Are you searching for family sailing lessons in Victoria? The perfect base for adventure, Victoria is the gateway to BC’s Gulf Islands, and our family recently took a one-week sailing course with Voyage Makers that was designed for real families, real beginners, and real life — not just for people who already know what they’re doing!
If the idea of learning to sail has been sitting on your list for years and you keep finding reasons to postpone it, I’m here to tell you (and show you) how Voyage Makers Coastal Adventures is the reason to finally go.
Voyage Makers Coastal Adventures is a proudly Canadian, female-owned sailing school and coastal adventure company based at the Marina at Brentwood Bay Resort on Vancouver Island. It was founded by Tracy Sarich on a single conviction: that sailing is not for a select few. It is for anyone willing to show up, pay attention, and trust the process. I spent six days putting that conviction to the test with my family aboard Simply Dreaming, a 45-foot Catalina chartered through Seaport Yacht Charters — Voyage Makers’ official partner — with Voyage Makers instructor Paul Miller as our captain and instructor for the week.
This article is about the week Voyage Makers designed, the instruction that carried us through it, the wildlife that showed up along the way, and what it actually feels like to learn to sail as a family in one of the most beautiful places on earth. (Am I biased Canadian? Yes. Sorry, not sorry!) For the full story of the boat and the Seaport charter experience, see our feature article showcasing Robin and Seaport Charters.
Within a few days of our trip, my son was the most capable helmsman in the family. My daughter docked a 45-foot sailboat into a marina berth on her first attempt, while adults on the dock watched with wide eyes. My husband arrived uncertain about everything and left planning the next charter. We saw orcas on night 1, porpoises in open water, bald eagles overhead at anchor, and harbour seals following our paddleboards through Montague Harbour. And somewhere around Day 3, without any of us quite noticing when it happened, we became sailors…
Quick Overview
| Company: | Voyage Makers Coastal Adventures (proudly Canadian, female-owned) |
| Founder: | Tracy Sarich |
| Home Base: | The Marina at Brentwood Bay Resort, Victoria, BC |
| Our Instructor: | Paul Miller (originally from Tasmania; 20+ years offshore experience) |
| Charter Partner: | Seaport Yacht Charters (official partner) |
| Our Vessel: | Simply Dreaming (45-foot Catalina, 3 staterooms, 2 heads) |
| Trip Length: | 6 days/5 nights |
| Itinerary: | Port Sidney → Montague Harbour → Ganges → Genoa Bay → Brentwood Bay → Port Sidney |
| Certifications We Were Working on: | Competent Crew & Day Skipper |
About Voyage Makers Coastal Adventures
Voyage Makers Coastal Adventures operates at the intersection of education, adventure, and coastal culture. It is a sailing school that is also a route-planning service, a culinary guide to the BC coast, and a confidence-building program for people who have been told, directly or by omission, that boating is not for them. The company’s tagline — “the coast changes you” — is not marketing. It is a description of what actually happens when you spend a week learning to sail BC’s Gulf Islands with an instructor who leads with passion and experience.
What makes Voyage Makers structurally different from most sailing schools is that it has no fixed fleet. Rather than operating from a single marina with a standard curriculum, Voyage Makers goes where its clients’ needs are. It partners with charter companies like Seaport Yacht Charters, resorts like Brentwood Bay, and marinas across the province to deliver instruction aboard real boats in real conditions — the actual tides, currents, weather, and anchorages of the BC coast, not a controlled harbour environment designed to minimize surprises. The surprises, it turns out, are often the best part.
Voyage Makers’ programs run from the Competent Crew course for absolute beginners through Day Skipper, Coastal Skipper, and Bareboat Skipper with ICC, accredited through the Canadian Recreational Yachting Association and International Yacht Training. The company also runs Women’s Only Sail programs, leadership retreats, flotilla experiences, and the Port to Palate coastal culinary guide — a free resource mapping the farms, restaurants, wineries, and artisans accessible by boat along the BC coast. It is the only guide of its kind for BC cruisers, and it alone is worth a conversation with Tracy.
