Skooks in Long Boats

In the middle of our first week of 70 plus weather here in the Northwest, Shane and I left Squamish with Lise-Anne to meet Shawna Franklin and Leon Somme at Horshoe Bay. To no surprise Leon was the first car in line for the 9:20 ferry. The first time I ever went to Skooks was with Shawna and Leon fours years ago now. I used an old Necky RIP. I pretty much sucked as a boater...only managed to even get on the wave and surf once. The eddy fence denied me every time.

No Skooks mission is complete without creating a bit of a scene in Egmont. We were nothing short of a scene. Three sea kayaks, 5 playboats, 2 dogs, and my crazy friend Ozzy from Olympia. We arrived Saturday afternoon looking at a 10.9 tide peaking around 4:00pm. The weather and light could not have been better. With Shane shooting video and Gary Luhm rapid firing away on the still, I was forced to paddle for something like 4.5 hours solid. I could have eaten a Skookum Burger, but we missed the pub by like 10 minutes. We rallied on a mission for food, as the alternative was power bars and our breakfast for the next morning. We were lucky enough to convince the little Italian place before you turn off the main road to Skooks to serve us dinner. It was incredible and I highly recommend giving them business if you prefer good food over grease and cheap beer.

The second day was more of the same, but everyone left early, leaving Shane, I, and three others with the wave to ourselves for over two hours. Here are a few shoots of the long boat in action at Skooks. Harder to surf at Skooks than a playboat? I'll leave that open to comments.


photo by Gary Luhm


photo by Gary Luhm