In this excerpt from my interview with Blake Williams, he tells the story of the BCA effort to establish mooring balls in False Creek. Expo 86 was coming and the BCA set out to provide transient moorage for the boaters that were expected to come to the event. Blake Williams was the BCA Port Captain at the time.
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Blake: I joined Bluewater and Sam Sydneysmith said, “If you’ve gotten something out of Bluewater, you’ve got to give something back.” This was before the Doers, Dreamers, and Doners concept. I asked him, “What should I do?” and he said, “Why don’t you try being the Port Captain?”
This was during the lead up to Expo 86 and there was concern about facilitating boaters during Expo.
First, I called Victoria, North Van, and other yacht clubs to see if we could use reciprocal docks. BCA did not have any docks to contribute, so that wasn’t going to work out very well.
Barrie: You were trying to get some transient moorage for Expo?
Blake: Yeah, exactly right. And that was almost a full-time job in itself.
At the time there were even a couple of investors here who wanted to pick up a piece of decommissioned floating expressway in Seattle and put it out in the bay. CBC reported on it.
Barrie: And from what I understand, BCA did get some mooring buoys put in, did they not?
Blake: They did, right out here [outside of Spruce Harbour Marina]. They said, “Let’s call it Blake’s Bay.” I said, “Let’s not!”
Past Commodore, Peter Doherty, was an engineer. It took us two years, and I’ve got all the documents for that, which I won’t bore you with. But it was Fisheries. It was the City. I had to go to the city council. Heather Civic Marina said, “Well, who’s going to police this thing?”
So, long story short, we got some Bluewater member volunteers, went and picked up some used BC Rail rails, brought them down, cut them up, laid a grid, added rode and buoys, then brought them in from Horseshoe Bay.
It was foggy. We came in, the Coast Guard was there, and we dropped five of them. One, two, three, four, five.
Later, the people walking along the seawall kept saying: How’d they get there? (chuckles)
Barrie: Because it all happened in the fog, right?
Blake: Yeah, they were visible after [the fog] burned through.
Barrie: So you managed to get five transient moorage buoys for Expo.
Blake: Yeah. And they were the property of the Bluewater Cruising Association!
Barrie: So, did you have to manage them as well?
Blake: Yup. Two or three years after Expo, we gave them up. It got to the point that there were insurance concerns. Also, maintaining them and the approvals of federal, provincial, and local governments became too much.
Barrie: Too bad, the holding isn’t that great in [False Creek]. It would probably be better to put in mooring buoys even if the city did it and charged a fee to keep them maintained.
Blake: But we just have to get some divers with chain and rope and the floats because those grids are still down there.
Barrie: I remember, when we anchored in False Creek, we pulled up our anchor and it had that soupy False Creek mud on it. In the mud I found a well-worn coin, with a Spanish Conquistador stamped on it. I thought, Oh, a Spanish doubloon! It will be worth a fortune. It turned out to be a coin from 1970, so it was more likely lost at Expo 86.
In the end was all the time and effort worth it?
Blake: It brought together a lot of Bluewater members with technical skills, whether it be welding, or building foam floats. We had an engineer to deal with the City of Vancouver, to make sure that there was no pollution. It was two years of effort. We even had to convince Heather Civic Marina that we weren’t trying to cut into their business because we were moored right off them.
It was a successful venture. Unfortunately, the problem was to make sure that it was only used by the people we intended it for. And then, of course, the insurance and the maintenance. But it really brought a lot of Bluewater members together to focus on this specific task and succeed at it.
Featured Image: Left: Barrie’s Spanish Dubloon. Right: Spruce Harbour in the early 1980’s. Source: Daniel O’Neill Photo, Vancouver Public Library, 84962.