One bad apple is ruining the idyllic lives of about eight other residents of a floating community on the Gorge, Richard Hartwick says.
Hartwick, 58, lives on a 40-foot sailboat anchored off Banfield Park when he’s not working in Alberta.
He’s one of the nine or so people who will be affected by a proposed Victoria bylaw that would ban overnight moorage of boats on the Gorge Waterway.
Victoria council is pushing ahead with the bylaw after residents complained about derelict boats, dumping of sewage and noise.
“I liked the life when there were only a few people here,” said Hartwick in an interview aboard his boat.
He waved an arm toward the boats to the south. “All the people down at that end are into drugs and stealing and stuff.”
Everything was fine on the Gorge until one troublemaker moved in, he said.
“He’s an old derelict guy that lives over there. I’ve confronted him many times because he was selling drugs to the halfway house up there. He kept bringing in more and more people in here, and I said: ‘You can’t be bringing people in who are drunks and drug addicts.’
“I said: ‘If you come in by yourself and you behave yourself, we’ll be OK, but if you bring in trouble, then the city will come in and boot us out,’ ” Hartwick said.
“I’m OK because this boat only has 4,000 hours on a diesel engine and I’ve got [sewage holding] tanks — I can go anywhere I want.”
Other residents who don’t have tanks for sewage are using the Gorge as a toilet, he said.
The Gorge has multi-hulled boats tied to older pleasure boats and retired fishing boats. Weeds hang from the mooring lines.
Some boat residents who want more storage have dinghies tied alongside brimming with possessions.
Hartwick said he hasn’t had a drink in 35 years and doesn’t do drugs. “Even though I’ve got braces on both legs, I still work.”
He plans to move his boat to a small marina in Vancouver where the monthly rates are affordable, but he’s not ready to go right now.
Hartwick urges the city to ban boats that don’t have running engines or holding tanks. “We should keep nice boats here,” he said.
Many of the derelict boats are unoccupied, he said. They are covered in tarps, held together with plywood and are littered with junk.
Another boater, 60-year-old Barry, didn’t want his last name used. He lives on a colourful plywood boat with no amenities but room for three to sleep.
He’s lived there alone for 18 months, subsisting on Canada pension payments of $330 a month. The pension “doesn’t go very far,” he said.
He visits food banks and Our Place for meals. He believes addictions are part of life and not worth talking about.
Despite living on a boat with no motor, Barry said he isn’t worried about being kicked off the Gorge. “We’ll worry about that if and when it happens. I live in paradise and I haven’t died yet — I have no room for regrets.”
He got the boat through an online ad, and it never leaks, he said. Lots of people from all over the world paddle by and chat.
His neighbours “are just normal people,” he said. One or two others are poor like he is.
“I’m content out there. My worry I have today is which book I’m going to read first.”
