Now and then you just want to be served great local food. On an empty island. After paddling there. This is the idea behind Blue Planet Kayaking Adventures' three-day tour of the wave-battered, sandstone-cliff-lined Gulf Islands of southwestern British Columbia. The area is home to some of Canada's top cheese- and winemakers, as well as family-run fishing boats hauling in line-fresh albacore tuna and sablefish. Your guide is owner James Bray, a Vancouver Island chef turned sea-kayak guide. (Tough life, James!) Fall here means dry, warm days, no crowds, and a landslide of produce from local farms. After launching from Cedar-by-the-Sea, on Vancouver Island, you'll pass porpoises and bald eagles while paddling the four miles to 300-acre De Courcy Island. Base camp is a windswept cliff overlooking Pirates Cove, where a pre-hike lunch of smoked-albacore niçoise salad, washed down with a glass of local black­berry port, awaits. ($780; blueplanetkayaking.com).