Chocolate Beach on Easter Sunday: Kayaking around Salt Spring Island from Fulford to Vesuivus

As far as Canada goes, southern British Columbia has always been known as having mild winters and this year has been as mild as it gets. With forecasts for the Easter long weekend in the mid teens and me with 4 days off, it looked like Smudge and I were going camping.

Unfortunately there were things I had to do first and wasn't able to leave until Saturday morning. I loaded my boat on my back, Smudge on my chest and a bag with my camping gear over my shoulder and my food in another bag in my other hand with my paddle. With no room for anything else, I was off to the ferry!

There are a couple options for getting ferries to Salt Spring from Vancouver. For logistic reasons it made the most sense for me start my attempt at rounding the 185 square kilometer island at Fulford harbour. This meant taking the longest route to the Island and I wasn't on the water until about 4:30 pm. With only a few hours of daylight left I paddled as hard as I could hoping to cover as much distance as possible and just before 7:30 I pull up on Beddis Beach. With the light fading and the weather looking questionable I decide to spend the night there. I was pretty wet and getting cold. It would be nice have camp set up before it got dark or started to rain. As I set up my tent and made some dinner I had the luxury of watching the full moon rise, then cuddled with up with Smudge as I ate by the fire. As soon as I was done dinner I threw a couple more logs on the fire hoping it would burn through the night and then I was off to bed. Only covering 15 kilometers that evening, tomorrow would have to be a huge day if I wanted to make it around the Island by Monday.

I first woke up at around 5:30 am, The fire was still smoldering so I moved it around to get the flame going again. I was freezing! The temperature had dropped substancially and I just wasn't having it. I craweld back into my warm sleeping bag with my little warm dog and went back to bed.

It was about an hour or so later I woke up again. Now the sun was out but the temperature hadn't risen by much. It didn't matter though i had to get going. I packed up and ate as quickly as I could and took to the water to head to Ganges, The business center of the island. I stopped here and grabbed a couple supplies and some water but was quickly on my way. I was heading to Chocolate Beach for lunch.

Located of course, on Chocolate Island, part of the beautiful Chain Islands that dot the Ganges Harbour. We pulled up and I put Smudge in the sun and started cooking some rice. It ended up being an absolutely beautiful day and as I looked around me, I felt myself starting to relax. This is what I needed. The chances of us getting around the Island in the time we had meant paddling every second of daylight. A feat of endurance for sure but not necessarily what I wanted out of this weekend. I decided at that point to make sure I made the most of my time with my little sidekick and not focus on our distance.

After lunch we headed torwards Long Harbour as we continued north along the island. The wind and water were against me but still very managable and we pressed on.

I'm very nostalgic, especially about trips that sorta changed my perspective about what I could do with the resources available to me. As we paddled past Long Harbour I though back to my first time camping out of my kayak. I had paddled from Long Harbour to neighboring Prevost Island and set up camp there with smudge for her 12th birthday. I ended up paddling to Galiano Island later that evening and then circle navigated Prevost it self the next morning. This really opened my eyes to where I could go and the type of water I would face, it turned me into to a better, more aware paddler. Now a couple years later I see how far I've come and how much I owe to that trip and use that to help drive me to continue to paddle towards the northern point of Salt Spring Island.

As Thetis Island came into view I knew I was close and within about 45 mintues I had rounded the northern tip of the Island ironically named Southy point. Vesuvius Bay was nearly 9 kilometers away and this was basically the point of no return. From there I was to decide if I had enough time to still actually make it all around the island. If not then this was our stopping point as there really wasn't anywhere else to stop and catch a bus between there and Fulford, a 40 kilometer stretch of pretty much widerness.

The wind died as we rounded the point and I was now paddling through still water, which can be it's own form of torture. For the next hour or so it felt as if I was moving along at a snail's pace. I guess Smudge felt it too because she was starting to get cranky and as the her little grunts and whines quickly turned into barks I knew she had enough of the boat for the day. That's when I noticed the beach on the little Island we had been paddling towards. A quant little beach on an uninhabited Island is as good it gets for me. We pulled up and I investigated the high tide line. The beach came off the island like a small spit and in extreme tides or storms it's looks like the entire beach would be submerged. Tonight I figured we were ok as all of the wood at the high point of the beach was really dry. I unpacked the kayak and started to set up camp.

The fire started much easier this evening than it had the night before and there was dry driftwood everywhere. I once again made dinner and ate by the fire with smudge nestled into my lap. As we sat on our own little peice of paradise I couldn't help but appreciate the beauty around us. The sun setting behind the mountains on vancouver island, each layer of hill or mountain a different shade of blue that contrasts the the warm orange sky yet complimenting it at the same time. It was a shame there was no one else around enjoying this but it sure was nice to have it all to ourselves

After a long rest I woke up to the most beautiful morning of the year so far. The sun was out and it was already starting to warm up. I kicked the fire and made a coffee and sat and enjoyed it in the sun. After sitting around for a while I got to work on breakfast and packing up. Taking many breaks to sit around in the sun with Smudge. This was the point of the weekend, as mush as I would have loved to make it around the whole island this weekend it really didn't matter. The feeling of accomplishment would never beat the true happiness I experinced hanging out on the beach with Smudge. Sometimes I can get carried away with trying to make everything extrordinary, when some things are just great as they are. So we spent the rest of the morning just sitting there in the sun hanging out on Idol Island.

After a few hours we finally got back on the water and made the short paddle to Vesivus Bay. It was almost as relaxing being on the water as it was being on the beach and I took in as much of it as I could before we docked. I quickly deflated my boat and transformed myself back into a walking bunch of bags. From here I caught a bus into Ganges where I could grab some lunch as I had a couple hours before my ferry home. As I sat in the harbor I had just paddled around a day earlier I was filled with excitement. It felt great to get away in the boat for a weekend again and as the weather improves it is only going to happen more often. I can't wait to make it around the rest of the Island, and then Galiano, and then Pender and beyond!. I got home and highlighted the area of water I had paddled and saw how it linked a few spots together and I got even more excited. I'm finally starting to put a dent on the west side of the Strait of Georgia after focusing so hard on the east side last year. The obsession was back and it looked like Smudge and I were going to be doing a lot of camping this year