Little did we know, but Laura knew, we were right beside Hot Springs Island, so when we had enough of the whales we made our way to shore. Greeting us were three small Haida deer that must have swam over to the island. They seemed pretty calm with our presence, and as we walked through the forest trail to the hot springs one of the deer followed us for a bit and only turned away after we paid more attention to it.
Since we were so late in the season there was no one but us at Hot Springs Island. This is one of the more popular spots around the Gwaii Haanas park, there usually a few more watchmen posted here to deal with the greater amounts of visitors. But this day, it was just us, the watchmen have gone home for the season and there were no other tour groups to be seen.
The infrastructure around the 3 hot spring pools is pretty built up, there are change rooms, shower rooms and a phoenix outhouse. The pools have been built up to hold greater amounts of water and are regularly drained and cleaned by the Haida watchmen.
The main pool is handy to the showers and change rooms, it is also the largest of the hot spring pools as well. But if you are looking for something more scenic and private, you can walk the clam shell lined path behind the main pool to the two other pools, one up on a cliff and the other down by the beach. The water was warm and it was a now beautiful and sunny day with the San Christoval Mountains as our backdrop and those two humpback whales swimming back and forth in Juan Parez Sound. This is one beautiful moment.
It was mostly me and Elrich who were really enjoying the hot springs, Laura joined us for a few minutes and Diane just soaked her feet for a while. Laura came and gently suggested we have lunch after an extended period of time and move onto to our last stop at the Hiada village of Tanu. This was probably the longest day stop we took on our whole trip.