Camp Malibu, nestled on a narrow peninsula towards the end of the Jervis Inlet, is one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen on earth. In all my travels, it only rivals the mountain outpost of Nenzinger Himmel, Austria in scale and breathtaking beauty.
This was my second visit to Malibu – I tagged along as a spouse at my wife’s clergy retreat – and it seriously helped me enter a sabbatical frame of mind. Getting there requires significant effort. Even using a float plane to save time, the journey required a two hour drive up to Nanaimo, a flight over the Strait of Georgia, another twisty one hour drive on the Sunshine Coast then a ninety minute boat ride.
Once there, you are cut off from civilization – no phones, no internet, totally disconnected. I slept deeply.
I was struck by the physical abundance of the Jervis Inlet. Eagles whirl above the fjord-like canyon walls of the inlet. What I took for a sandy shoreline when the tide went out was actually a thick carpet of oysters. Sea anemones, purple and orange starfish, dark masses of mussels line the cliff walls just beyond camp. Just offshore is a colony of thirty spotted harbour seals, two of which had more white spots than dark spots. I cruised by them on a paddleboard and they watched me tentatively. Most skittered into the water for safety, but the larger, braver ones just raised their heads eyed me from their rock.
While I’ve had much more free time during sabbatical, I’ve also been surprising irritable. I had a nasty tiff with my Dad before departing, have been on a shorter fuse with my daughters. Is some of this unwinding from years of tension and busyness? I’m not totally sure. But the quiet and abundance of Malibu settled me.
We need more completely offline places in the world.
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Float Plane Hyperlapse
Our twenty minute flight over the Strait of Georgia compressed to 1:50
