Hi Group!

Kia ora from New Zealand. My family and i are wrapping up a couple year stay in Wellington New Zealand. The wind has been pretty stellar here and I've have had a ton of time on the water, until about 6 wks ago, when my little twin boys were born. But, no doubt the fun on the water is not over!

We are heading back to Canada - Kingston, Ontario to be precise, at the end of May. We are moving closer to family and into a house we own. But, I am already thinking its going to be real hard settling in to a place with no mountains or ocean. We've spoiled ourselves living in Lyall Bay in Wellington, about 2 min from the beach.

Anyway, we both really love Victoria and are thinking it is about our size and has those neat things we like, not to mention a couple quality friends there. I still haven't looked much into real estate costs and that could be a big kicker.

I wanted to suss out the wind stats and conditions for Victoria. I have just joined the forum and this is virtually the first time I am checking out your site. So, are there decent longterm wind stats available somewhere on your website? Like # of days over 15knts a month....

Also, is there a good section of the site that has a map of the launches in Victoria, and all over Vancouver Island? What are the better launches and what kind of conditions can they fire up? Is there any good down-the-line starboard tack? How far a drive to the Gorge? How far to Nitinat? Wheres the best local spot for choppy freestyle? Any flat-water freestyle spots?

So many questions... It would be great if someone would answer a few for me, and I'll dig around the website some more. Any info is good info.

Thanks!

Mike the kook.
KC-79

PS> My nickname is fish, and that's usually how I sign off, but I see there is already a FISH!! Dang! I guess I'll have to use my real name... how boring...

kook wrote:I still haven't looked much into real estate costs and that could be a big kicker.

You bet it will be I think you can buy a palace in Kingston for a compost pile here....

For the rest the answers are real easy to find all over this site..... The Latest link has most of it.

down-the-line sailing? Not here, not really, we live on straits and fjords not open ocean, a couple of west coast spots on rare occasion might offer up a bit of that.
Hope you can make it here, bud....get some woolies & bump/jump gear we're the warmest spot year-round in Canada but the water's still good an' nippy.

Here you can find group sailing stats around the island. It's not statistically/mathematically correct but it gives you the idea. The beaches listed in the table are in a pretty close proximity to Victoria ( 2hrs drive the most )
also check out Wind buoy archive data, but that's a little different, because it may be waaay out off shore.

For sailing probability I would go with sailing log stats, except for kiters their group doesn't log much, cause they don't have time - they are kiting

Cheers

Hi Mike/Fish2:

Welcome to the site! NZ sounds great. I really want to do a trip there someday. For Victoria, yep house prices are insane so that might be a bit of a shocker. Maybe a condo or you can try looking out of town or up island (although todays paper shows a 708 sqft 1 bedroom condo in Vic for $439k ).

For wind stats, as the other guys mentioned, you can check here. I need to do some more work showing the corresponding sailing sites, but if you check the Latest Reports page, and the South Map or Island Map (top left) it shows some sailing sites and nearby buoys. The archive will give you some idea of the wind. The Group sailing log also shows the number of days sailed at the sites. We have good summer sailing at Cook Street, Gordon's Beach and Nitinat. In winter the sailing is spotty but the conditions can be amazing.

If you are looking for down the line sailing you might be disappointed. There are some good days in winter at Columbia Beach and in the summer on the west coast (Long Beach etc), but we really don't get that much. You'd be better off doing a trip to the Oregon Coast in June/July.

For choppy freestyle we have Gordons Beach, Cook Street and Nitinat. Nitinat has great flat water conditions too and is really consistent in the summer. The Gorge is 5-5.5hrs (after you get off the ferry at Port Angeles). Nitinat is 2.5hrs, with 1 hr on a logging road.

We are working on a sailing guide so stay tuned.

dave

Yeah, New Zealand is a pretty cool place - we really like it here, but feel we should return to be closer to family at this point in time, with the young twins. So we'll give Ktown another shot for a bit.

Wellington rips. The stats are off the charts - I think it is statistically the windiest city in the world. It however, also lacks good wavesailing. Its got a couple OK spots, but you really have to head up to Taranaki to nail it right, five hours away. Aside from that, there are regular mast-high days in Lyall Bay in the winter and similar, but not so big in Plimmerton. Just not downtheline really. Lots of good bump&jump in town though, and when it comes down to it, I am a freestyler, not much of a wave sailor - only when I can get it. Good wavesailing is a bonus - not so much of a prerequisite. More important are the stats on windy days, and I don't know that Victoria is any better than Kingston in that regard. In fact, Canadian Climate NOrmals might suggest that Kingston is quite a bit windier - I almost find that hard to believe though, since Kingston seems to be much worse and hugely affected by stinky Toronto and the US. Regular summer 15-20kt thermals appear to be a thing of the past.

