Difficult to find annual moorage on Vancouver Island

I have been traveling up the coast of Vancouver Island from Nanaimo to Campbell river the past few weeks, including many of the main islands (Gabriola, Quadra, Cortes) and I have talked to every marina I could find.

Not one has a slip for a 30-34 foot boat available for annual moorage.

Most of the waitlists I am now on said from 2 to 6 years wait for a slip that size.

A couple of marinas (which I am not going to name, it's like finding a gold mine) said they MIGHT have something by next year, when I expect to get my new boat.

I'm not looking for advice, I just wanted to let others know that if they are thinking of buying a boat, you really want to research where you will be able to moor it in depth (no pun intended).

I must say, boating around Desolation Sound (and North) looks fabulous. Saw my first Orca.

It sure is crowded out there though. I'll be looking forward to the off season myself.

The best ones for Desolation are the two in Comox (private/public) and Campbell River. The best time to search is not in the popular summer months but begin your search in October or November. I find that is when many move their boats. Ask if you can have temporary moorage for four or five months. At the private one I am at I swear about 15 % of the marina is empty in Nov/Dec/Jan/Feb and into march.

For the owner of the slip you end up getting, this means they will get 40 % of your rental towards their annual bill. When my boat was in refit for a year and a half, I got a year and a half of 40 % off my bill.

You will end up paying more for temporary moorage, but you also get the "foot in the door" factor. During your stay, friendly up to the staff. When moorage comes due in the first of April, there are few who say it is too much and take their boat elsewhere. You will of course let the staff know roughly in February you are really interested in staying.

I have been at three marinas and I got into each of them before folks on the waiting list scored because of the foot in the door factor. I bet if you contact Ladysmith in the winter, they might very well have a space. I prefer further north in Comox as I prefer Desolation and the Broughtons over the southern gulf islands.

The secret is to look when others aren't. All manners of people purchase boats in the summer and the search begins for a place to dock, in the winter no one just about is purchasing boats and searching for locations.

Have you considered looking for a slip to buy?

finding moorage

RSN: Thanks, all very good advice. It's not quite as dire as I make it sound, as a few of the marinas suggested exactly as you said: Get back to us in November, and then again in January or February.

I have also been thinking about going the temporary route, and having a trailer for my (likely) trailerable boat is probably not a bad idea anyway.

I am searching now as I am looking for a place to live at the same time. I was hoping to nail down a slip and then do a search for property, which is about as difficult as finding a slip or a boat these days. I planned to rent, but there's not a lot available in these areas that I want to live (I have quite specific requirements regarding location, I made an error once long ago and chose a bad location, never again, life's too short)

The good news is I have months to go before I will need anything.

Old Dan: I would absolutely consider buying a slip, I can't see how they will be going down in value seeing what I am seeing in regards to demand! I did happen to see a boathouse for sale that I would consider as well. More than I need but maybe I will find something suitable over the next 6 or 7 months.

Fingers crossed for the world to return to normal and a little of the demand/supply pressures to ease up.

RSN: p.s. I am in Campbell River now and love the access too boating from here. The marina I approached for a slip (pretty sure the biggest one here, near all the shops and tours etc.) told me flat out there is a 6 year wait list for a 30' slip. I was quite surprised as I thought the further N I got, the less demand there would be. But I think a lot of people who live further South have discovered it's smart to dock here, as a few hours drive is a lot easier than boating all the way to get to Desolation Sound and beyond!

We moor in Campbell River. When we moved here we faced the same responses you received. However, we did manage to secure moorage in the River while we waited for space to open up in the other marinas. Definately don't approach the marinas here in the summer season, they keep all available slips for transient moorage. Check back with them after October 1st and regularly throughout the fall/winter. Get to know the office staff. Get on their waitlists. We faced "nothing available" for months and went in one day and were handed a piece of paper with eight 35 foot slips available. If you can get a slip that will work for you, even if not the ideal size, you will then, theoretically, have priority to change slips over newcomers. I say theoretically because things don't always work according to the rules.



We have also moored in Ladysmith at the Ladysmith Marina. Their boathouses are beautiful and extremely well built if you are interested in a boathouse. Ladysmith Harbour is very well protected.


Good luck with your search, you should be able to find something if you are persistent.

I have never understood why the vast majority (95%+) of marinas don't charge a market clearing price. In my business (multi-tenant commercial real estate), the highest bidder gets the space with a multi-year lease. We are currently 98% occupied across our markets, and have been raising rents in response to increasing demand. Of course, in years past, we have drastically lowered rents when demand falls off a cliff. Even so, our goal is always being close to fully occupied. (When we are fully occupied, and have to turn away anxious customers, we know we are not charging enough.) Why don't marina owners do the same?

near all the shops and tours etc.) told me flat out there is a 6 year wait list for a 30' slip. I was quite surprised as I thought the further N I got, the less demand there would be.

