Pierless Blog - 2025-06-13 - To Nanaimo

Leaving Selby, we proceeded up the west side of Galiano Island heading for Porlier Pass between Galiano and Valdes islands.  This is a narrow passage that leads to the Strait of Georgia.  Our destination was Nanaimo.  The more direct route to Nanaimo is through Dodd Narrows.  This narrow passage has dangerous currents during tide changes and must be timed carefully.  Our projected arrival would put us there at the wrong time to enter the narrows, so we chose the outside path in Georgia Strait.  

After transiting Porlier Pass, we passed the Valdes ferry terminal and eventually rounded the top of Gabriola Island and the lighthouse on the east side.

Lighthouse off Gabriola

Nanaimo is a busy harbor with a fair amount of traffic.  Ferries, fishing boats, pleasure craft all converge here.  We passed a couple ferries and other traffic on the way in.

Entering Nanaimo

There is a small island/marine park next to town called Saysutshun (Newcastle) Island.  It has a small marina and mooring balls available at reasonable cost.  Showers on shore too!  After navigating through the forest of moored boats, we picked up a mooring, tied off and killed the engine.

 Dave dodging boats...

Before the trip, we worked out a way to carry the inflatable dinghy on deck using the spinnaker halyard, a few pieces of foam and tie-downs.  It works quite well and can be done by one person - though two makes it easier.  Once secured to the mooring, we launched the dinghy and headed to the pier to pay our moorage fee ($14) at the park office and take showers!  

There was a 24hr run going on at the island, so lots of people were jogging by.  On the dock, Purple Martin bird houses have been installed with many nesting pairs present.  They were fun to watch and their calls were quite melodic.  

 Mark Bay

Across from Mark Bay is a small floating restaurant called The Dinghy Dock.  We decided to take a run over after dinner to see the place.  It was also an opportunity to run our little 2hp dinghy engine to see how it worked.  Not too well as we discovered...  Still, it was a nice row over!

The Dinghy Dock Pub

We enjoyed a beer and nachos and watched a small fleet of sailboats return to Nanaimo from a race around Vancouver Island.  

After satisfying our gastronomic desires, we loaded ourselves into the dinghy for the ride back.  Before pulling on the oars, we looked the engine over again and found a small but important lever that turns the fuel on and off.  It was, of course, in the off position.  Gotta love simple solutions!  It started up after a couple of pulls and we headed back to Pierless without further ado and settled in for the night.

- Brian

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