Southern Gulf Islands Getting there & around

Getting there & around

Serving the main Southern Gulf Islands, BC Ferries (250-386-3431, 888-223-3779; www.bcferries.com) operates direct routes from Vancouver Island’s Swartz Bay terminal to Salt Spring and North Pender. From North Pender, you can connect to Mayne, Galiano or Salt Spring. From Mayne, you can connect to Saturna.

From the mainland, there is a direct service from Tsawwassen to Galiano, which then connects to North Pender. There are also direct weekend services from Tsawwassen to both Mayne (Sunday only) and Salt Spring (Friday to Sunday). For more frequent services to these and the other islands, you will need to travel from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay, then board a connecting ferry. For island hopping, consider a handy SailPass (four-/seven-day pass $169/199) which covers ferry travel around the region on 20 different routes.

Gulf Islands Water Taxi (250-537-2510; www.salt spring.com/watertaxi) runs walk-on ferries between Salt Spring, North Pender and Saturna (one-way/return $15/25) and between Salt Spring, Galiano and Mayne (one-way/return $15/25), twice daily from September to June and once a day in July and August.

Seair Seaplanes (604-273-8900, 800-447-3247; www.seairseaplanes.com) services run from Vancouver International Airport’s South Terminal to Salt Spring ($77, 20 minutes, three daily), North Pender ($82, 20 minutes, three daily), Saturna ($82, 20 minutes, three daily), Mayne ($82, 20 minutes, two daily) and Galiano ($82, 20 minutes, two daily).