Your first quote on real estate price there is out of this world - on a single salary we would have a real hard time making that work. At this stage in life, renting is just throwing away money... but if its really what we want, we'll have to make some compromises. I certainly don't think we would feel the need to live downtown, so that will probably work in our favour. Just have to figure out a good burb that will be close to decent sailing and within relatively easy commute of the city.

Thanks for all the info everyone!!

Hi Fish,

If it's solid (by Canadian standards) windsurfing you're after, Victoria and the Island in general will be hard to beat. Nitinat is freestyle heaven and Gordon's offers fantastic B&J conditions. Plus we're within striking distance of the Gorge and Oregon Coast. Life on the Island is good and is at a nice pace. Don't let the crazy market here scare you too much, there's always something that might work out if you're patient. Besides, we need more rippers to keep bringing the level up locally! The lifeblood of windsurfing here is slowly being drained by kitesurfing (not a dig on kiting - I'm dabbling a bit), but it's refreshing to see guys still super stoked on sailing. Good luck with your decision and congrats on twins!

Chris

hey fish- commute from Duncan is 45 min. (seems like from everything but highly central) and is close to a bunch of good sailing spots tho very little right outside the door. houses from $200-400 for an nicer place maybe even with large lot or acre so things aren't totally desperate.
the other little item to consider is: Kingston would likely not be sailable for 6 - 7 months of the year with those temps. we at times go out around zero and usually regret it, on a ripping day 4 degrees is generally the min where things are fun and endurable so stats aren't everything on that front.

Kingston tomorrow hi -1 low -14, we are in the Fraser Valley at plus 12 today, low 8

I totally forgot about that! Obviously a definite plus to sail all year round! I used to push the season quite a bit in Ktown, but can't imagine doing that forever. Is the water temp pretty constant, what can one expect in Jan/Feb in the ocean?

Maybe when I get some time, I'll scope out the house prices a bit more, just to get an idea. Its pretty damn pricey here in Wellington too, not that we bought anything, but just the real estate market has boomed here and prices are at an all time high. Ktown is quite the opposite - I guess being a little shit town in the middle of no-where, prices stay pretty low, relative to Toronto and Ottawa.

Thanks for all the info guys. I also need to take a look at that launch map sometimes...

Cheers!

Ocean temp on Juan de Fuca is just about steady all year, I think it is only about 3 degrees cooler in Feb than in July. Whereever the water circulates less, it can warm up considerably; you can comfortably swim in the bays of west Saanich Inlet on an incoming tide on a sunny warm day. A drunk fell off the BC Ferries near Active Pass at about 10PM a couple of years ago and survived swimming in Georgia Strait till mid-morning when he was picked up with only mild hypothermia. If I remember correctly, the Coast Guard attributed his survival to the warm waters of Boundary Bay south of Vancouver circulating all the way across Georgia Strait. Sea temps in northern Georgia Strait and Desolation Sound warm right up in the summer, to about 20C I think. Nitinat Lake (actually tidal) gets warm enough water/air to sail in shorts a few times a year (water is warm but the windchill is usually enough to keep the wetsuit on).

I was hoping that photo of the week was from Victoria... Where abouts is that? (correct answer: secret spot, 5min away...)

Hey guys,

One good option to consider, and pretty quick and dirty to do, is to use Google Earth for locating sailing spots. Most people have heard of it and have browsed it, so I won't bother explaining what it is, but, you can easily make ".kzm" files that others can upload and view. It would probably also let you add photos as well, or links to photos, for each site, and a link back to your website for getting wind conditions.

An example, I was trying to convince some buddies of mine to visit, so I did up one of the Wellington area sailing spots and other features. I've attached it here. Oops - sorry - tried to attach but wouldn't accept it.

Anyway, might be a good and easy tool to prepare a sailing spot map. On that note, for some reason, resolution on Vancouver Island is not stellar, but good enough I reckon.

Can anyone pinpoint where Nitnat is? How long a drive is it and what is the route?

Cheers!

The wind map is an interesting googlish way to document sailing sites, a bit slow though ...

http://www.thewindmap.com