Bowen Island’s Nectar Yoga B&B: nature and namaste

The story of Nectar Yoga B&B on Bowen Island, B.C., began on a hot crowded train headed to Pondicherry, India.

Andrea Clark and Satjeet Pandher had taken leaves of absence from their jobs in Vancouver to spend several months travelling in south Asia and Europe in 2013. Clark, a public relations professional, had tired of her corporate life but wasn’t sure what to do next.

“We were on a train ride in India that was 18 hours,” Clark recalled. “We were in the thirdclass section. We were standing. It was hot.

“We were like, ‘OK, what are we going to do with our lives? This is a fun time to start dreaming. Why not?’ We started chatting. We were like, ‘We should live on an island.”’

Clark and Pandher both loved yoga and bed-and-breakfasts, so the idea of combining the two began to take shape. Clark was a trained yoga teacher who hosted international retreats, which are typically highly structured trips that, while rewarding, don’t allow for a lot of freedom.

She wanted to create a space that would offer an escape from city life and a chance to reconnect with nature, yoga and oneself, but that also would give visitors time to explore on their own and not feel committed to around-the-clock learning about deep yoga philosophy.

So Clark quit her job, the pair bought a beautiful house nestled on a forested parcel of land on Bowen Island, and Nectar Yoga B&B was born.

“We didn’t really know that there was that much of a need for this type of offering,” she said. “I was just following my heart and my intuition.”

The couple added two guest cottages, a garden suite, a sauna and a unique geodesic dome where morning and afternoon yoga classes are held. The entire property can be rented for multi-day retreats, including silent retreats and juice cleanses.

Bowen Island is just a

20-minute ferry ride from Vancouver, making it an ideal weekend getaway for city dwellers seeking nature and namaste.

“The energy of this place is all about the people who come here,” she said. “That’s what I love about it.”

$1 1)050 Nectar Yoga B&B owner Andrea Clark poses for a photo while practising yoga in the geodesic dome at her property on Bowen Island, B.C., on Sunday.