dan's motorboat for a 20-minute cruise down the cold waters of the Esperanza Inlet, past the salmon-fishing farms, past the rugged green mountains scarred by clear cuts. At a beach on the northern edge of the Nuchatlitz group of islands, we unloaded the kayaks and mounds of gear in the pouring rain. Then Dan was off — and we didn't see another human being until he picked us up four days later.
Rain pounded down on the tarp Brian had set up to keep everything dry while we stuffed the gear into the kayaks. But an hour and a half later, just as we hit the water, the rain let up — and it held off for most of the rest of the trip.

For the next three hours, we paddled under the low grey sky, threading a path through small islands of lichen-covered rocks. A wolf loped along a beach and into the woods as we rounded one island. Several bald eagles kept watch from the treetops, while another posed boldly on an outcrop, motionless as we paddled by. Sea otters and seals popped up from time to time, always keeping their distance as they kept an eye on us.
That night we camped on a long, stony beach ringed with glossy green shrubs and wildflowers — red columbine, salal, beach pea. We quickly realized that the greatest advantage of kayaking with a guide was not the marine expertise, the latest gear or the shiny new kayaks Brian brought to the adventure, but the fact that he did all the cooking — and the cleanup. The first night we had chicken curry, the next it was pasta with salmon and sun-dried tomatoes. At only 37, Brian has many past lives — he has worked on a fishing boat, in a pulp mill and run a bed & breakfast, and for the past eight years has had a kayaking business — so dinner conversation ranged far beyond the local ecology.

The next day, we paddled four hours, following the shoreline south to Bensen Point, stopping to admire sea caves and crystal-clear waterfalls. The marine forecast called for a storm moving in from the open water, so we spent the afternoon exploring our latest campsite, a vast sandy beach beside a windswept point. Spruce trees marked the beginning of the forest, and giant cedar logs bleached bone white were washed high onto the beach. The tide thrust smooth stones and shells high on the beach and dragged them down again, tracing intricate patterns in the sand.
The next morning we paddled north, back up through the islands. With the tide low and the sun making a regular appearance, it was a different world. Everything seemed quieter and sometimes we simply floated in the shallows, peering at the plump red and purple starfish clinging to the rocks or lying on the seabed. It was easy to lose any sense of time as the kayak slipped effortlessly through the water, green eel grass silently caressing the hull, tiny sunfish shooting in and out of the water like drops of water on a hot grill.
A brown shape on a nearby beach started to move. Black bear. We paddled in and watched unnoticed for several minutes as the bear dug through the stones with powerful paws. I took a photo; the bear turned and stared back, so we paddled on.
Another bear sighting kept us off our intended final campsite, but that was okay with us — the alternate was even more beautiful. The sea otters floating offshore were endlessly fascinating, spinning, twirling, breaking clams and sea urchins on their chests and gobbling up the meat. Hummingbirds fluttered magically in the fading light and we caught a brief glimpse of two grey whales in the distance. While Brian made dinner — salmon teriyaki steaks — Carl and I explored the nearby tidal pools, filled with sea anemones jammed together as the tide swept in.
In the morning, the sun was triumphant as we paddled over to meet Dan and, when we pulled into Zeballos again, it was no longer an eerie outpost.
The sun had transformed it into a pleasant little port, with boats pulling out and fish from the nearby salmon farm being loaded onto trucks for same-day delivery to Vancouver.
? the drive from Nanaimo to Zeballos is about four hours. If you're leaving from Victoria, add another hour and a half. From Nanaimo, take the Inland Highway north through Campbell River, take Hwy. 19 north and eventually you reach the Zeballos Junction, 15 minutes north of Woss.