HAVE WE REALLY PROGRESSED?

I really don’t know what this city is about sometimes as I read the article that a friend found for me amongst his mother’s belongings after she passed away recently.

A breakwater for a marina? For visiting yachts that find they have nowhere to go when trying to visit Vancouver? What? IN English Bay!! What?

I have a sailboat that I often wonder if I could moor here if I had just arrived from a trip around the world and wanted to tie up and relax for a few days. But where exactly would you go here, today, in this fabulous city on the ocean? False Creek fishing docks? No room. On a buoy in False Creek, there aren’t any, and those that were there were stolen! OK so let’s go around to Coal Harbour. No. you really cannot anchor there either, and there are no public docks to speak of. There is one next to the Mill Pub on the sea wall, but it is unsafe to leave a boat there for all the wave action from both weather and tugs and charter boats that go by, let alone the float plane noise next door.

So, anchor in English Bay? You are kidding I presume! Look what happened to those boats that ended up on the beach during a storm only recently. Seriously dangerous. So that leaves us with the private marinas. Well, what are we paying there now? $14 a foot and a daily rate of what - $2.00 a foot plus power? Are we kidding? We need some facilities here in Vancouver so that visitors from not only the States with their large mega yachts, but local guys and girls with little boats can tie up to. People who want to visit the big city from the Islands have nowhere to go, unless they have a reciprocal right with a yacht club, and then it is on an availability basis, and there are not always spots available.

In 1958, as the above 1957 article shows, they were ready to do this. People were getting excited about our maritime city. Now all we get is action groups with their own self interests emblazoned across their foreheads. People with a few million and a house overlooking English Bay, but who only want to look at the water, not play in or on it, so why should anyone else? People who, if they went to Europe or Australasia, would cry out to overlook a marina because their properties would double in price! Go to Auckland, New Zealand and see what they have made in the way of marinas, and what it has brought them. Why do they think that over here a marina is an eyesore? They produce business - restaurants, wine bars and pubs, and places to eat and drink out under an umbrella in the summer and the sight of some beautiful boats. On the whole, the people involved in boating are of one mind and have a certain joi de vivre plus a consideration for others in the same boat (as it were). The newer facilities are usually clean and do no harm to anyone, except to those with petty jealousies. And what exactly to they know? Nothing! 90% of all boaters have very little money, but chose to use it to enjoy this amazing area we live in. In my case I used to have money, but have spent it all on my boat, much like many others I suspect. There is nothing to be jealous of. We chose to live the life we do, just as you chose to be petty and self indulging sometimes.

We need more facilities, and we need them to be reasonable of price so that we can continue to spend our money in your areas before we all go bankrupt paying through the nose for bad facilities with little power and often no water. Did you know that there are more boats per capita here in Vancouver than any other city in the world apart from Auckland NZ? Maybe the politicians would perk up at that statistic and get on side.

In 1958 this was a go. What the heck happened? This is a marine city, like it or not we live on an ocean. In my years here it has always amazed me how few people have ever seen the Gulf islands, fewer still have experienced the unbelievable beauty of Desolation Sound or the Broughtons further north. We need to embrace where we are, not shun it. We need to welcome visitors, and we need to stop stopping every new creative idea that comes along.

What we need is a maritime ombudsman to look after our rights and needs and to fight on our behalf. I volunteer right now – for a fee!

Evan Seys

www.coalharbourmedia.com