Finally after an entire winter of work, our labours pay off and we get to begin the fun part of the year; our season begins! All the food is loaded, the paint brushes put away, the dusty coveralls left at home and the wine labels readied! From around the world new guests and repeat guests are beginning to make their way towards the Columbia III. This year we had guests from Finland, England, Ireland, Australia, Germany, Denmark, Mexico and even Alberta! For me, I love to cast off the shorelines, polish the brass and the wine glasses, and prepare for our first guests of the year. Of course, Miray and Luke have been attending to readying the kayak fleet, including our second thermo-form single for taller guests. Fern has reworked the gourmet menu and the thousands of pounds of stores are all tucked away in amazing corners of the ship. We think we are ready . . and we’d better be! It will be 5 months before we return home with the Columbia III!
Our first tour was with our perennial favourite guide, Jeanette Taylor with a local history tour. These tours ALWAYS sell out and have many, many guests on the waiting list.
As often happens, a professional photographer, Boomer Jerritt, came along to document Jeanette at work. We had so much fun with Boomer (AND ALL HIS GEAR!) that we invited him to join us for his own photography workshop in 2009. See Boomer below;
We were really lucky to have painter, Alison Watt, join us for a water colour workshop. She loved the open, well lit salon, and thrived on the being able to have full control over the ship’s schedule to maximize the painting options.
As a variation on the wilderness settings, we stopped at our homestead. Amazingly, one of Alison’s loyal students was an architecture painter and she presented us with two wonderful portraits of our house.
We did a great kayak tour in our home waters of Desolation Sound complete with a repeat guest and her daughter.
A perfect light breeze for rafting the group together and sailing across Desolation Sound.
After WestWorld Magazine sent a writer and photographer along on our First Nation’s Cultural tour in 2007. We invited one of BC’s best know photographers to join us. Ron Watts quiet, knowledgeable manner was perfect for the Columbia III.
Ron Watts:
One of the best thing about these small group workshops is the chance for great one-on-one instruction with leaders that really “know their stuff”.
Ron’s long time friend and college, Janis Kraulis, joined the tour to really bring out the “Big Guns!”
And anytime Ron is along, the amazing photographs seem to just pop up everywhere.
