A Year in Victoria living aboard

We recently spent a year at Wharf Street Marina, in Victoria (Sept. 2020 - Sept. 2021) living on our sailboat Gjoa. On arriving in British Columbia, we soon learned that being a 'liveaboard' has very negative connotations here due to a derelict boat problem along with the often derelict people that live aboard them. The boats never leave the dock, or, anchor and they tend to just rot in place leaving unpaid bills and a disposal headache for marinas and municipalities. Unfortunately, international cruising sailors are also lumped in with this group. Most marinas have just put their head in the sand and made intractable "no liveaboard" policies rather than deal with the issue. So, it was a breath of fresh air when cruising friends told us about the progressive policies of the GVHA (Greater Victoria Harbour Authority). They have no trouble filling their marinas in the summer season, but, when winter comes, the berths often sit empty. A winter liveaboard program is offered to cruising boats. There's usually a wait list and both marina and personal references are required to even get onto the list. We were accepted at the last minute and heaved a sigh of relief that we had somewhere to go. Rates were reasonable and the usual toilet/shower/laundry facilities were provided and very nice they were too. The rates also included a weekly visit from the sewage pumpout boat. I'm sure at this point most non-sailors are thinking this is "too much information", but, this small thing makes a huge difference in life aboard. Victoria is the only place we've been that offers this welcome service.

The location was also superb and has to be one of the premier city centre marina locations in North America. We thoroughly enjoyed our year there and fell in love with Victoria in the process. There were always things happening in the inner harbour: demonstrations in front of the Legislature (Victoria is the provincial capital of BC), street entertainers, patio dining, float planes that seemed to come and go endlessly and many interesting boats, including the unique water taxis. They have regular stops around the harbour and one day, when I went to check out music being played over a loudspeaker, I came across them doing a unique, synchronized "boat ballet" to classical music! Fun to watch and requires a great deal of skill.

We also enjoyed the wildlife in the harbour. There were often seals and mink around the boat. In the spring a family of sea otters with five young entertained us with their antics. The otters were a mixed blessing. They were often up on and sometimes in the boats, particularly those with swim platforms. They would bring their crab catches up on deck to eat and leave a mess of bones and other deposits behind. This grimacing otter has a crab between its paws and is crunching a mouthful!

There was only one dump of snow all winter and it only lasted a few days. Then, we were back to the usual balmy temperatures in this area.

We enjoyed walking the many neighbourhoods, especially the heritage areas. This is the Emily Carr museum in the very appealing James Bay area.

Oak Bay is another lovely neighbourhood. Deer are considered garden pests here, but, it was fantastic to see them nonetheless.

There were many superb in-town walks: along the Dallas Road seafront, out along the breakwater seawall and through expensive, oceanfront neighbourhoods with fabulous water and mountain views.

Going further afield we must have walked the whole waterfront from Sidney to Sooke. We often took the bus out of town and walked back in. 

We did consider setting up our intended home base in Victoria, but, as much we loved it there, it was still too urban for us and we decided that being further afield would suit us better. However, we intend to visit often in future. Maybe we'll stay at the Empress, lovely any time of the year.

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Please welcome Boat #6 !!!

After not posting for over a year, some of you may have missed the brief comment about a change of boat in my return to posting. So, in case you missed it, we have now sold (August 2021) boat #5, our 14m Reinke aluminium cruising sailboat and are now aboard boat #6, an 8m Nordic Tug 26, purchased June 2021.

Here she is: boat #6: a 1984 Nordic Tug 26, hull #59 of 184 built. Her name is also GJØA, our third.

I suppose that's enough news in itself, but, wait, it's not just boat #6, it's also our first motor boat, no sails! We've gone to "the dark side". Having said that, this new boat is a good boat, we hope, to enable us to do the type of cruising we want to do next. We probably won't be crossing oceans any more where sails are the only way to travel such long distances, but, we definitely want to coastal cruise, preferably in wild, remote places and perhaps along some more urban coasts as well. Cruising among intricate coastal channels doesn't provide much good sailing wind. We didn't raise our sails once when coming down the coast from Alaska. It seemed pointless to maintain sails and their critical, expensive supporting rig when they're used so rarely in our new type of cruising. Now that we're based on the "we[s]t" coast a motorboat also provides a warm, protected steering station at all times and the means to manage our speed at a consistent 6-7 knots.

