Blog #15: Solo kayaking in isolated locales – Palau, Alaska, and the Andaman Sea
While I’ve certainly enjoyed whitewater kayaking down many rivers and even surf kayaking, here I want to cover a relaxing but still exciting means to truly get away from civilization via flatwater kayaking (ignoring tidal currents here). My wife and I have gone on multiday trips that have been among the highpoints of my life. The image shown on the blurb page is from our paddle in Secret Lake, a marine lake in one of the rock islands of Palau.
Many of my most enjoyable experiences have been while rafting or kayaking, sometimes with my wife. Most of these have been on whitewater, and some have been on Class 5 rivers, i.e., the maximum difficulty possible to survive. My collection of photographs is sparse: it was not possible for me to shoot while running the most exciting stretches of rapids; in fact, I never carried a camera in the rapids. If I gave my camera for someone else to shoot me running a rapid, the resulting photos were invariably poor. However, photography is much less difficult with flatwater kayaking.
Although generally quite different from whitewater (except going through surf or waves), I have also enjoyed some lake and ocean kayaking. While there have been some pleasant one-day trips, two multiday trips stand out.
Iceberg stranded by low tide in early morning light in Endicott Arm, Alaska (1994).
Alaska. For my 50th birthday, prior to our arrival in Juneau, Alaska, my wife arranged a rental kayak that was placed on a day-tour boat going to visit Tracy Arm, a fjord ~60 miles SE of Juneau. Near the end of that tour day, the two of us were dropped off on a small pebbly beach near the entrance to Tracy Arm along with our food, gear and kayak. The boat was scheduled to pick us up at the same time and in the same place five days later. We paddled around to enter the next fjord south, Endicott Arm.
Iceberg and gulls in early morning light in Endicott Arm, Alaska (1994).
Sunrise near entrance of Endicott Arm taken from the kayak (1994).
For the next five days as we paddled in and then out of Endicott Arm, we did not see any signs of other humans – not even jet contrails in the sky – except for an old trapper’s hut. But we did see icebergs, some photos of which are shown here, calved from the glacier at the head of the fjord. We also saw and heard an enormous number of birds and other wildlife. Fortunately, we only saw bears at a distance, as we had learned to pitch our tent a large distance from any food and waste, which were kept in a bear-proof container, and we cooked and ate (below the tideline) far from the tent, far from the kayak and far from the airtight food container. I don’t show any bear pictures here, since I have much better ones from staying for five days at a bear camp on Kodiak Island and also from backpacking in Denali. My pictures of bald eagles and other birds are also too fuzzy for me to upload here.
Paddling Endicott Arm, Alaska (1994).
Endicott Arm, Alaska (1994)
Fog on Endicott Arm (1994).
Bergie bit in Endicott Arm (1994).
Palau. Five years later, we had a very different paddling experience in Palau, where we spent ten days. Palau is an isolated island nation located roughly between the Philippines and Papua New Guinea. It is most famous for some of the best scuba diving on the planet, but we discovered Palau above water is also paradise. After scuba diving several days with Sam’s Dive Center, we went on a kayaking tour with them of some ship and plane wrecks as well as a Japanese “pillbox” – all relics of a big US-Japanese battle in World War II (Battle of Peleliu).
Remains of a Japanese Zero that was shot down during the World War II “Battle of Peleliu”. Peleliu, Palau (1999)
This inspired a plan to rent a double kayak from Sam’s as well as some gear and most importantly a map showing Palau’s hundreds of islands and to paddle for three full days through the myriad Rock Islands portion of Palau. They dropped us off at an uninhabited region near the Milky Way on Urukthapel and marked where they would pick us up three days later at another island many miles south. It was a magical time paddling among these beautiful uninhabited islands as we went as far south as the island of Mecherchar. One day, we saw a distant dive boat returning to Koror, and we once saw another couple kayaking as we were exiting Long Lake. Otherwise, it was our world.
Milky Way, Palau, taken from the kayak. (1999)
The other-worldly Secret Lake, Palau. (1999)
One day we used tide tables to time our passage through a short tunnel and enter a marine lake within one island that seemed to be a primeval world. Of course, we could not leave that marine lake until the tide receded once again revealing the tunnel. There were marine lakes on other islands we visited, but lying on the deck of the kayak to pass through the tunnel was quite memorable.
This unnamed little isle served as a lunch and kayak rest stop. Palau.
One of many arches in the Rock Islands of Palau. (1999)
We could anchor where we wished and go snorkeling among the coral and sea creatures, including stingless jellyfish and some endemic fish species in the marine lakes. We just pulled onto any of hundreds of gorgeous, isolated beaches to eat and sleep.
Paddling and snorkeling in Cyclad Lake, Palau. (1999)
The entrance to Long Lake, Palau, was also a lunch spot. (1999)
From our beach camp, west side of Euidelchol, Palau. Rain’s coming. (1999)
Paddling through Wonder Channel was wonderful. Palau. (1999)
Andaman Sea. While kayaking Palau and Alaska were truly experiences in the wild, I confess to inclusion of Andaman Sea in the title to this blog mostly because it is beautiful, kayaking was wonderful and much that we experienced was sparsely populated. We traveled ten days with friends via sailboat from Langkawi, Malaysia, to Phuket, Thailand.
Fishing boat in the Strait of Malacca (2018)
Kayak landing spot on Ko Hong, Andaman Sea (2018)
Ko Bida Nok, Andaman Sea (2018)
Giant clams embedded in the coral near Ko Rok Noi (2018)
Early in the morning, from the typically secluded spot where our boat was anchored, my wife and I would often take a kayak out to paddle around the wonderful rock island formations.
Evening on the Andaman Sea (2018)
Sunset on the Andaman Sea (2018)
Living away from everybody on Ko Lipi (2018)
A few islands had day visitors if they were not too far from the mainland. But a handful of local people apparently decided to live the life of a hermit as well.
“The Needle” on Ko Khao Phing Kan (James Bond Island) (2018)
There were other islands in this area that are extremely popular with (usually Thai) tourists, however, due significantly to movies and television shows having been filmed there. These places were also quite beautiful even if we did have to share them with dozens of others. There were at least a hundred people present when we visited Ko Khao Phing Kan (aka James Bond Island) where some scenes in The Man with the Golden Gun were filmed). Still, I managed to take some nice pictures of this beautiful island. On Ko Phi Phi Leh, there is a bay (Ao Maya) with a beautiful beach where the Leonardo DiCaprio movie The Beach was filmed. That proved a draw for dozens of people. But we all had to exit by 6 P.M. With nearly all being day trippers, the island became very quiet as we anchored just outside Ao Maya.
At Ko Phanak, we hiked for ~50m through a tunnel in the limestone where the tide runs in and out to the “Hidden Gardens”, an interesting little “amphitheater” surrounded by high stone walls. With no wide-angle lens, I show only a portion of that interior of Ko Phanak here. On the way out through the tunnel, we encountered a group rushing in shooting a scene with a couple from “The Amazing Race”, Portuguese-version.