Hit and run, hard impact

[TrentePieds]

Are you compelled to stay in Howe Sound? Since it appears that you are, I s'pose you work somewhere, so where do you go to work? Where do you keep your car? In HS you obviously must have a car if you need to go to work. Where d'ye put the dink while you are away from the boat?

You weren't by any chance in Brigadeer Bay, were you? Or in Whyte Cove?

On the Island side of the Straits there are lots of perfectly nice places. Even perfectly secure marinas with moderate fees and good access to shopping and transportaion.

TP

[Fiveslide]

Originally Posted by mr-canada

In this area there is a dire shortage of water leases. Even a six hour drive from the city, the nearest marina with space is over $300 a month plus extra charges.
.

You know, $400 a month for a slip isn't entirely outrageous. I've paid that amount for years when I needed a place to park a boat, and that's just one of the neverending costs associated with boat ownership. If you can't take it home, you have to pay to keep it somewhere. This may be what you need to do to keep your boat from being messed with.

I've paid more and I've paid less and I've lived 6 hours from my boat at times. It happens.

[SV Bacchus]

Originally Posted by Fiveslide

You know, $400 a month for a slip isn't entirely outrageous.

Yup, Mr. C should come to Ft. Lauderdale. I was quoted $3,000 a month behind a house that didn't allow liveaboards.

[Mirage35]

Warning - Off Topic



Blast from the past - I just figured out where Howe Sound is. (I assumed it was on the island but have now corrected myself.) But that brings up another issue:


Anyone here Canadian enough and old enough to remember The Beachcombers on CBC? I do, and re-reading the story I'm pretty sure Relic has something to do with all this.

[mr-canada]

Originally Posted by AnglaisInHull

Warning - Off Topic

Anyone here Canadian enough and old enough to remember The Beachcombers on CBC? I do, and re-reading the story I'm pretty sure Relic has something to do with all this.

Hahahaha. There's a picture somewhere of me with good old Relic. My mom had a picture of herself with the cop from the show too.

[mr-canada]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Are you compelled to stay in Howe Sound? Since it appears that you are, I s'pose you work somewhere, so where do you go to work? Where do you keep your car? In HS you obviously must have a car if you need to go to work. Where d'ye put the dink while you are away from the boat?

You weren't by any chance in Brigadeer Bay, were you? Or in Whyte Cove?

On the Island side of the Straits there are lots of perfectly nice places. Even perfectly secure marinas with moderate fees and good access to shopping and transportaion.

TP

Honestly, I'd ideally park it in the Vancouver Lower Mainland. Being a sailboat with limited power, anywhere up the Fraser River is prohibitive, as getting back I'm fighting against the "mighty Fraser" and sailing is prohibited as it is a commercial zone. Wait lists in the Lower Mainland are practically a lifetime, sometimes exceeding 25 years.

Howe Sound is not too far, only a few hours away, and it's a great place for boating and sailing. I learned to sail in Squamish, so you could say I went from greenhorn straight into the frying pan, the rest of Howe Sound is like cake. I'm loathe to park in the Straight of Georgia, just due to the long fetch, when things get hairy they can get really hairy really fast, it's like a long wind tunnel.

I'd move away from Vancouver, but all the work is here. Retirees are buying up everything on the coast and the islands so there isn't any work nor any business opportunities there because they are almost never there (boggles the mind people will blow over a million for a beautiful house they use 8-10 weeks of the year).

The economy in the Vancouver area is just cooking hot; unfortunately even meagre work opportunities are slim to none outside, unless you go really far north and work oil & gas.

[fxykty]

How about Point Roberts Marina? I’m not sure about berth availability and the rates are in USD, but it could be an option if you want a marina berth and you have insurance and your boat is or can be registered.

When we lived in the Vancouver area we kept our boat there and loved the open waters and easy access to the San Juans and Southern Gulf Islands. Gas/Diesel and provisions are all way cheaper than in BC - we always filled up our car and bought maximums of alcohol, meat and dairy to take back home. You’ll want to get a NEXUS Card to simplify crossing the border.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by mr-canada

In this area there is a dire shortage of water leases. Even a six hour drive from the city, the nearest marina with space is over $300 a month plus extra charges.

That doesn't sound like a shortage. In most areas $300/month is dirt cheap.

[mr-canada]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

That doesn't sound like a shortage. In most areas $300/month is dirt cheap.

I used to pay $300 every six months at my old YC. 6 hours from the city plus a ferry $300 is too much

[mr-canada]

Originally Posted by fxykty

How about Point Roberts Marina? I’m not sure about berth availability and the rates are in USD, but it could be an option if you want a marina berth and you have insurance and your boat is or can be registered.

When we lived in the Vancouver area we kept our boat there and loved the open waters and easy access to the San Juans and Southern Gulf Islands. Gas/Diesel and provisions are all way cheaper than in BC - we always filled up our car and bought maximums of alcohol, meat and dairy to take back home. You’ll want to get a NEXUS Card to simplify crossing the border.

That is a very interesting idea, I never thought of that. Cheap gas, cheap booze, cheap milk. I have no criminal record or conditions, no prior charges so it wouldn't be a problem getting the NEXUS.

[mickt243]

Originally Posted by mr-canada

Im not upsetting anyone. So forget about that. I'm quite an amicable fellow.

I know nothing about moorage in Australia, so I can't comment on that.

In this area there is a dire shortage of water leases. Even a six hour drive from the city, the nearest marina with space is over $300 a month plus extra charges.

The solution to the problem is for the government to allow more water leases. They have immigration cranked to the maximum, and Canadian residents from all across Canada who are retiring are flocking here in droves (with retirement many people buy boats) due to our temperate climate.

