Twenty years ago, there were a handful of boats moored in Brentwood Bay – today, there may be more than 100. Collectively they are the Brentwood Bay Marine Community, a group of mariners in search of home, safety and community.
“It’s a really cool community,” said Janis Carmena whose family moved onto the bay four years ago after Carmena received a PTSD diagnosis – living on the bay helps her feel safe. "Everybody sticks to themselves but when you need someone to talk to, they’re there.
“Some people would look at the people living out there and go ‘Oh my they’re sketchy’ but they're not, they would seriously give you the shirt off their back.”
The community is friendly and collaborative, regular people with families, jobs and pets — but it is somewhat ungoverned.
“It is a little bit of a wild west out there,” said Rebecca Gresham, who’s been active in the community since 2007, but does not live there full time. Gresham is retired from Coast Guard Search and Rescue.
With the province owning the seabed, the federal government the waters and the municipality the shoreline, the community exists at an intersection of authority, making some problems hard to tackle.
But the community has learned to manage themselves; they organize cleanings, rescue stray dinghies, and even prevent sinkings. Carmena calls them “guardians of the bay.”
“When things start going sideways on the water, quite often they just deal with it themselves, and they deal with it quickly,” said Geoff Krause who has been working with Canadian Marine Search and Rescue in the bay since 2009.
Micheal Simmons, vice president of the Saanich Inlet Protection Association, explained that the bay was at perhaps its most contentious throughout the 2010s, when liveabords and landwellers would often clash over how to manage it. Intergovernmental efforts helped to keep the bay clean until the federal government called on Central Saanich to take on a greater role in the bay, while liveabords vocally opposed government regulation. Central Sannich then developed a plan, in consultation with the land and sea communities, to manage the bay and its moorings, which culminated in 2019 when the province offered to license the seabed to Central Saanich. This would have given the district more authority to execute their management plan, manage moorings, mandate insurance and more, but it never came to be.
“This was a huge breakthrough, except that for reasons that are obscure, the district then decided that they would not accept the offer of the province,” said Simmons. Central Saanich voted against licensing the bay in a closed meeting, with some speculating it was too costly. Since then the liveaboards have been on their own.
Living on the bay is hard and according to Carmena, only about 22 people live there year-round, some with no other option.
“People have traditionally been treated quite poorly, as you know, one step up from being homeless,” said Gresham.
“It's a pretty complex situation, and now, of course, it's compounded by a housing crisis and a lot of people are opting to live on board their boats in Brentwood.”
But it's not the only reason people choose to live there.
“Some people don’t want to be around a lot of people; out there they have their own little domain. They can’t afford a house, so their boat is their home,” said Carmena.
“Some people, they just chose to; they can live a rich life out there.”
The community has often drawn a number of environmental, social and safety controversies, and while perceptions of the community have improved, they’ve not always been positive.
Many of the boats are old, some are often unoccupied, and others abandoned. Some do not have tanks for sewage and some don’t have electricity, which has frequently led to criticism over waste management. However, Carmena says sewage runoff is likely more to blame.
Other ecological issues concern the seabed. With so many boats residing in the bay, Simmons explained that anchors and moorings could damage life beneath the water.
“It becomes like a marine desert, and when you have 60 [anchor chains] circling around, pretty soon, you don't have any life left,” said Simmons. A moorage system intended to mitigate damage to the seabed along with a dedicated pump-out boat for sewage were once included in Central Saanich’s debunked management plan.
The boats are old, often leading to safety concerns. “A lot of these boats are already in bad shape,” said Gresham, who expressed concerns that some boats may not be suitable for living aboard. She explained that many of the boats are sold or abandoned by disinterested boaters and stories have circulated of boats being purchased for as little as one dollar.
“They think, ‘Oh, maybe somebody can make use of it,’ which has its merits, but it also becomes a major safety issue,” she said.
But liveaboards continue to look after the bay, although Carmena says it shouldn’t be their responsibility alone. She added that if Central Saanich had stepped in to license the bay today, the community may not mind.
“If they managed where the boats are all kept, then we wouldn't have to risk our boats all the time.”
Others have suggested that more land resources, such as showers and access to water, are necessary. Gresham pointed to the need for more parking.
“I wish there were better facilities for people. If Central Saanich stepped up and provided a proper dock, and facilities and garbage I think that would be great. These guys are taxpayers,” said Carmena.
Balancing the community's independence with government intervention can be difficult, as the marine community exists at the intersection of many modern challenges from housing to environmental maintenance. More government involvement may one day come, but if those at shore have concerns, Krause says the liveaboards will need to be put first.
“If you just go out there and start doing stuff they're going to feel out of place. Where it must start is to ask them what they think, what they need and what they want, a solution from ‘above’ just isn’t going to work,” he said.
“It turns out that everybody wants the same thing – a nice clean bay.”
