Nanaimo (Shipyard)

We arrived in Nanaimo on May 25. We anchored in the very nice harbour and enjoyed a hot shower and meal at the Dinghy Dock Pub. The showers were a little tough to find, since they are actually in the restaurant. But for a toonie, we got a long, private shower, and then a very short walk to a table and a meal. HIghly recommended.

We planned to stay in Nanaimo for a couple of days at most, though we were hoping to get some welding done there and knew we might have to return a week later. As it turned out, though, an opening came up at the Nanaimo Shipyard, and we had an appointment for that Wednesday morning. We figured that we'd be in Nanaimo a little longer, but we could carry on from there without having to return, so we'd be ahead of the game. Have I ever mentioned that every success comes with a setback in boat work?

We wanted to have some stainless steel bars welded to our stanchions as mounts for our solar panels and we wanted to discuss a mount for our wind generator. After an hour with a handful of the shipyard staff, we all realized that the wind generator we had was just too big for our boat. So our large project turned into a very small, one day job.

Except we ended up on the shipyard's dock until June 5.

The welding was no problem - they did it on the day we got there. The trouble was fixing the lifelines that were cut in order to add the bar. They told us it would be no problem for them to do that, though they weren't riggers, but their first plan didn't work. The new plan meant they had to order parts, which would arrive the next day. So we happily agreed to tie up to their dock for the night.

The parts got there, but then they realized that they needed another set of parts as well. That meant another day's wait. But the parts did not arrive the next day. It was a day later. By then it was Friday, and they had to send the parts to another shop to be fitted, anyway. They offered the dock for the weekend, but we opted to visit Plumper Cove instead.

Returning to Nanaimo on Monday, we discovered that the shop up the street couldn't help us, so the parts had been shipped to Victoria, and would be returned the next day. They weren't returned the next day. Or the day after that.

Happily, the following morning the parts had arrived, were installed and we paid our very reasonable bill. By 10:00 am we were untying from the dock and off to Secret Cove.

The good news is that during all this waiting we did some provisioning, laundry, and most importantly wired and installed our solar panels. It was a big job, and it helped having a dock and a chandlery at the end of it.

All in all, we'd have to recommend the Nanaimo Shipyard; they treated us very well and the work was very good quality. Just don't go there for a rigging job.

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