The first thing we think about when we know we’re headed to Nanaimo is dreading how crowded it is and this year is no different. We lucked out with a pretty good anchorage spot, but craziness began shortly after. Xena and I ran Bryan to the city via dinghy to take a bus to north of the city looking for supplies to build Xena a swim step for the boat. After returning to the boat, standing on the bow cleaning the salt off the windows, a little sailboat came flying in uncontrollably and nearly took out several boats and avoided capsizing by some power I wish I had. The gentleman began screaming for help and it became clear he couldn’t pull his sails down and was alone on the boat with no control of the boom swing. Here’s where it gets interesting.
I jumped into the dinghy because that’s what you do when a fellow mariner is in distress. Only one other dinghy showed up to help this man and it had two people in it that didn’t know sailboats. We were surrounded by what I can guess was nearly 100 boats and lots of onlookers, but not one other person came to help. Nanaimo is not my favorite place and that didn’t help my opinion. Somehow the other dinghy got hold of the bow line and began towing the boat to the dock while I kept him from hitting other boats with my dinghy. He got hit in the head a few times with the boom but was otherwise ok after he was docked and the panic had subsided. I did what I could and I can feel good about that.
Later, I went to pick up Bryan and do a little provisioning before we got back to the boat and hunkered down and prepared for our crack of dawn departure in the morning. One night was more than enough.
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Oh, wow! Only in Nanaimo! Of course you helped him.