Savary Island August 19

Alex and I had heard about a flying site on Savary Island and with the winds blowing SE for the next few days, decided to make a trip up the Sunshine Coast.  Tom Gregg, who was on Cortes Island already, came over on his boat to fly with us for a few hours too.

The primary launch site on the south face of Savary Island.  This is private property so ask permission first!

Myself and Tom Gregg over Savary Island.  You can see how skinny the island is!  
Photo courtesy of Alex Raymont

Savary Island is not the easiest site to get to from Vancouver...2 ferries and then a water taxi to Savary, and then either a long hike (1 hour) or 15 minute taxi ride to the launch.  Fortunately the landowners were friends with a fellow pilot and offered to pick us up at the water taxi, awesome!

The alternate launch spot on the SW end of Savary Island.  Photo courtesy of Alex Raymont.

The landowners are lovely people and were quite happy for us to hang out at their property, even feeding us lunch and allowing us to camp in their backyard!  The actual launch is also in their backyard and takes a S-SE.  SSE would probably be straight-in, but with the orientation of the island in the Straight, SE is probably the more common flying direction.

Make sure to check the tide status as high tide hides most of the beach.  Much of the south-facing part of the island is treed and only a few properties have open spots over the ocean.  This launch site is one of the few suitable for PG...there is also a spot near the SW side of the island near the sand dunes where you could launch from as well, but you definitely want some beach to land on, unless you want to commit to top landing at the takeoff site.  Normally toplanding would not be a problem, but the day we were flying it was spitting rain and with the slightly-wet gliders, we didn't want to risk stalling them on a top-landing approach and opted to land down near the sand dunes and walk back.

The following day it was howling SE wind (~40 kph) and clearly not flyable, and with the rain approaching, we decided to get back to the mainland!

Savary Island flying.