2011 BC Kayak

17 August 2011

This is the story of our 2011 Kayak in BC in the discovery islands group. Full gallery is here. This was getting pretty long, so I did separate posts for the base camps describing Solstua West and Go With the Flow.

Sunday

We had flown into Vancouver the night before. On Sunday, we took a small 30 passenger plane from Vancouver south terminal to Campbell River. Took a taxi to the ferry, ferry to Quadra Island, then taxi to our B&B - Harbour House. Harbour House is owned by a nice woman named Susan, with a beautiful view over Harriott Bay. Met Diane from Nanaimo, who would be going on the trip with us.

Bought some wine and cheese and had dinner on the deck of the B&B. Afterwards we went for a little walk, nice sunset - we’re on an island, so the picture is facing east.

Monday

Monday morning we got on the Cosmo with cap’n Brad and his wife to get to Rendezvous island. Met the rest of the folks on the trip - Marnie & Rob, Michelle & Martin from Vancouver, and Mike the assistant guide.

Coming into Solstua West. Met Karen and Pete, the owners, and Brody who is the owner of Go with the Flow and would be our primary guide. Had a delicious lunch with prawn appetizers, the first of many delicious meals.

Quick kayak around North Rendezvous island. You can just see our cabin at the top of the bluff.

Damn this primitive camping and dehydrated meals :) Not :)

from left to right: Diane, Rob, Michelle, Marnie, Martin, Karen, Lola

Wednesday

Tuesday morning (after a delicious hot breakfast) we started a kayak around the Rendezvous islands. Here we took a quick break in a little cove. We were only here about 20 minutes, but you can see how far the tide came in during that time. Good lesson in always tying up the kayaks! (they were)

Water fight, er I *mean water pump test*, between Brody and Mike

Dinner included a surprise birthday party for Martin.

Wednesday

Wednesday we moved camps from Solstua West on Rendezvous to Go With the Flow on Maurelle island. We packed all of our stuff in the Kayaks. Since we weren’t actually “camping”, we had room to spare in the big sea kayaks. The crossing from Rendezvous to Read island was a little rough, but pretty fun - you definitely felt like you were not in a lake!

We stopped here at Surge Narrows, which is pretty much the central “town” for all of the islands. No store, no police, and the only floating post office in Canada.

The Surge Narrows elementary school and community center. The kids in the islands have to boat here until the sixth grade. After that, they either go to Campbell River or do correspondence.

We continued on through Surge Narrows, which really is narrow! This is actually going between two small islands in the middle.

Then we got to Go with the Flow basecamp.

Treated to some homemade beer after getting the Kayaks out of the water.

Thursday

Thursday we started off for a day trip to Octopus island.

Brody making a didgeridoo out of some bull kelp.

We visited the Octopus Island “Museum”. This is a cabin on one of the islands where boaters come and put up some sort of sign about their boat. Lots of sailboats anchored here as they move up and down the inside-inside passage.

Then we headed back

Some fresh local salmon for supper that night.

Some evening badmitten to work off the big Salmon meal!

Friday

Last day we were off to a quick paddle to “little hawaii”, a beach across the channel on Quadra Island.

After the morning excursion, we head back on Cap’n Brad’s boat