General specs for the Nordic Tug 26 are:

LOA: 26 feet, 4 inches 

BEAM: 9 feet, 6 inches 

DRAFT: 2 feet, 9 inches 

WEIGHT: 7,500 pounds 

HULL TYPE: semi-displacement 

PROPULSION: single diesel 

BUILDER: Nordic Tugs, Burlington, Washington, nordictugs.com

Our particular model has a few nice, custom features such as a dry-stack exhaust (as seen on many fishing boats) which should require less maintenance than a typical wet exhaust. The engine is a Perkins 4-154, 62HP with 6475 hours (more than we would have liked). We expect to burn an economical 3-4 litres an hour at 6 knots providing an excellent range with our 100 (maybe 150? t.b.d.) gallon main tank.

The transition from a 14m (47 ft.) to 8m (26 ft.) boat to live on wasn't as difficult an adjustment as it might seem. No longer needing storage space for sails, world charts/cruising guides, four-season clothing, offshore equipment and extensive spares/food supplies, the smaller boat works well as a temporary home for two people and will more than suffice for an annual season spent out cruising.

There's no denying the boat is old and the maintenance had been let go, but, it had good bones. The initial viewing, survey and photos all looked good, but, as usual, after a closer look, we've noticed that there are a lot of things that really need to be addressed before we can have full confidence in the boat. The surveyor had noted that an urgent replacement of the shaft cooling through-hull needed to be done. So, first thing after taking possession we headed up to Sidney to get hauled out and do the repair. After we hauled out a leaking crack was also noticed in the bottom of the keel. It also had to be fixed immediately. This wasn't going well. Hopefully, not an indicator of things to come.

On the way back to Victoria we stopped at the always lovely Sidney Spit anchorage and enjoyed seeing our first purple martins. It helped to take our mind off the big bill we'd just paid for the keel and through-hull fix.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, there was more to come. Trying to leave the Spit anchorage we couldn't get the engine started and had to call C-Tow who also couldn't get us started. We were towed in to nearby Van Isle Marina. Now, it *really* wasn't going well, not what you want to happen on the first day out on a "new" boat. We had minimal tools aboard and had scant knowledge of the boat at this point, so, we called Ben at Gartside Marine Engines who went above and beyond to help. He came down to the boat well after his regular workday and quickly determined the starter had seized up. He took it out, sent it for a rebuild and had it back in the next day! We resumed our trip to Victoria wondering what we had got ourselves into with this boat.

Once we finally got to Victoria we kept our two boats side-by-side until we could make the changeover transition happen.

It was heart-wrenching to see our home of the last four+ years leave us standing on the dock on August 26 when she left for the USA on delivery to her new owners. We'd invested so much financially and emotionally it was very hard to see her go even though we knew it was the right decision.

A few days later, near Labour Day weekend, we headed off to our new chosen home base, Port Alberni. It would be our first real cruise in our new-to-us boat. We were a bit nervous heading out on an 8m (26 ft.) boat through the notorious Juan de Fuca Strait and up the exposed west coast of Vancouver Island where the ocean is wide-open all the way to Japan, the very definition of a lee shore. We weren't sure how this tiny boat (compared to our very capable ocean cruiser) would react in the inevitable ocean swell. But, we'd chosen our weather window well and we had perfect conditions. The boat performed admirably. We stopped the first night at Port Renfrew and made the push up to Bamfield on the second day. We didn't want to arrive in Port Alberni during their massive annual Labour Day weekend salmon fishing derby, so, enjoyed a couple of nights at anchor in delightful Bamfield watching a black bear foraging on the beach. We stopped another night at the Port Alberni Yacht Club outstation in the Broken Islands Group (a spectacular spot we plan to return to) before heading up the Alberni Inlet (a 40 km/25 mile long fjord) to Port Alberni. The fjord was very busy with many little sportfishing boats zipping up and down, but, they didn't detract from the beauty of the place. We arrived at Port Alberni in early afternoon. We had done it, changed boats, locations and life direction all in a few short months. It had been a busy summer!

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