About Tracy Sarich, Founder
Tracy Sarich’s path to founding Voyage Makers runs through Amazon, Sotheby’s, law school, a federal courtroom, and eventually a 45-foot sailboat in the middle of a Pacific storm. She grew up in Chicago, where her family had a small ski boat but no sailing culture. She met her husband in Seattle, where both of them were working at Amazon — she had come from a background in the decorative arts and Sotheby’s; he was in mergers and acquisitions. She went to law school. She worked for a judge. And then, around 2000, they bought a sailboat, and nothing was the same after that.
What started as a weekend hobby became offshore passages, a circumnavigation of Vancouver Island, and eventually the realization that the Gulf Islands and BC’s coastal waters are among the world’s finest training grounds — that if you can sail here, you can sail almost anywhere. Tracy and her husband were ready to leave for an extended offshore voyage in February 2020. They had sold their Seattle home and their car. All they had, as she put it over dinner on our last night aboard, was a Vespa and a boat. Two weeks later, COVID shut down the coast. Rather than wait, Tracy started teaching. Voyage Makers was the result.
Today Tracy serves on the Board of Directors of the Boating BC Association, leads their Boater Education and Safety Training sector, and produces the seminar programming at the Vancouver International Boat Show. She has spent four years building the proportion of women speaking as experts at the show from roughly 30 percent to more than 50 percent — not in a single women’s day, but distributed throughout the entire show schedule. She runs Women’s Only Sail programs and leadership retreats that use the Skipper’s Mindset framework to help people who are asking ‘what’s next’ find an answer that restores them. She is also the person who designed the week my family just had, down to the specific anchorages and the specific instructor she matched us with.
The Skipper’s Mindset: Voyage Makers’ Core Teaching Framework
The Skipper’s Mindset is the philosophy behind every Voyage Makers program, and it is worth understanding before you spend a week living it. The premise: the best skippers are not defined by technical ability alone. They are defined by preparation, communication, decision-making under pressure, adaptability, and the capacity to lead a crew toward a shared outcome in conditions that change. These are sailing skills. They are also leadership skills, parenting skills, and life skills — which is why people who come to Voyage Makers for sailing instruction often leave with something harder to quantify.
In practice, the Skipper’s Mindset looked like this: Paul never told us what to do without explaining why. He never corrected a mistake without giving us a framework for understanding what had gone wrong. He calibrated his instruction to each family member individually — recognizing, for example, that my daughter learned by feeling (the wind on her face, the heel of the boat, the physical sensation of what the water was doing) while my son processed information more analytically. Neither approach is better. Both are right. Knowing which you are is how instruction stops being generic and starts being useful.
About Paul Miller, Instructor
Paul Miller is originally from Tasmania, has been sailing for more than 20 years across BC, New Zealand, the Sea of Cortez, and the US West Coast, and has managed yachts up to 110 feet. He is a qualified instructor evaluator and Yachtmaster-level certified. He was also the person who first helped Tracy and her husband move a boat from Victoria to Vancouver back when they were early in their own sailing journey — which is how she knows, with the certainty of personal experience, that he is the right instructor for the right family. She matched him to us perfectly.
What I can tell you from six days in a cockpit with Paul is that Tracy was right. He assessed the family dynamic within about ten minutes of arriving at the boat and began calibrating to us without making any of it visible. He was unhurried, laid back, and told extraordinary stories about Tasmania and Baja Mexico that had the useful effect of making our own mistakes feel minor by comparison. He pushed when we were ready to be pushed and backed off when we needed to find our own footing. He was also, as my husband noted toward the end of the week, simply good company — which matters more than it sounds when you are sharing a 45-foot boat with someone for five days.