Obviously I have no direct control over the issuance of water leases. I don't have the capital to just snap my fingers and go through the process of obtaining a water lease and building a marina. If I did, it would be filled in minutes, not hours.

More competition and more space in this area is needed. I know this is off topic, but it is related. Residents with these million dollar plus homes get tired of abandoned vessels (re-read above, about people buying boats to get the slip then abandoning them) and I'm just caught up in the sweep. My boat is well maintained, I check on it every few weeks at minimum, even trudging through a foot of snow in the dead of winter. It's regularly washed, brushed, covered, and repaired. The motor is working perfectly and I take it out often when the weather is nice.

So lets please just drop this "maybe you are POing off the neighbors" line of questioning. Sounds like there's not much I can do about the hit and run other than just fix it or get a more expensive insurance package that covers damage and/or replacement.

Mate, I’m not saying you’re not a nice amicable guy.... I’m saying that for whatever reason (and you may not even know who or why) someone has taken an extreme dislike to your presence and is apparently willing to do anything to get rid of you.... look at all your problems of late - boat moved from dock, boat set adrift, boat moved from anchored position, a supposedly undragable anchor dragged a significant distance, now significant damage. Someone wants you gone. Until you #1 admit the possibility to yourself, #2 find out who and #3 find out why, you have no way to stop it. It started out small and has escalated to the point of criminal damage. To be honest, I would not be at all surprised to hear in the near future that you “had an accident” or “disappeared”.....I would not recommend you go to your boat alone, or unarmed....

Like others said... $300 a month is a bargain at a marina. Cheap peace of mind.
It seems like you are dead keen to moor your boat for free, at any price.

[coastalexplorer]

This thread has proceeded further than I ever thought possible. The Howe Sound is populated all the way up its east shore with very expensive homes. The islands are mostly privately owned, and development has been increasing on the west side as far as Port Mellon. Beyond which point the road is privately owned, with short steep break in it that the owner has not connected because the offer to build a bridge across the Squamish river was refused by Squamish town Council. Hence the sunshine Coast is technically a peninsular that is treated like an island accessible by ferry/

Most of the property owners are very wealthy, and all the property is high priced. So they do not like free loaders. Marinas are very picky about what vessel they will accept. generally they do not like old boats or those built from wood. moorage is priced at well over $8.50 per foot. Exact prices are not published. I believe one yacht club charges for the length of the boat plus the length of the dinghy. IF they do not want you; their story is all about the length of the waiting list. Illegal to be proven prejudiced on grounds of race, religion etc.

Point Robert's Marina has lots of space simply because the exchange rate kills this option for most Canadian Customers. one USD costing $1.32 CDN.
The managements view is that If the money goes back to par it will fill up quickly.

Another issue is that they do not seem to want 'liv a boards'. A Canadian citizen can only live in the united States for six months less one day. This is also closely monitored by US Homeland security.

I hope that the vessel in question was not damaged by Vandalism to make a point of unwelcome, BUT given the situation in that part of the world it can not be completely ruled out.

[TrentePieds]

The long and the short of it is that for a "working man" in Vancouver, i.e. an employee with an employee's scant control over his income, "yachting" is not a realistic ambition due to the city's typical ratio of occupancy expense to net income. Families of working age often have to spend 60% of HOUSEHOLD income (man and wife both working) just for apartment rent or mortgage payments. That means that they are one paycheck away from homelessness!

To ACQUIRE a boat is easy enuff in terms of purchase price. and one often hears people express a wistful plan to "buy a boat to live on to avoid the high rents". Gross naivité, in my view, for to KEEP a boat is a whole different thing.

Given the economic and geographic realities of Vancouver it is, in my view, completely impossible to hold down an ordinary blue-collar wage-paid job anywhere in the Greater Vancouver Area and find a parking place for a live aboard boat anywhere within feasible commuting distance.

TrentePieds came to us when she was moored in West Vancouver. At the WORST, most decrepit marina I have ever seen on two continents! We took her across the Straits to a very good marina. The savings on annual mooring costs permits us to pay for TEN - I say again: TEN - return fares for the car and the two of us on the ferry twixt Tsawwassen and Duke Point. It only works because we are retired, of course.

TP

[mr-canada]

My boat WAS in perfect shape until this hard impact. I am not a liveaboard.

TrentPieds logic is sound. I've spent (pardon the pun) boatloads of cash on my boat, having the rigging maintained, sails maintained.

Living aboard my boat is an option in the case of disaster, but with cats, 3 TVs, 2 businesses, and a ton of nice crap that I don't want to just sell at bargain basement prices ranging from camping equipment to home appliances it's not really feasable. I've downsized from a 4 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom basement so what I have I'd like to keep. Plus the fiancee isn't really down with living on the boat other than a weekender or a week or two cruise.

The Vancouver area is the most expensive area in North America. People blame the expensiveness on Asian money, but most of the vacation properties are owned by Canadian white people in Howe Sound. Working in financial services for so long, I personally feel it's demographics. You have the boomer generation being the richest generation in history, on rocket fuel because of the froth generated by foreign money. Its going to crash, and crash hard due to demographic reasons and flight of capital.

The sad part is most of these islands and the SC were dotted with small communities surrounded by Crown land, but the previous government started just selling off anything waterfront to pad budgets. When I grew up in the area, everything was mostly Crown land, now it's hard to find even a beach where the property isn't owned by someone who will bark at you for using "their beach" laws and rules be damned.

Anyway we're getting off topic pretty far here.

[TrentePieds]

Quote: "Anyway we're getting off topic pretty far here. "

Thank you for being cognizant of that :-)

As a moderator of this forum I was probably stretching things by making the post I did. So I would like to issue a gentle reminder to us all that discussion of politics, unless DIRECTLY related to cruising or the keeping of a yacht, is NOT permitted in this forum.

TP