What/who: Sea Kayak Association of British Columbia (SKABC)
Destination: Gambier Island’s Camp Fircom luxury accommodation at ‘The Cottage’
Leader: Shirley Brunke plus nine SKABC members
When: midweek: June 25-28, 2013
Paddlers meet up at Lion’s Bay Beach Park to unload eight single kayaks and one double, then pack gear, mostly comprising food and clothing en route to Gambier Island’s Camp Fircom.
‘The Cottage’ sits on the edge of the camp, just past Halkett Bay, a leisurely hour and ½ from Lion’s Bay, British Columbia with a mild outflow wind behind us. Our preset non-negotiable wind limit is fifteen knots and we have water taxi numbers programmed into our phones and four weather radios stationed and pocketed for quick communiques.
On our Gambier Island arrival, camp staff member, Jocelyn, greets and briefs us on how the kitchen is organized with bins and bags for compost, recyclables and garbage; the latter two we’ll be carting home with us. In the meantime, we have fresh linens and a towel in two three-bedroom modules, both with full bathrooms, and a third to keep us squeaky clean. The generator dims at 8:30pm, but so do we as we unwind on the glorious patio, chat in the spacious living room, or just hang out round the hand-made harvest table.
June 23’s Supermoon means tides will continue to be lower-than-low and higher-than-high for a few more days. We witness it on our arrival as we lug the boats well above the high-tide zone. A quick lunch and paddle into Halkett Bay as a trio prepares cheesy appetizers, Thai chicken/tofu, and Chinese-cabbage salad with rhubarb-pie for dessert. This is ‘glamping’ (glamorous camping) at its best, and Fircom’s ‘Cottage’ kitchen is well-equipped to dish it.
Later, we stroll to the water’s edge where logs grumble and gurgle like indigestive giants. The Swainson’s Thrush spirals its good night.
We’re up to do-our-own breakfasts and pack-our-own lunches for a one-and-1/2-hour paddle to Centre Bay, Gambier Island where one of our paddler’s friends has lived for over 25 years on British Columbia’s waterfront. We’re invited to explore the forested grounds and lunch on deck with complimentary coffee. We wile away several hours before our return, and team two preps BBQ’d salmon (Yes! Fircom’s propane powers are far-reaching) in ginger garlic butter with creamy wine-sauce rigatoni and Greek glamping salad, followed by light fruit compote dolloped in whipped cream with a flaky-biscuit salute.
Our last full day, it’s a drizzly morning with windy outflows to ten knots from the north, but typically, once we’re out there, it’s gusting much higher. We’re deliberating how much further to go and watching the curtains of rain sift across British Columbia’s Coast Mountain Range. A turkey vulture‘s red face seems to say, ‘If you don’t want to look like me, go back to the cottage’ and Pam Rocks’ forecast suggests a turnaround.
As we beach the boats, the rain unleashes. It’s R&R in the Reading Room, misting heavily in the gray outlook. Hummingbirds peer in. We stroll the quiet camp grounds (no campers ‘til mid- July), idle through the lush vegetable garden and offer our questions to the stone labyrinth. Team three kicks into action with glamping array of appetizers like roasted brie with sundried tomato puree, bruschetta and a tuna-tapenade then veggie lasagna with wilted spinach salad, and an apple crisp topped with Liberty’s lemon yoghurt. Can we spell F-U-L-L? How about Fircom-fully-replenished!
We’re up-and-at the final morning’s cleanup with ‘not-so glamping’ garbage secured, bathrooms and kitchen cleaned, linens stripped, floors swept and mopped, when we realize the outflow winds will be too much for our small craft, so at 11am, our water taxi arrives, 
ties down all nine of our boats in an efficient half hour, and we disembark at Horseshoe Bay.
We’ve been so fortunate to share in our glamping group’s expertise in a myriad of ways:
- viewing & learning about the camp & vicinity,
- navigating, radio-operating, team planning,
- side tripping,
- regaled with story-telling a go-go and sumptuous dining…
we’re de-taching from tech-attachments and succumbing to the magic of Fircom where there’s ‘time for reflection…and commitment to environmental stewardship through …zero waste practices’ ie no glamping garbage! (www.fircom.ca)
Thanks again to Shirley Brunke for posting this trip with the Sea Kayak Association of British Columbia, and donating her time to lead us across Howe Sound to Camp Fircom.