How Voyage Makers Designs Your Itinerary
One of the things that makes the Voyage Makers instructional charter distinctive is that the itinerary is not incidental to the instruction — it is the instruction. Tracy designs each week around the training progression, choosing anchorages and destinations that introduce new skills at the right moment. The first overnight sail is to a sheltered anchorage that builds confidence without overextending. The marina stop comes after anchor experience, when the crew has the basic vocabulary. The free-sailing day comes mid-week, when the skills are settled enough to make autonomous decision-making productive rather than anxiety-provoking. Each experience offers the perfect blend of curated experience and unexpected moments of delight and wonder.
Our itinerary: Port Sidney on Friday (arrival and orientation), Montague Harbour on Galiano Island on Saturday night (first sail, first anchor, first night under Gulf Island skies), Ganges Marina on Salt Spring Island on Sunday (first real marina entry, town exploring), Genoa Bay on Monday (free-sailing day, our own choice), Brentwood Bay Resort on Tuesday (Voyage Makers home base, confidence test), and return to Port Sidney on Wednesday. Each stop built on the one before. By the end, the progression was visible.
What a Day of Sailing Lessons Actually Looks Like
The Voyage Makers instructional charter is not a classroom course that happens to take place on a boat. Every day is built around a progressive learning arc, woven into the actual passage you are sailing. Here is what a typical day looks like from the inside — and why the structure works as well as it does.
Good Morning: The Captain for the Day
Each morning, someone in the family volunteers to be Captain for the Day. The day’s captain has a real job to do before the boat moves anywhere: a pre-departure checklist completed alongside Paul, covering everything an actual skipper would need to confirm before leaving a berth. Weather: what are the conditions forecast, and how do they affect the plan? Tides: what is the tidal state, and how does it influence timing and route? Navigation: what is the intended route, what are the waypoints, and what are the hazards along the way? Passage estimate: how long will this take, and what could change that? And then the boat itself: engine checks, fuel level, safety equipment, all systems confirmed. Everything that needs to be working before a single line is cast off.
The Crew Briefing
Once breakfast is done and the pre-departure checks are complete, the whole crew gathers. The Captain for the Day runs the briefing: where we are going, what the route looks like, how long the passage is expected to take, and — critically — what everyone’s job is.
Who is on the bow line. Who handles the stern. Which sides need fenders and which need lines ready. What the exit point from the marina is. And what the backup plan is if conditions change en route. It sounds formal. In practice it sounds like a family standing in a cockpit with a mug of coffee while one person explains the plan and the others ask the questions Paul has coached them to ask. But the structure is real. It is the same pre-departure briefing a professional delivery crew uses before a passage. You are just doing it in a bathing suit.
Sailing Practice
Before the day’s passage proper, Paul typically finds a sheltered area — a calm bay or a quiet stretch of water away from traffic — for dedicated skills practice. This is where the learning gets kinetic. Each family member takes turns at the helm working through specific maneuvers: forward figure eights, which build helm feel and spatial awareness; backward figure eights, which are significantly harder than they sound (this writer can confirm, having required several additional attempts while the rest of the family waited patiently); docking approaches, repeated until they feel like a process rather than a performance; and anchoring — setting the hook, backing down to set it properly, checking the swing radius. You do each thing multiple times. You do it until the anxiety around it starts to feel less like fear and more like focus.
On Water Practice
The passage itself is the classroom. Each family member takes a rotation at the helm while underway, leading the crew through sail trim, course adjustments, and whatever the wind and conditions serve up that day. Paul is present throughout — not at the wheel, but close enough that nothing goes wrong without a hand nearby to correct it. He offers just enough guidance to make you capable and just enough space to make you confident. By Day 3, those rotations feel less like lessons and more like sailing. That shift is quiet and unremarkable when it happens, which is exactly the point.
