Oh, just Nanaimo again

I think we've only been here twice before, but it all fades together... blue skies, sunshine, crazy northerly winds.

We're tied up right now at Nanaimo Yacht Club, on the outside of H dock facing Newcastle Island Passage, and we're getting bounced around more with doubled-up docklines and extra fenders out than we were last night on just our anchor in the middle of Telegraph Harbour. It's an undesirable berth anyway, because, 5 knot speed limit notwithstanding, there is normally a lot of traffic up and down the channel and you would catch all the wakes here; right now, no one is out there, so there are no wakes, but thirty knots of wind is whistling down the gap and trying hard to scrape us down the side of the dock and into the big powerboat behind us.

For all that, I'm happy to be here. Dinghying in from the anchorage would be no picnic right now. We came in and tied here because it's adjacent to the check-in slip, where you are supposed to tie temporarily while walking up to the office to get a regular slip assignment. That was where the big powerboat was already parked, though, so we just got as close as we could so I could go up to the office and see if they had anything else available in our size. Turns out the member who normally moors right here is gone this week, so they just told us to stay right where we are. That was fine with me. If there's something worse than being in a bouncy outboard tie-up, it's having to get out of one and try to dock someplace else in high winds.

Every time we have been here it's been blowing like mad, and docking and undocking has always been unpleasant (particularly within the confines of the Harbour Authority docks a bit south of here). So, an outside spot, where all I have to do is fire up the engine and go, no jockeying around, no boats on either side, is pretty darn attractive.

So we're happy to be in port, and particularly happy that it's Nanaimo, despite the wind. It's a great town, with an interesting and useful waterfront and downtown area. There are a ton of used bookstores, which is good because I've pretty much worked my way through our onboard library already (we've only been gone a week!), shops and galleries, hole-in-the-wall restaurants.

We're also particularly impressed with the yacht club. The staff are friendly, they have showers and laundry on site, and the ice is cheaper than at the grocery store, and not nearly as far to carry home! It's also further away from the airplane docks than where we have stayed before, making for a quieter experience... well, it would be quieter if the wind would die down, anyway. The rates are good, too, both for services and for moorage itself.

So we decided to stay for a few days. To tell the truth, I'm not exactly sure where to go from here. We're planning on heading north to Desolation Sound, of course; but do I crawl up the Vancouver Island coast or jet across to the more interesting areas along the Sunshine Coast of the mainland? Clearly I'll need a few days to make up my mind.

It's harder now because, although in my mind this has sort of been a vacation plan, really it's not... it's just life, with a few side trips. I need to think about not just what we want to go see, but where we need to be to get things done. Transportation, work, getting mail... all the unglamorous bits that still need to happen. Nanaimo just happens to be well-suited to meeting most of those needs. It's going to be hard to pull out.

Oh, and we've seen more evidence that boat traffic is down... Mark Bay, across the harbour, was absolutely jammed full at this time two years ago. Today, it would have been easy to find anchorage. We could have had our pick of spots. The Harbour Authority docks look relatively empty, too, apart from long-term tenants.