First, for those in the know, Comox and Campbell River are the places to be for Desolation and the Broughtons. But you have competition you don't know about. At the two marinas in Comox an amazingly high number of percentage of slips are folks from Alberta.

The Harbour Air loading/unloading slip is at the private marina where I am at. When you get off one of their aircraft, you could walk to my boat with out ever leaving the marina. This means if you are from Calgary lets say, you could fly into the Comox commercial airport and taxi to the marina. Or fly into Vancouver and take Harbour Air and be at your marina, this include the public marina which is a short walk from the private marina.

Do people not keep boats on moorings in these areas? I've always had a fondness for mooring fields, and they solve some congestion issues.

All good questions.

I do think by being here and being persistent I will get a slip. A few places said as much without making promises.

But I do wonder about where this will go in future...I am not sure the MNR or whoever is the government body in charge is keen on more marinas being built? Is there even any reasonably priced and located land to do so?

I think people better be prepared for price increases, although I hate to say it.

Albertans

RSN: I am sure you are right, but I am laughing a bit, as I am wanting to live a 2 minute walk from where my boat is moored lol.

I'm not really a condo person, but there is one that is about 50 yards from the slip that comes with the apartment.

Very tempting, but expensive.

I could probably buy an apartment in Calgary and a float plane for the price of this condo.

Hmm, I am in a private marina and I own 2 slips. I bought a 75ft slip for about 64K maybe 10 years ago. Prices go up and down but I know I can sell it for about 200K. The 55ft slip, I paid 130K. Last I heard 120K. The management company says I can own one more slip. There are 100 slips in this gated marina.
I think I have a 1yr lease on the 75ft slip, CASH. Alas, I am reporting as income.
I hate being a landlord.

So many comments to respond to.
>The boating world on the BC coast has been turned upside down through the pandemic. No stock, no moorage.

>Even if we soon see a glut of used boats on the market, as disillusioned people move away from those impulsive purchases, all those boats still need moorage.

>Those slips, which in the past have normally come available through the winter, will not happen as much, because there is nowhere for those boats to go except owners yards, if they have one and you don’t see too many 35’ boats in driveways.

>You think it’s busy now, wait until the border opens.

>There will be new and/or expanded marinas coming, but that won’t help you in the short term.

>If it comes to dealing on a brokered boat, make moorage a part of the bargain; most brokers have an in, or at least good connections.

>Look at Telegraph Cove and Port McNeill, you are not alone.
https://www.telegraphcoverealestate.com/
https://vancouverislandnorth.ca/communities/port-mcneill/

I am not as familiar with dry storage in BC as I am in Washington. We have several large dry storage yards here in Washington. While not as convenient as a slip, it certainly is an alternative. The snowbird crowd finds cruising in the summer and dry storage in the winter to be a very convenient and economical way to storing a boat. The Anacortes dry storage yard can easily handle up to 70’. They also have electrical hook ups.

MYTraveler said:

I have never understood why the vast majority (95%+) of marinas don't charge a market clearing price. In my business (multi-tenant commercial real estate), the highest bidder gets the space with a multi-year lease. We are currently 98% occupied across our markets, and have been raising rents in response to increasing demand. Of course, in years past, we have drastically lowered rents when demand falls off a cliff. Even so, our goal is always being close to fully occupied. (When we are fully occupied, and have to turn away anxious customers, we know we are not charging enough.) Why don't marina owners do the same?

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Because you are an entrepreneur and marina owners are obviously not.

As mentioned earlier, VanIsle Marina in Sidney has their Yacht Park, which is similar to those in Anacortes but about a third the size.
https://vanislemarina.com/marina-services/yacht-park-rates-victoria/

Most Island dry storage, and we’re talking mostly road legal, trailerable, are in random compounds with RVs and all other manner of prized junk.

BC is still in its infancy, when it comes to catering to the privileged, but this is rapidly changing and Vancouver Island is struggling to keep up. The Gulf Islands have had a huge influx of new money; new money which arrived without much thought and now they are griping because things like tap water aren't an endless supply as in the city.

I've spoken to Van Isle marina about their dry storage, which I am used to coming from Ontario. Plus the boat I have put a deposit on is a new Ranger 27 so quite easy to put on a trailer.