Real Life Scenarios: Lessons as they Unfold
Not everything on the curriculum comes from Paul’s lesson plan. One afternoon, a mayday call came over the VHF radio — a vessel was hung up on the rocks. No one was injured, and the situation was resolved, but Paul turned down the noise of everything else so we could listen: how the vessel in distress communicated, how the Coast Guard responded, how the relay calls worked, how surrounding vessels acknowledged and offered assistance. It was a ten-minute window into what the radio is actually for — not just weather updates, but the real-time, life-safety communication network of the water. No classroom simulation produces the same result. That is the nature of live-aboard instruction. The water provides the examples. Your job is to be paying attention when they arrive.
Day 1 — Arrival in Sidney: Meeting Robin, the Boat, and an Unexpected Orca
The first day was a transition day — no sailing, no instruction, just arrival, orientation, and settling in. Robin McKeown, Seaport’s founder, met us at the dock at Port Sidney Marina and welcomed us to our floating home, appropriately named “Simply Dreaming.” She helped us learn the basics of boat operation (knowing we have a Captain coming on board) and even had a few treats from the Fickle Fig (cookies) waiting for us upon arrival.
That evening we walked into Sidney for dinner at Jack’s On The Water— an oceanfront restaurant with great food and a direct view of the marina. On the walk back, my daughter said: ‘Mom, there’s a whale.’ I told her there wasn’t. Then the dorsal fin broke the surface. We were on foot, on a coastal path, under 100 feet from the orca— close enough to see her clearly, which under BC’s 1000-metre on-water approach regulations is an unusual privilege. We stood there watching until she swam away. It was the first wildlife sighting of the week and the most dramatic. It was also exactly the right omen.
Wildlife Of The Salish Sea: The waters of the Gulf Islands are home to some of the most diverse marine wildlife in Canada. Over the course of our week, we encountered orca, harbour porpoises (spotted in open water just outside Sidney), harbour seals (at anchor in Montague Harbour, following our paddleboards), great blue herons at Genoa bay, and bald eagles (overhead at multiple anchorages, including a memorable pair above Montague). On the water, BC regulations require a minimum approach distance of 1000 meters from orca. Wildlife encounters from shore or at anchor happen on their own terms. Keep your eyes open, especially at dawn and dusk.
Day 2 — Montague Harbour, Galiano Island: First Sail, First Anchor, First Stars
The Instruction Begins
Paul arrived at the boat Saturday morning, assessed us quietly, and got to work. We spent the first part of the morning on the dock going over safety expectations, line lingo, sails, and the basics of sailing. By mid-morning we were casting off. By the time we were underway in the Strait of Georgia, everyone had a job. We each understood it approximately 60 percent. That was enough.
My son found the helm within the first hour and did not want to give it up for the rest of the week. He fell in love with sailing quicker than I ever could have imagined.
Night at Anchor — Montague Harbour Provincial Marine Park
Montague Harbour on Galiano Island is the perfect first anchorage: sheltered, calm, and almost completely without the visual noise of civilization. At night, there is no glowing skyline on the horizon. There are boats at anchor and stars above them and the sound of water against the hull. We dropped the paddleboards in the late afternoon and pushed off into water so clear you could see the bottom, and the harbour seals came to investigate. We paddled alongside them and through a school of fish and came back to the boat cold and happy and ready for dinner in the cockpit.
This was my favourite stop of the entire week. I could have spent two nights here and felt no need to go anywhere else. If your itinerary has flexibility, use it at Montague. Two nights is the right amount of time.
Before we headed out the next morning, Captain Paul had us do figure eights in the sheltered cove. My husband and I were both shocked at how quickly and easily the sailboat was to maneuver, and each time we made our way around a buoy our skills were honed in more and more.
Then he said, “Now do it backward.”
My son and my husband nailed it, but me, for whatever reason, my brain couldn’t compute… so it took me a bit longer to catch on, but my patient Captain and crew let me go through the learning process on my own time and develop the skills I needed to progress.
