Living the Island Life, Salt Spring Island 3: Biking to Booth Bay, boathouse, kayaking Long Harbour, Prevost Island

July 16, 2014

Living the Island Life, Salt Spring Island 3: Biking to Booth Bay, boathouse, kayaking Long Harbour, Prevost Island

Time for a bike ride, so we glance at our map of the island, and decide to ride from Ganges out to Booth Bay, and out Collins Road to the beach at Cranberry Pt. Biking in the islands is not for the faint of heart (or leg) as there are a lot of hills, that occasionally require us to get off and walk up (only one short hill that we wimped and walked on this ride, we rode all the other hills) but it was all scenic and well worth the effort.

Continuing to put the new kayak to good use, I go out the next day touring Fulford Harbor and crossing Captains Passage over to Prevost Island. This was a bit of a lapse in kayaking judgement as going across Captains passage was very challenging (very confused seas in kayak parlance), a combination of tidal flow colliding with winds, whitecaps, and some boat traffic - but I lived to tell the tale, and the paddling around Prevost Island was wonderful - both ends of the island are deeply indented with bays, that made for fun paddling. Harold, the owner of our boathouse accommodation, told us later in the week that the island was originally settled by Irish nobility, and that the descendants (1 brother, two sisters, no children among them) still live there and run a farm on the island (Harold helps them a few times a year, haying, etc.).