Galiano and Wallace Islands

After the Indian Arm kayak trip, I was keen to do another one. Evan sent an email in June with a plan to kayak at Galiano island, and there was a group of 9 of us that decided to go. Evan took care of most of the organization (rentals, transportation, camping location and fees), so it wasn't much work to get ready for the trip. Our plan was to paddle from Galiano to Wallace island and camp there.

SATURDAY: Matt volunteered to drive out to Tsawassen on Saturday morning. We left Vancouver around noon in one of the most jam-packed minivans I've even been in (mostly with backpacks, and a few people). We walked onto the 1:50pm sailing of the Gulf Islands ferry. It was a tiny ferry (probably because the Gulf islands run doesn't see a lot of traffic), and we only paid about a $12 fare.

We disembarked at the Ferry's first stop, Sturdies Bay, on Galiano island. Sturdies Bay is on the south end of the island, on the east side, and we needed to cross to Montague Harbour on the island's west side (see Google Earth map). Evan had done some research and there was a shuttle-bus service, however, on the day we showed up it was out of service. This left us with a 8 km walk, carrying packs that were packed with kayaking, not walking, in mind (heavy, in other words). The fact that we all bought beer in the Sturdies Bay general store didn't make our packs any lighter. We walked for quite a while, but eventually a local with a minivan stopped and gave us a lift the remaining distance.

We arrived the Montague Harbour campsite to find it overflowing with people staying there to celebrate Canada Day. Fortunately they had an "overflow" grass field, which was fine for us - we even managed to grab a picnic table. The overflow got quite busy by the end of the day - it was a busy day for camping in BC I'm sure! We had a pretty relaxing evening.

SUNDAY: We packed our campsite up and headed over to the marina to pick up our kayaks. Since it was such a busy weekend, we had phoned ahead to reserve them. We got 4 doubles, and a single. One of the doubles (Mike and Julie's) wasn't available until 2pm, so the rest of us just paddled around the area and had lunch while we waited for them. One of the first things I noticed about my kayak (a double - I paddled with Ian) was how much slower it was than the one I had at Indian Arm. The mystery was solved when I discovered Ian was dragging two Nalgenes in the water beside the boat to cool them!

There were a lot of very cool cliff formations as we paddled along the west side of Galiano. We stopped for a swimming break at Retreat Cove in the afternoon, and then crossed Trincomali Channel from Galiano to Wallace Island (Wallace Island is located between the north ends of Saltspring and Galiano). We paddled a short way up the west side of Wallace and went ashore at Conover Cove, which was our camping site for the evening. The total distance we paddled was only about 17 km, however, with all the rest stops and waiting we took about 8 hours to get from Montague Harbour to Conover Cove - a pretty relaxed pace!

We spent the evening setting up camp, cooking dinner, drinking beer, and exploring the island. We found a pretty cool rusted out truck that must have been at least 50 or 60 years old, as well as a cabin full of carved wood bearing the names of visitors to Wallace island. We camped in tents though - not in the cabin.

MONDAY: Monday we were up fairly early to break camp and paddle back. We took a slightly different route back, paddling more in the open water instead of along Galiano's coastline. We passed a rocky island that was covered in birds, and later had lunch on a beautiful beach on Galiano. Although we covered approximately the same distance (15km) as on Sunday, we took fewer breaks and only ended up paddling for about 4 hours.

After returning the kayaks and hitching a ride from Montague Harbour to Sturdies Bay in a corn-biomass fueled van (girls sat up front, guys got locked into the back), we walked onto the return Gulf Islands ferry (return fare was less than getting there) and had a relaxing cruise back to Tsawassen. It was a great second kayak trip, and an excellent way to celebrate Canada Day!