Plan Your Visit: Montague Harbour Provincial Marine Park, Galiano Island. BC Parks mooring buoys on a first-come basis; guest moorage also at Montague Harbour Marina. Dinghy access to the park beach and Gray Peninsula trails. A pub and basic provisions at the marina. Arrive by early afternoon in peak season.
Day 3 — Ganges Marina, Salt Spring Island: First Real Marina Entry
Day 3 introduced navigation in a practical context: getting the boat from Montague Harbour to Ganges Marina on Salt Spring Island, which means reading charts, understanding tidal influence, communicating on the VHF radio, and then bringing the boat into a real slip in a busy marina in real conditions. I was Captain for docking and proudly navigated us into the right spot. I was not only proud of myself but proud that my kids were seeing me in this new role.
Ganges Village, a five-minute walk from the dock, gave us our first taste of Salt Spring Island’s eclectic, creative energy: independent galleries, good restaurants, two grocery stores with marina delivery, and the well-known Saturday Market if your schedule puts you there on a Saturday. Ours put us there on a Sunday, so the market was gone — but the galleries and restaurants were very much open. Honest assessment: we got an appetizer of Salt Spring. I want to go back for the full meal.
The Docking Moment
Before we left Salt Spring Island, Paul asked who wanted to bring the boat in for the final docking practice of the week. All of us put our hands up — which, if you had described this moment to me on Friday morning when we first stepped aboard, I would not have believed you. My daughter said she would do it. Paul stepped back and let her take the helm.
She brought a 45-foot sailboat into a marina berth with ease. First attempt. No assistance. A dock worker watching the approach said to me: ‘I’m sure your captain’s got you.’ And with my chest puffed up proudly, I said, “Yeah, that’s my kid who’s bringing in this boat!” and “It’s her first time.” The dock worker’s eyes went wide.
My daughter was not especially fazed. She knew she could do it because five days with Paul had made her know it — not by being told, but by being taught progressively and patiently until the skill was genuinely hers. Then she was put in the position to use it, with someone nearby who believed in her enough to step away from the wheel. That is the Skipper’s Mindset in its most specific, most observable form.
Plan Your Visit: Ganges Marina, Salt Spring Island. VHF Channel 66A. Guest moorage available; reservations recommended in peak season. Saturday Market runs April through October, Saturday mornings in Centennial Park. Grocery stores offer dock delivery.
Day 4 — Genoa Bay: The Freedom Day and the Best Cinnamon Bun You Will Ever Smell
Day 4 was designated as a free-sailing day — ‘as the wind blows’ in Tracy’s itinerary language. This is the moment the Skipper’s Mindset transitions from ‘follow my lead’ to ‘you make the call.’ Paul asked where we wanted to go. We sat around the chart table and made a case for Genoa Bay on the eastern shore of Cowichan Bay: reasonable distance, sheltered anchorage, good conditions forecast. Paul agreed. My husband called and made the reservation, which was a first for him, and “easier than I thought.” (so he said)
The passage was also the day we noticed something had changed. The skills from the first two days had settled in. Trimming the sails felt less like a task and more like a conversation with the boat. My son was making helm adjustments before Paul suggested them. My daughter handled a tack cleanly on her own, without asking for instructions. Nobody said anything about it out loud. We all noticed.
After a taco night on board, we played games way past bedtime, and the magic of uninterrupted time was on board. No iPads, no TVs, phones for the Bluetooth that had 80s music cranked. My daughter went up to the washrooms and said she could hear us laughing from the top of the ramp. Now that’s the soundtrack I want for my family!
The next morning my husband and son woke up early to head down to the newly reopened breakfast nook on the dock. A lovely local lady opened the huge swinging wooden doors to unveil freshly baked cinnamon buns, banana bread that’s too hot to cut, egg sandwiches, and more. This home-cooked, hot-out-of-the-oven delight is rare for boaters, and even though we were there before it opened, we were only able to steal the last 2 cinnamon buns!
