VANCOUVER ISLAND WINDTALK

squamish rules

Yes Squamish does indeed have more sailable days a year, but those days are only in the April-October range - which is the same as Nitinat. None the less, Victoria has it all, that is except for a good economy. Sooooo if I could afford to live anywhere - Victoria is epic for kiting/windsurfing in Canada!!!

Squamish can also boast that it has one of the most dangerous pieces of highway in Canada, yikes!!! I personally think it is all about taste and what you enjoy. Both the Island and Mainland have qualities that one can definately brag about . If you like the big city life, fast pace, while relatively close to squamish/whistler, etc etc, then go vancouver, if you like a more laid back lifestyle/attitude then the island. Both have wind, snow, mtn biking, blah blah blah and both can claim they are excellent and be perfectly right. I personally can only find one full unarguable advantage of the island in regards to kiteboarding/windsurfing, and that is nitinaht, pure clean wind during season (typically May-Sept.). This year alone, in april I was in nitinaht 12 days intermittently, 9 of those full on sailable (I am kiting) 2 marginal (16-21m maybe) and one a dud, pretty damn good stats for April. Man what is may.june..... going to bring, whoo hooo!

Here's my 2 cents or is that pence Check out the archive/stats to see for yourself what the wind is like around Victoria. Trial Island, Vic HArbour and Gonzales are fairly representative of Cook St./Dallas Rd. Kelp Reef is good for Island View. Sheringham is good for Gordon's beach out past Sooke. Example July 2003 Gordons had 25 sailable days (15+knots). NOvember 2003 Island View had 20 sailable days. If you want to get any work done, don't move here
I have a hard time believing Squamish has more sailable days a year than Victoria. Seems as though the kites are always up around here. I've heard Squamish is a nice place to sail though. I've also heard it's icy cold
I guess you'll just have to come out and see for yourself. Really, anywhere out here is paradise

Hey W24x7-dude, you should be selling property as you make our little island sound pretty fantastic....oh, wait a minute...IT IS PARADISE!! We are sooooooo lucky! I guess that's why we're all DUDES!

Having moved to Victoria from Vancouver 4 years ago I'd have to say Victoria is the place to be. Let there never be a bridge between us!

hey i was born here! GO HOME HAOLE STEVE!
wasnt this thred about victoria vs squamish?

downwind dave wrote:hey i was born here! GO HOME HAOLE STEVE!
wasnt this thred about victoria vs squamish?

Island vs Squamish. Don't forget there big guy, I was born on the island as well.

dang, forgot that.
probably killed a good thread too.

Glad I posted these questions, I looked up wind stats, wow sure blows a lot, Island it is I think. Don't fancy those continual weeks of monsoon rains on mainland.

If anyone is in the UK and grows weary of sipping tea with elderly relations and wants to nip out for a quick blast...
http://www.xcweather.co.uk/
http://www.kitesurfing.org/
http://www.boardseeker.com/
http://www.essexkitesurfclub.co.uk/index.html
http://www.iossc.org.uk/weather/
cheers

lb

OK....it's been bugging me long enough. PLease don't take offense if this is your name....but what the hell is "bweaty sollocks"?? Every time I see it I think it says "sweaty buttocks". Not an image I'm really comfortable with . What does that mean

How can you all say that victoria is a better place to live than squamish? How many of you have spent any time in squamish other than stopping at mickey d's on your way to whistler to spend money on the rich? How many of you can actually say that squamish has less windy days than victoria just because somebody kept tabs on the wind in victoria and not in squamish or say that squamish gets more rain because it is close to vancouver which does get a lot of rain? Squamish gets a lot less rain than vancouver because it is in the rain shadow of the north shore. In my view squamish is a better place to live in most ways. Squamish has a lot more to it than just what you see off the highway, try spending a weekend doing any one of your favorate adventure sports in squamish and you may agree that squamish offers much more than victoria. After all the squamish municipality is currently considering recreation as their number one resource and including recreation plans in all of their development plans. I'm sure that victoria's municipality has not even considered the fact that people windsurf in most of the places we like to go. Squamish as a comunity has developed the windsurfing area as an area to use for windsurfing.

I agree with guest, I don't think sqamish is so bad. They get an unbelievable number of kiteable days in the summer season, and in the winter they get real winter and real winter sports. Yes the island gets that too, but not on the same scale. And they've got a huge outdoor adventure type of community. A few too many people for me, but a lot of them seem to love the big-city-meets-nature setup ( I guess I mean Vancouver here). And the the bigger population pushes the level of sailing/kiting higher all the time. Now don't get all bent out of shape, island guys, but the squamish crew are no longer a bunch of beginners... far from it. And if their city council wants to clean up their sailing site, they should be commended for it. Victoria likes its water recreators so much they'd like to continue to dump all of the city's sh$t directly at the prime sailing site. As a born and raised island guy, I'll be staying, but I don't think squamish is so bad.

hey squamish lover guest i stated in my post that i lived a year there, dont get me wrong squish is a great town with a ton of recreation opportunities including real winter sports close by. however I stand my my statement that the SAILING is not as good as the vic for the reasons i mentioned earlier. no need to make blanket statements accusing good people of being mcd patrons.

[smilie=beer.gif] Squamish is Better more to do