This place is great!
My husband and I found this place by total accident via google. If we had realized its location before we paid for a rental we likely probably would have been deterred from using this place BUT I am so glad we were not deterred. We rented a kayak from here to do a self-guided tour of the Pasley Islands. It was an awesome trip. The kayak and equipment were nice and well kept and we were provided a map for our self-guided tour. We rented a double kayak for 8 hours and had it for about 7 hours. We stopped a few really quiet coves for a couple swims and lunch for a couple hours as well. Because you are starting on the sunshine coast you are away from lots of boat traffic and have really good views of the mountains and islands. You also avoid looking at the city. There was tons of sea life as well. The purple star fish is still thriving here, they were sea otters everywhere, and we paddled right past a mated pair of bald eagles. This was seriously a really good day trip from the city and a perfect cap to our Olympic Park & Vancouver vacation. I would suggest this not only for any visitor to Vancouver but also just a really good day trip or overnight trip for a local.
It is important for planning to know that you need to take a ferry from West Vancouver to Langdale to get to the harbor and the Sunshine Coast; HOWEVER, this was totally worth it and I highly recommend it for multiple reasons. We parked our car at Horseshoe Bay, walked onto the ferry and took the bus from the ferry to the harbor. It was super easy and the bus from the ferry in Langdale to the harbor took 5 minutes and was super easy to navigate. You could also bring your car onto the island and do some driving on the sunshine coast as there is a ton to see but since we weren't staying overnight we went for the economic option. Round trip ferry fare was about $16 each ($13 USD at the time) The ferry ride took 40 minutes and the views are insane. Honestly this is more like a 40 minute sightseeing tour. The scenery was beautiful. I point out all this information because I think some people would see the ferry and this places location as a deterrent, and it should be a reason to go not a deterrent. Gibsons is quiet, has great restaurants at far less cost then Vancouver.
The only reason I didn't do 5 stars was because we did feel a bit rushed at the dock, but I think this was more due to the fact that we showed up 30 minutes early and the owner was kind enough to put us in the water right away even though by being early we overlapped with two other reservations. Another improvement that could be made for the shop would be to explain the private property high water line rule, since we weren't from B.C. we didn't know the rules. It took my husband and I a while to understand that we could stop on the islands as long as we were below the high-water line and not on top of the houses. We kept avoiding spots because we could see a "Private Property" signs and when we finally got close enough to read the small print we realized that we could infact stop at these spots as long as we stayed below the high water line, which is easy enough.