Sunset talk & drink at dock of Coal Harbour Marina

People & history

• Deadman Island: tree-coffins, a riot act, and a navy base you can't set foot on — The wooded islet off Stanley Park's south shore was a Squamish tree-burial ground — settler John Morton found hundreds of red-cedar coffin boxes lashed into the upper boughs in 1862 — and Chief Capilano called it "dead ground" after a battle that killed some 200 warriors. In 1899 the city's very first riot act was read here when Mayor Garden's police faced down leaseholder Ludgate's logging crew. Since 1944 it has been HMCS Discovery naval reserve: gated, off-limits, and briefly joined to Stanley Park by land at low tide.source →
• The 9 O'Clock Gun began as a fisheries curfew — and before it, nightly dynamite — The cannon that booms across Coal Harbour at 21:00 was cast at Woolwich in 1816 and shipped out around 1894 not as a time signal but to warn fishermen of the Sunday 18:00 fishing closure; before it arrived, Brockton Point lighthouse keeper William D. Jones marked the hour by detonating a stick of dynamite over the water. It's still loaded daily with black powder, now fired by electronic trigger — and the overhead lights cut out exactly ten seconds before the blast, a tell few spectators know to watch for.source →

Land & views

• Siwash Rock: a 32-million-year-old basalt plug with a WWII searchlight bunker above it — The ~15 m sea stack off Stanley Park's western shore is the neck of a volcanic dyke that punched through the sandstone about 32 million years ago — the soft sedimentary rock eroded away and left the basalt column standing; mariners once called it Nine Pin Rock. Fewer know the cliff behind it was armed: a two-gun battery went in during 1914, and a WWII concrete shelter housing a remotely operated 800-million-candlepower searchlight is still built into the cliff face — its roof now serves as the observation deck overlooking the rock. Squamish name: Slhx̱í7lsh, "standing man."source →

Good to know

• False Creek: "anchoring" legally includes tying to a buoy or rafting up — Federal law (Vessel Operation Restriction Regulations, SOR/2008-120 s.13–14) bars anchoring in False Creek east of a line drawn 45° true from Kitsilano Point for more than 8 cumulative hours between 9 a.m.–11 p.m., or at any time overnight (11 p.m.–9 a.m.), without a Transport Canada permit. The catch most skippers miss: the regulation defines "anchor" to include securing to a mooring buoy or rafting to another anchored vessel — so tying up doesn't dodge the permit rule. Final judgment rests with the captain on the water.source →
• The Coal Harbour 5-knot zone is federal law, not marina courtesy — The speed restriction covering the waters off this dock isn't a local suggestion: under s.2(5) of the federal Vessel Operation Restriction Regulations, exceeding the maximum speed listed for a scheduled water body (Schedule 5 of TP 15587, which covers the Coal Harbour/False Creek 5-knot zones) is an offence, and enforcement officers may stop and board a vessel and direct its movement. That's why local police can write real tickets for a wake in the harbour. Final judgment rests with the captain on the water.source →

Final judgment rests with the captain on the water.

Nearby services

• The Chevron Legacy barge — last survivor of "Gasoline Alley" — The floating fuel station off the Coal Harbour shore is the last of its kind in BC: in 1959 this stretch was unofficially "Gasoline Alley," with five competing marine fuel barges (Standard Oil, Shell, Esso, Home Gas, Texaco). The current double-hulled Chevron Legacy, installed just before the 2010 Olympics, is self-contained — its fuel lives in onboard tanks rather than shore-fed lines — and pumps gasoline, diesel and lubricants for passing boats. Its predecessor barge served from 1959 with, in the designer's words, no real safety requirements at all.source →

Getting there

• Arrive without a car: seaplane dock and SeaBus within walking distance of Dock C — Coal Harbour is one of the few meeting points you can reach by scheduled floatplane: Vancouver Harbour Flight Centre (CXH), a five-minute walk east along the Coal Harbour Seawalk, handles ~54,000 aircraft movements a year and is a customs airport of entry — its control tower sits on top of the Granville Square office building. From the North Shore, the SeaBus passenger ferry crosses Burrard Inlet from Lonsdale Quay to Waterfront Station near Canada Place every 15 minutes during the day, about a 15-minute walk from the Coal Harbour docks.source →
• A full international airport floats 400 m off the dock — The water right off Coal Harbour is a registered aerodrome — Vancouver Harbour Flight Centre (IATA CXH / ICAO CYHC), an airport of entry into Canada that logged over 54,000 aircraft movements in a single year. The purpose-built floating terminal opened in May 2011 after five years of consultation and construction, and sits within walking distance of the HeliJet heliport and Waterfront Station's transit hub — meaning guests can connect to the dock by scheduled floatplane, helicopter, SkyTrain or SeaBus without ever touching a highway.source →

Things to do

• Watch for the lights going dark: the 9 O'Clock Gun's ten-second warning — Every night at 9 p.m. a black-powder cannon cast in Woolwich in 1816 fires across Coal Harbour from Brockton Point — originally a chronometer check for ships in port, and before it arrived the lighthouse keeper marked 9 o'clock by detonating a stick of dynamite over the water. Insider trick for boats at anchor off the point: the fluorescent lights over the gun go out exactly ten seconds before it fires, your only countdown. It has been stolen once (UBC engineering students, 1969, ransomed to a children's hospital) and once launched a rock through a floating gas station's sign — hence today's cage.source →