Plan Your Visit: Genoa Bay Marina, Cowichan Bay, BC. Guest moorage available. Dockside baked goods in summer months — confirm availability when you call ahead.
Day 5 — Brentwood Bay Resort: The Confidence Test
Arriving at Voyage Makers’ Home Base
Tuesday brought us to Brentwood Bay Resort and to Voyage Makers’ actual home base. The Marina at Brentwood Bay Resort is where Tracy operates from, which meant that arriving here felt like the whole week coming full circle. After calling in to confirm our arrival we were greeted by a Marina Host who, after helping us tie up, quickly returned with pool towels and access cards for the resort. After five days of self-sufficient live-aboard life, we were all excited for an afternoon at the pool.
The Brentwood Bay Resort itself is understated luxury: a spa, the Arbutus Room restaurant, pool, paddleboard and kayak rentals, and views down Saanich Inlet that stop mid-sentence. For boaters, the resort offers a grocery shopping service for approximately $40 — give them your list at check-in, and they provision for you. After five days of managing supplies aboard, that service felt like profound generosity. No matter how you arrive at Brentwood Bay, you are given a 5-star welcome and treated that way for the duration of your stay.
Butchart Gardens by Boat
Before the afternoon was done, we boarded the Brentwood Bay shuttle to Butchart Gardens — one of BC’s most-visited attractions and a National Historic Site of Canada, accessible by water in summer months from Brentwood Bay. Our kids had never been and watching them walk into the Sunken Garden for the first time, well, they were just as awe-struck as I was when I first saw the garden. (And it was just as magical upon my return)
Plan Your Visit: The Butchart Gardens, 800 Benvenuto Avenue, Brentwood Bay, BC. Water access available in summer months. Visit butchartgardens.com for current hours, admission, and boat dock information.
Evenings at Brentwood Bay
After our visit to the garden, we headed up to the pool where we lounged in the sun, making difficult decisions like what to order from the mocktail menu. With 3 glorious hours at the adult-only pool, it was time to head down to the boat and get changed for dinner at Brentwood Bay’s on-site restaurant: The Lodge.
Known for great views and comfort food, it was the perfect place to end our family sailing lessons in Victoria. I loved the hearty meals and dug into the fish tacos, and the family enjoyed everything from burgers to poke bowls. Tracy was kind enough to join us for dinner, and it was fun to hear the kids summarizing their wins from the past week with the inspirational woman who dreamed of moments like this when she started up Voyage Makers.
Book Your Stay: The Marina at Brentwood Bay Resort, 849 Verdier Avenue, Brentwood Bay, BC. Guest moorage available. For the full property review, read this article.
Day 6 — Return to Port Sidney: The Last Morning
We woke on our final morning in familiar water, and nobody was in a hurry. Okay, I wasn’t in a hurry as the lull from the rocking boat had me sleeping in four hours later than I normally do! My son, who had arrived on Friday not knowing port from starboard, was talking about the next charter before breakfast. My daughter, who had docked a 45-foot boat the afternoon before, had that quiet satisfaction of someone who knows what they did and does not need to announce it. My husband said the week had exceeded his expectations in every way. I said the same.
We were back at Port Sidney by early afternoon and disembarked at 3 pm as scheduled. The week Voyage Makers had designed, from first sail to final dock, had worked exactly as intended. All four of us were different sailors than we had been six days earlier. More than that: we were a different family. A team that had figured out what it could do together when the circumstances required it.
What I Loved: Paul’s ability to read four completely different learners and calibrate to each individually, simultaneously, without making any of it feel managed. My son needed challenge and got it. My daughter needed normalizing rather than exceptionalism and got it. My husband needed space to figure things out at his own pace and got it. I needed the why behind everything and got it. We all arrived at the same destination by different routes, which is what great teaching looks like.
