Years to find moorage at B.C. marinas
Pier Pressure: It can take years to find moorage at B.C. marinas
By JOANNE LEE-Young, Vancouver Sun
Summer (when it arrives) is for sailing, as they say, but even if you’re lucky enough to own a boat, finding a place to tie it up is getting harder.
With more people buying boats in recent years and no new marinas being built, securing a moorage slip in the Lower Mainland can take years of being on a waiting list, many of them with hundreds of names.
“There’s not much in this town,” said Art Childs, who manages the False Creek Harbourside Marina and is president of the Harbour Authority Association of BC. “All the existing [marinas] are basically full and in wait-list land.”
He’s got 325 boats on his waiting list right now. “It’s just been growing over several years ... there is no one particular cause other than they keep selling more boats, but there are no new marinas,” said Childs.
Over at Sewell’s Marina in Horseshoe Bay, general manager Megan Sewell has, for several years now, consistently had about 200 people on her waiting list “if you count boats of all sizes. It can take five to eight years [to get a spot], depending on what size you want.
“Some people opt to moor at Point Roberts, where there can be more availability, and then move up here when something opens up. Or they look on Vancouver Island because that’s where they want to sail anyway,” said Sewell.
Others might “keep a boat up in Secret Cove or Pender Harbour or somewhere like that,” said Childs. “But it’s tightening up everywhere. That’s the problem. If you go to southern Vancouver Island or the Gulf Islands, you’ll find the same situation.
“There’s moorage out there, if you want to go further afield, but for folks who are looking to have their boat relatively accessible from Vancouver or the Lower Mainland, those spots, like Nanaimo and anywhere around Sidney on the Island, they are just filling up,” said Childs.
He said if looking further isn’t an option, people “change plans. They buy a boat that can sit on a trailer as opposed to be in the water.”
At Shuswap Marina at Shuswap Lake, owner Gareth Seys has a 100-person waiting list. Due to more stringent government regulations and lengthier environmental studies, there is a moratorium on further marine development in the Okanagan. Seys said he is fine with this situation “until the government finds a way for there to be more pump-out stations and city sewers, I am quite happy for there to be a shortage.”
A quick whip around other marinas — Mosquito Creek in North Vancouver, Coal Harbour in Vancouver, Shelter Bay at Okanagan Lake and Captain’s Cove in Salmon Arm — reveals more waiting lists. Most of these marinas don’t offer slips for sale. They only rent them out, sometimes on an annual lease. At Mosquito Creek, the waiting list is three years long and at Coal Harbour, it’s five years.
One property developer on Mara Lake in the Shuswap is offering a solution. It’s one that means mooring in fresh water, not the ocean, so you can’t go anywhere too far too easily, and you’ll have to take your boat out of the water come winter. But, if you’re willing to change tack, Sam Boguslavsky, owner of Sable Resorts Inc., has just under a dozen slips for sale.
His Legacy Marina, which has been built as part of the resort, features 54 slips.
To buy a slip, you’ll have to shell out for a condo too, however. They come together, a package deal.
“To have your own moorage, say, on Vancouver Island at Comox or in the Okanagan, it’s usually linked to two million-, three million-, five million-, 10-million-dollar homes,” said Boguslavsky.
“We are offering the opportunity to have your own slip with something more affordable. We have one bedroom [condos] going for $300,000 and two bedrooms for $400,000.
“They are lock-and-leave condos and the attraction is to roll down your elevator, hop in your boat and be in the middle of the Shuswap at Mara Lake,” Boguslavsky said.
Jlee-young@vancouversun.com
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