Our Blunden Island Adventure

On October 25, 2015 the MV Leviathan II sank off the cost of Tofino, B.C. killing 6 people. While watching the footage on TV about this tragic accident I happened to notice a map showing the area where the Leviathan II went down; nearby was an island called Blunden Island. This immediately got me intrigued and so I started to research what I later began referring to as "my private island". Unfortunately, the historic information about the island is fairly limited and so there's more research needed.

Blunden Island is located in the Pacific Ocean, just west of Vargas Island in British Columbia, both of which are part of the Vargas Provincial Park. It is an uninhabited island that is only accessible by boat or kayak. Once I knew there was an island out there with my last name it became my immediate mission to plan a trip to our "private island".

As luck would have it, we had to travel to Vancouver Island so that my oldest daughter could attend the BC Provincial Championship swim meet in Victoria; and so plans were put in place to take our trailer and extend our visit with a day trip to Tofino and Blunden Island. During this trip, my father was also planning travelling out from the UK to come camping with us and so we decided to make this a Blunden family adventure!

Getting to Blunden Island isn't as easy as I thought it would be. There was certainly no appetite in our house for a kayak adventure and so I began researching companies that I could charter to take us over by boat. After some extensive research, I found Dennis Kay of Clayoquot Connections who offered to take us out for the day in July 2016 on a private boat charter. Getting my wife "sold" on this adventure was somewhat problematic, particularly since I later found out that we could not land on the island with our dog Molly and therefore she would have to be kenneled in Tofino while we went on our family adventure (minus the dog).

The conditions had to be just right and so the week before our trip, Dennis and I maintained regular contact where he updated me on the sea conditions. One email stated "the West Coast surf forecast is forecasting seas just over 1m which is very doable". 1 meter??? Seemed quite high to me so I decided to omit that detail when updating my wife. We agreed to meet at 10am with an anticipated travel time of about 45 minutes to our private island paradise. Our drive from Parskville to Tofino took us just over 2.5 hours and we arrived in Tofino at about 9:30am to a chilly, but sunny morning where we checked in, signed a bunch of waivers and got Molly settled in her kennel (otherwise referred to as a "jail cell" by my wife).

Both my dad and I were excited about this adventure; the kids and my wife, not so much. What didn't help matters was when we met Dennis at his boat where he proudly informed me how lucky we were because he'd just gotten his boat fixed. We adorned our life jackets, Dennis provided a safety briefing and told me how to use the radio equipment in the event something happened to him. I'd be lying if I said the trip over to Blunden Island was smooth. I'm no hearty seamen, but there was a fairly big "chop" in the water and in order to make good time to our private island, Dennis had to go full throttle which resulted in our youngest daughter crying, my oldest daughter looking very fearful, and my wife giving me the death stare, constantly asking "are you sure this guy knows what he's doing?"

45 minutes later, we arrived at our private island, somewhat dishevelled, but excited to lay claim to our island. In fact, in preparation for our trip, I even made a sign that we used in photos and left as a stake of our claim to our island. Although our visit only lasted an hour or so, the scenery was spectacular. Unfortunately a lot of the island is unaccessible due to the terrain, but we enjoyed our time scouring the beach and taking photos. It was very desolate and remote and somewhat scary when you started thinking about what would happen if we got stranded. Therefore, when the Ahousat First Nations patrol boat showed up to enquire about our visit, it was somewhat comforting to know that there were other people out in the area.

Our trip back to Tofino was more leisurely as we headed East towards Vargas Island. We were treated to some seal sightings and spectacular West Coast scenery. Although my kids will never admit it, I know very well they will remember this trip for many years to come and maybe even take their own kids back there when they are older.