Proudly Canadian, Proudly Female-Owned
Voyage Makers Coastal Adventures and its charter partner Seaport Yacht Charters are both proudly Canadian, female-owned businesses. Their own joint backgrounder opens with exactly that framing: two women-owned coastal companies who joined forces to bring expertise and hospitality to British Columbia’s most beautiful waters. In an industry that has historically been overwhelmingly male, both Tracy Sarich and Robin McKeown are doing something worth noticing.
Tracy has spent years actively changing the gender balance of the marine industry from within. She produces the seminar programming at the Vancouver International Boat Show and has built women’s expert representation from roughly 30 percent to more than 50 percent of the full schedule — not in a single dedicated day but throughout the entire event. She runs Women’s Only Sail programs and leadership retreats specifically because she has seen what happens when women who have been told, directly or by assumption, that sailing is not for them get on a boat and find out that it is. She has watched women arrive timid and leave in command. She has watched that change carry over into the rest of their lives.
Robin McKeown is the first woman in Canada to hold the Certified Marine Manager designation. My teenage daughter docked a 45-foot sailboat while a dock worker assumed a qualified adult male captain must be at the helm. These are small moments that are not small at all. And they are, together, a picture of what two Canadian women are quietly changing about an industry that has too often belonged to a narrower group of people than it should.
Practical Information for Planning Your Voyage Makers Week
A minimum of five to six days to see real progression and meaningful confidence. Tracy’s continuum model is worth taking seriously: this week is a beginning, not an end. The natural next step is another charter, further afield, with more autonomy and more miles. Budget for the first week as the foundation.
June through August for the most consistent conditions and the widest range of marina services and local businesses along the route. May and September offer excellent sailing with fewer boats and sometimes more attentive instruction in smaller groups. Variable conditions in shoulder season can be better teaching moments than steady summer breezes.
Families at any experience level. Couples where one partner is more water-confident than the other — Paul handles that dynamic with skill and no drama. Adults who have said ‘I’ve always wanted to learn to sail’ and kept finding reasons not to. Teenagers who could use a week of learning something genuinely difficult and genuinely doing it. Anyone who wants to experience the Gulf Islands from the water rather than from the shore.
Everything in the Seaport Yacht Charters packing guide applies. Add your Voyage Makers course materials (provided in advance by Tracy’s team), a small notebook for things Paul says mid-passage that you will want to remember, and the willingness to be wrong about something nautical and keep going. Being wrong, in a Voyage Makers week, is the beginning of being right. Come ready for that process.
Voyage Makers Coastal Adventures is based at the Marina at Brentwood Bay Resort, 849 Verdier Avenue, Victoria, BC. The instructional charter in partnership with Seaport Yacht Charters departs from Port Sidney Marina in Sidney, BC, approximately 30 minutes from Victoria International Airport. BC Ferries connects Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay in approximately 90 minutes, and Sidney is only a 15-minute drive away.
The Gulf Islands Are Waiting for You
There is a moment, somewhere around Day 3, when you stop thinking about sailing and start feeling it. The wind on your face stops being data and starts being information. The boat stops being a thing you are managing and becomes something you are part of. Paul described it as the shift from intellectualizing to being present. Tracy described it as the reason she teaches. ‘The first time everything else shut off,’ she told me at dinner on our last night, ‘I was sailing.’
We saw orcas. We anchored under stars. We paddleboarded through fish alongside harbour seals. We watched a bald eagle bank overhead and heard the sound the wind makes in the rigging at night, and my son decided he wants to buy a boat, and my daughter docked one, and my husband said it was one of the best weeks of his life. That is what Voyage Makers designs. That is what the Gulf Islands deliver.
The coast changes you. Voyage Makers will make sure of it.
Book Your Tour: Voyage Makers Coastal Adventures, The Marina at Brentwood Bay Resort, 849 Verdier Avenue, Victoria, BC. Canada: 250-800-6001. US and WhatsApp: 206-949-6085. thevoyagemakers.com. Email Tracy Sarich at [email protected] to discuss your family’s goals and experience level.
