June 13th Saturday

From: Yeatman Bay, Quadra Island            To: Heriot Bay Inn campground
Start time: 0630        Finish time: 1200      Distance: 18.5 km
Tide: Heriot Bay
0252    4.7
1011    1.2
1712    4.3
2212    3.2

Current: Beazley Passage
Turns   Max     kts
0202   0520   -7.1
0826   1147   +8.9
1514   1818   -6.4
2110

     I was awake at 4:00 a.m. and made myself a cup of instant coffee (I really like to have my travel mug of coffee for the morning paddle) and some breakfast. The weather forecast was good for the Strait of Georgia although there was still a storm brewing in Johnstone Strait and it was gusting around 15 knots down Okisollo Channel. I started paddling around 6:30 a.m. I wanted to watch the rapids in Beazley Passage slowly turn to slack tide. I found a safe spot right up close to the action. It’s an amazing thing to watch the power of the tide, how the eddies are formed spinning at an incredible speed counter to the main current and forming whirlpools, some of them spinning to an abrupt stop with a violent upheaval of water. I waited until 8:00 a.m. when it was almost slack, before I started paddling again.

Almost calm at Beazley Channel

     I was thinking that Discovery Island Lodge might have a kayak cart to replace my lost one so I stopped at their big red house in Hoskins Channel, tied up to the dock and walked to the top of the ramp. It didn’t look like anyone was home or perhaps they were still asleep. In the late 1980’s I worked here at a large salmon farm where this house was built by a Norwegian company to house the workers. It’s perfect for its current use as a kayaking lodge. 
     Hoskins Channel is a nice stretch with a lot of history. It must have been a great food resource for the First Nations at one time. In Village Bay there was a large village and resource site here called Yekwin. Then in Open Bay a site called Tlaxwayam “place of dog salmon” was obviously a fishing station. And again at Hyacinthe Bay another resource site called Madzakwa’yam “the Kwak’wala word for Musqueam”.
     I pulled in at the Heriot Bay Inn and set myself up at their campsite for the night. Then over to the pub for a cold beer and a burger, it tastes sooo good after a week in the wilderness. Latter I was off to visit the local kayak shop to see if they had a kayak cart to replace the one I’d lost. Fortunately they had a used one, that’s a big load off my mind. Next stop was the grocery store to restock on food supplies.
     

The Heriot Bay Inn 

I was hanging out around my campsite and got to talking with a couple of local guys, one of them I’d seen in the pub earlier, an aging hippy with long hair, big beard, old jeans and T shirt.  We got talking and he knew some of the characters I used to work with on the island years ago. He invited me to the jam that night at the pub, and said there would by some great local talent there - sounded good to me.
     Later that evening (at the jam session) someone introduced me to the owner of the Heriot Bay Inn, who turned out to be non other then the aging hippy. He told me the success of the hotel is based on peace and love and that it all seems to just work out. An interesting business strategy. The jam was really good with a great house band to back up the list of participants. I borrowed a guitar from one of the locals and got up on stage with the band. I started off with a couple of Van Morrison tunes, then some of my own songs.

The exterior of the stage addition at the HBI pub

The band was first class, the dance floor was rocking, and I was having a blast. In the middle of my set the owner came up to me and shouted, “see, see it works. Peace and love man, it works”. I went to bed happy that night with the realization that I had taken part in the peace and love economy of Quadra Island.

The government wharf out side the HBI made for the people coming out of the pub