They will put the boat back in a few times as part of the cost, so that might suit me as well. I did want to extend my boating season, which was a big part of my reason to move out to the coast.

So I guess my worse case scenario is a trailer and dry storage. Not ideal, but doable.

Re mooring fields: in British Columbia/Vancouver Island, it’s very deep, lots of tidal currents and winds. I don’t think a mooring field in depths of 100-800 feet would be workable....

And the few that do exist, are so difficult to monitor or enforce, seem to attract derelicts.

Even though there seems to a be a growing presence of private moorings, mostly in sheltered bays, etc., they are all actually illegal. No enforcement of this though.

firehoser75 said:

... they are all actually illegal. ...

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???
Explain SVP

Transport Canada has rules for moorings as to markings, the buoy itself, etc. The Provincial Government has jurisdiction on the seafloor at least in the relative shallows where most buoys are located. Even though the Province has authority over the approval of and placement of mooring buoys on Provincial land, there is no process to do it (application, inspection, or enforcement).
There was another thread on TF that covered and referenced the various laws. It is basically a case of trespass.

private moorings

There was an article in, I believe, Pacific Yachting explaining this in detail.

To place a private mooring buoy you are required to get a permit from the province. But the province (of BC) doesn't issue them.

So technically you are not allowed to do it, but they are not enforcing it.

For now.

It's pretty clear that harbours are not anyone's private property, so you can't just build a dock or attach things without permits.

But you can anchor, as that comes under a different ruling and of course anchoring is almost always temporary, and generally necessary.

So it seems you could anchor right beside a private mooring buoy and be more in the right than the 'owner' of the buoy.

Interesting trivia I learned from the Pacific Yachting article. The ocean is federal given over to the province to manage, this I knew. But the bottom belongs to the province of BC, this I did not know.

So when you plant a moorage buoy, it is actually under two jurisdictions.

what's the proper protocol?

So now my question is, as a newbie who has never had to anchor/moor before, what's the protocol when you arrive late to a harbour where the only spot(s) left are private buoys?

After calling and getting a 'no' or no answer do you:

1) Tie up anyway?
2) anchor beside the buoy?
3) head off in the dwindling light to look for a less crowded place?

Jim,
As the article stated, if you tie up to the private buoy you are "trespassing on a trespasser". But the larger issue is do you trust the buoy system with your boat, and maybe your life (extreme but possible). Anchoring can be a concern due to entanglement issues with the buoy(s). Finding a space (somewhere) to anchor would be my choice!
However, that is a big part of the problem with these "illegal" moorings. In some popular places to anchor, finding space to anchor anywhere in the bay is becoming more of a problem. Anchoring is legal almost everywhere in BC.

Tom,

As I am new to anchoring I feel more comfortable (perhaps foolishly) tying up to something, anything, lol.

But I have about 7 or 8 months to take some courses and I should have no trouble getting up to speed on it.

A Navy friend of mine mentioned some kind of mooring pole or device that he said would make tying up to a mooring buoy easy for a lone sailor like me. Something about spring loaded...

Any idea what that might be? I'm all for having the right tools, even if a bit over the top, if it makes things easier while I get up to speed.

Jim,
Many factors will determine the relative safety of anchoring compared to mooring on "someone else's" buoy.

Anchoring depends on the equipment. Type and size of anchor, chain, rope, or combo rode. It depends on the bottom type, tides, and depths. It also depends greatly on the person's technique. It is not hard to learn. For example it is well covered in the Power Squadron courses.
The private buoy safety depends on all of the above (equipment, sizing of anchoring system, tides, depth, and most importantly has the system been installed, checked, and maintained properly. Personally I trusted my anchoring way, way more than I would trust a private buoy. Government buoys are much more reliable, as they are maintained and don't want the liability should there be a problem. For a smaller boat like a Ranger 27, maybe the concerns about the private buoy are a bit less??
The pole your friend is talking about could be something called a "happy hooker". Should be able to "google it".

My additional advice is get a good anchor (like Vulcan, Spade, Sarca, etc.) one size oversized for your boat, all chain rode, or at least a boat length, and then "study up" on how to do it. Taking a general course like Power Squadron (there are other sources of training) is a good idea, or you can read up on it, or hire a trainer to take you out on your boat and practise. To me, anchoring is an essential skill.

Here is one example, I would prefer something a bit longer but this would work.

On a Ranger Tug - solo - I'd go to the back and get on your swim grid with the transom to the ball. Then secure the line and walk it forward.

https://www.amazon.com/TEEPOR-Long-...&keywords=mooring+pole&qid=1626731780&sr=8-12