Paddling to paradise

Everyone has a place. A place where all the stuff that weighs down your regular life melts away and all you’re left with is the feeling of weightlessness. Perhaps your place is your family home, staying in your cabin on the lake, or an all inclusive in Mexico. Wherever your place is, we’re sure you know the feeling we’re referring to.

Not all travel is a vacation, some trips come with a mental cost. The stress of being in a new place, travel time, expenses and language barriers all interfere with being able to fully relax.

For the past few years, our place has been the Sechelt Inlet. A short ferry trip from Horseshoe Bay to the Sunshine Coast, an easy drive to the town of Sechelt, and the painless process of renting a double kayak and a canoe from Pedal & Paddles. Within 4 hours of leaving home, we are on the water and paddling to our beach, canoe and kayak loaded with everything we need for the next 4 days of camping.

There are a few factors that make this place so special to us. The main ingredient is seclusion. We usually have the whole beach to ourselves for at least one night. No other campers or people for miles and miles. We spend our time sitting on the beach, relaxing in hammocks, having a few drinks, swimming, eating and napping. All of these things are more enjoyable when it’s just you and your closest friends with no one around to burst your bubble.

Planning ahead makes life easier when you don’t have the luxury of bringing a ton of supplies. The kayak and canoe can only hold so much after all. We like pre-cooking delicious meals and freezing them in ziplock bags. This leaves us with no prep time for our main meals and saves valuable room that ice would take up. When you’re chill’n in the hammock watching the sun fade behind the mountains, it’s easy to lose track of time. Suddenly it’s 8 pm and you haven’t eaten since lunch. An easy dinner is one less thing to worry about, and frankly, eating a home cooked meal is way more delicious than dehydrated camping food or beans from a can. Nothing is better than sitting on a beach log, with no one around for miles, watching the sunset, while eating beef bourguignon and drinking a cold beer pulled straight from a fresh mountain stream. Now if that last sentence doesn’t make you feel relaxed, we don’t know what will.