Sailing with Bluewater Adventures
This past Friday, I was invited to attend a special media boat cruise up Indian Arm aboard the 68′ ketch, the Island Odyssey. Yeah, I know it’s my second nautical themed event this week, life is rough sometimes.
The purpose of the event was to let the local community know more about Bluewater Adventures which was recently proclaimed “one of the Best Travel Companies on Earth” by National Geographic Adventure Magazine who rated them 93.6% overall and 100% in customer satisfaction.
Compared to the other event, this was a much more intimate affair. It was like a floating kitchen party.
Did I say kitchen? Of course there was food:
The sailing tours (or ‘adventures‘ as they call them) cover pretty much the entire West Coast from the Gulf Islands up to Alaska and most points in between including the Queen Charlotte Islands. These trips also focus on a number of ‘eco-actions‘ including the entire trip being carbon neutral.
After getting to experience an afternoon on the boat, I can see why this form of touring the West Coast is so appealing and was honestly something that I’d never considered doing myself. It’s a very relaxing way to travel with all the comforts of home onboard. Something else I wasn’t aware of was the fact that a biologist accompanies all tours to help answer any questions guests have about the environment.
The famous WigWam Inn:
One thing that really hit home this past week of boating is how freakin’ amazing BC really is. We really do take for granted the beauty that is right around us and people from all over the world come here to experience it. This whole ‘tourist in your own town’ thing is really under-rated.
I thought it might be fun to clamp a camera to the boat and make a little time lapse of our trip and it turned out pretty well:
You can view my entire photoset on Flickr – and all the photos are geotagged so you can see exactly where each one was taken along the trip up Indian Arm (click the ‘map’ link on each photo).
Thanks to our hosts at Bluewater Adventures (who are also on Twitter) for opening my eyes to a truly amazing way of exploring the province.
lol jealous yet again! Looks like it was a lot of fun. I was looking at their prices and the things I would like to do are WAY out of my price range. The prices range from $1200 to ~$5000!!
For some of them it seems I would have to get myself to their ports of calls first, for the initial sailing. So add airfare on top of that too as well as possible accommodation if the flights don’t line up with the sailings.
For $5000 I would definitely head somewhere else in the world though, would even do a GAP Adventure tour out say in like Africa for that amount of money.
It seems that the rich can only afford these grand eco-tours. (like King Fisher Lodge too) I know this is more of a rant, but I would really love it if someone could create an eco-tour of this caliber for those who don’t earn 6 digit incomes :)
Hehe ok I’ll stop ranting. I’m going to try and do a time-lapse of our drive to Tofino. I just have to figure out a way to mount the camcorder on the dash board :)
I’m happy to see Stacie out at more events, you guys are really great together and it must be nice to share these experiences :-)
I don’t think she’s quite ready for NerdCamp but yes, it’s great to have her at more events…as long as they aren’t too geeky, she’s happy to come. ;)
Great shots with the fisheye John! :D
Thanks Allie!