(Photo: submitted by Shaun Gibbs)
Imagine kayaking Hopewell Rocks at night.
Baymount Outdoor Adventures will give you the chance this summer.
“We were looking at ways to expand what we do at Hopewell Rocks,” Co-Owner Shaun Gibbs says. “This is one area we have never really tapped into and I love doing night paddles so I figured this would be a really cool thing to try and see if it works. The few times we piloted it last year went really well.”
Gibbs says they piloted the Kayak the Rocks After Dark Tour program twice last year, and it went very well.
“Typically, we would start at dusk, so we would paddle out with a little bit of daylight. As we make our way on our journey then we use things like headlamps to make our way through archways and it could be a really starry night. It is a very unique way to experience Hopewell Rocks and very few people have actually done it. There’s no one around and it’s very quiet,” Gibbs said.
They’re offering it on four occasions this summer.
“A July 9th and 10th weekend, the 22nd 23rd 24th of July, and then August 7, 8 and 9, as well as the 21st and 22nd,” Gibbs said. “We try to limit our group numbers down to 16 people maximum, and we make it for 16 years and older. We usually don’t have a hard time staffing it because a lot of us want to go out and do it because we haven’t done it before. Generally, there are around 16 people. We also have everyone use glow sticks on their boats so we can see where they are in the dark.”
But he says it all depends on conditions.
“It has to be really calm conditions, There can’t be really any wind or any waves. A small wave in the daytime is nothing but a small wave at nighttime, you hear it and you don’t know where it’s coming from. So it’s a bit more unnerving. So it is a bit hit or miss whether we get to run them.”
Gibbs says for the nighttime tours they’ve had a lot of locals because if they do have to cancel because of conditions, they don’t have to worry about hotels or other accommodations.
Baymount Outdoor Adventures Inc. is a Canadian-owned adventure tour company that has been open since 1991, but Shaun and Ashley Gibbs took over in 2020.
