G is for GAMBIER!!

Sideways Sally is lagging behind on the Sailing Through the Alphabet. BUT it’s only because we’ve been out adventuring!!

Get set for Gambier which is an amazing island with bays to explore, campgrounds to find and beaches to comb. SS and the work fam got scheming about another weekend get away. The skipper was keen to get across the Salish Sea and take us all aboard. So we did!!

False Creek Fisherman’s Wharf is a fav for us for moorage in Vancouver, with access to Granville Island, public transit, and local characters. OMOO hung out there waiting for the working fam to get to Friday.

Skipper Hershey loves a good chin wag with friends new and old and those days on the dock did not disappoint. From the wharfinger to the local yokels, they all stop by to say hello. Some thought he was taking a month long charter out with all the coming and going of the fam with gear and provisions.

The transient dock was chocker block full and it was a busy time for the fishing boats but we were squeezed in. We love being moored among those working boats to watch them come and go and learn about their fishing life.

The crazy weekend fun started the minute we piled the camping gear onto OMOO. It was obvious no one was going to be uncomfortable.

We had researched Halkett Bay on Gambier, which showed a campground with boat access, only the dock had been destroyed in a storm the year before. Why let a minor detail like that worry us? The campsites in June around the lower mainland can be busy, so we booked a reservation and headed out on OMOO. We didn’t really need that reservation cause we were the only ones around, and we loved it that way.

It was a little past dusk when we got to the bay, found a mooring ball to tie to, got multiple loads of people and gear onto the island and got set up. We were fighting with a dingy motor that was cranky, making SS crankier, but all together we got the teamwork working and camp set up for the night. It was high tide which took us steps away from the THE BEST CAMPSITE. SS abandoned them to their sleeping or not sleeping arrangements and crashed on OMOO.

Saturday was a lazy morning around the campfire cooking and telling stories. Nothing like letting loose and letting our hair down after a hard week’s work. Sure made us hungry bears.

Low tide in the morning revealed all that we had taken the dingy over in the hurried darkness the night before. Time to beachcomb!! Low tide surprises were plentiful, so much sea life. We dug up some clams to cook, watched the oyster catchers enthusiastically darting along the shore, feasting and joyfully immersed ourselves in the sounds and smells of the ocean.

A little more cook-out, some snake wrangling, a fun music/weird t-shirt game (we had so much fun we forgot to take pics) and a thunder and lightning storm later, we piled into the tents and listening to heavenly rain pattering, then pounding down around us. It was perfect!

Low tide and a late start, vs high tide and an early start. The fam voted for low tide… and a long late start. SS walked the dingy out with the tide, the mud flats went a long way out so that meant the gear had to be trucked out and loaded in the dingy. Hershey brought the boat in closer so we didn’t have far to go with the dingy that only cooperated occasionally. Row row row your boat…

Our pack mule named Zach with the longest legs and strongest arms got alot of gear loaded. It was hmmm… shall we say, f***in lucky we had him!! No more glamping is the new rule for wilderness camping. OH my, SS is still laughing.

Thank you thank you thank you for sharing OMOO, Skipper Hershey!! You are bar-none (and nutty) the most generous man around, we love you!!

Have a look at the magic of Halkett Bay.