Biking and Rowing to Twin Islands

Introduction

The Starfish turns five this fall, so I decided I needed to celebrate its birthday with a trip. I had also recently reconfigured its bike trailer to allow for biking with the boat assembled, so I decided to combine boating with biking: bike from East Van across the Second Narrows Bridge to Deep Cove, then Sail/Row from Deep Cove to Twin Islands. 

The route from Deep Cove to Twin Islands is short enough and in relatively protected water, so I felt comfortable trying this trip as a solo adventure.

Home to Deep Cove

On a Wednesday in August 2025, I set out. It is about 14km from my house to Deep Cove. There is a fair amount of elevation change: a bit of a climb and then a long descent for crossing the Second Narrows Bridge, then there are a multitude of hills while biking through North Vancouver. Leaving around 8am, It took me just over an hour and a half to reach Deep Cove, which I think is pretty good: Google predicts a normal cycliist will need 50 minutes.

This part of the adventure was mostly uneventful. One of the ratchet straps holding the boat down came undone twice. Going downhill always required very careful slow riding to avoid the trailer fishtailing.  When I finally got to Deep Cove, I made the mistake of heading down a steep gravel path to get to the boat launch. The trailer flipped over, and in the process, the wood piece forming the tongue split. I decided to worry about this problem the following day, and instead set about getting the boat set up.

Deep Cove to Twin Islands

Deep Cove Kayak Centre was hopping (kids camps, some other groups) but after about an hour of messing around I finally had the boat set up -- it always takes way too long to get the sailing rig installed, plus I had all my camping gear.  Distance from Deep Cove to Twin Islands is about 5km as the crow flies. In Deep Cove there was very little breeze, so I rowed out of the cove. Once I was in more open water, the breeze started to build. It was the usual afternoon inflow, and I was able to sail the rest of the way -- very relaxed sailing. It took about 2 hours total, and I arrived around 12:30. 

I sailed around the southern tip of the south island and made for the  dock on the east side. There was a lineup of several kayakers and paddleboarders to get their boats on the dock, but I managed to sneak in between two powerboats to unload. En route I had seen a seal, jellyfish, and several fish jumping, presumably salmon.

Setting up Camp and Exploring

Twin Islands only allows camping on the north island (the larger of the two), where there are 20 tent pads. Given all the activity I was seeing, I was a little concerned about getting a spot, but when I arrived there were still 4 or 5 open pads. I managed to snag one on the northwest side with a nice water view. It wasn't one of the coveted top spots on the north tip of the island, but it was good enough for me.

I left my stuff on the tent pad to claim it, then headed back down to the Starfish. Since there was still pretty good breeze, I figured I would do some more sailing while the boat was set up. I had a bit of fun sailing back and forth in the channel between Twin Islands and the mainland. I tried to sail through the channel between the north and south islands, but the tide was rising and it was too shallow for my leeboard. I then set about circumnavigating the two islands. Making it to the northern tip was easy with the inflow. I then tacked back and forth 4 or 5 times to beat up to the southern end, then zipped back to the dock. Maybe about 45 minutes of sailing total?

Storage for small boats is at the top of the ramp to the dock, so I had to remove the sail, leeboard, and rudder, and split the boat in two to stow it for the night. While doing so, the Starfish found her fair share of admirers.

After setting up the tent and finding a spot for the hammock I headed to the bar in between the islands, which was now completely exposed. I took a refreshing dip in the water, explored the south island, then headed back to camp. After a bit of relaxing, I explored the north island (and saw the top tent pads at the north of the island). Dinner was pesto pasta with salami -- yum. After a phone call with Robyn (Twin Islands has cell service, both a blessing and a curse) I made an early evening of it.

Rowing Back

Thursday morning I woke up early, made some oatmeal, packed up my gear, and got the Starfish back in the water. There was no outflow to speak of, so it was rowing all the way back. I left the dock around 8am and made it back to Deep Cove around 2 hours later. I was fairly consistent about counting my strokes; I think it took between 1000 and 1200 strokes to make it back.

There was the usual messing about to disassemble the boat and get it loaded up onto the trailer, but this was complicated by the fact that one of the wood pieces had split. As you can see below, I tried to compensate for this by binding the oars alongside the broken piece with some rope. This took a long time, and turned out to probably not have made a difference -- by the end of the ride home, the oars weren't held in place tightly, and it seems like the split piece had miraculously held all on its own.

Biking Home

Biking home was even tougher than biking to Deep Cove: there is a net gain of about 50m in elevation. But the downhills are also no joke. On one downhill stretch in North Vancouver the trailer started fishtailing pretty badly, but I (just barely?) managed to bring it under control, avoiding it tipping over. It took just over an hour and a half to make it home.

Debrief

The biking was definitely harder than the sailing or rowing, both in terms of physical effort, and in terms of stress (Dollarton Highway is a busy road) and concentration required to avoid fishtailing.

Apart from the damage to the trailer, a couple of ribs seem to have detached from the gunwhale, see above. I'm not sure when this happened, but this should be easy enough to repair. The Starfish certainly got subjected a fair amount of abuse on this trip.

I met a number of lovely people on the trip: someone who was in UBC Sailing back in the 90's, two Germans on holiday, some other kayakers... The Twin Islands are a great place to camp, and an easy trip from Deep Cove. That of course has its downside: even on a weekday, you need to make sure to get there early enough to get a spot. I can only imagine the craziness that happens there on a weekend.