Nanaimo is a good place to provision and get boat parts, with a large grocery store and chandleries conveniently located near marinas. But the city is worth a visit as a destination in its own right.

Recreational crabbers have just over a week left to drop their pots before crab fishing closes in most areas of the region. Seven areas of Puget Sound will close to crab fishing at sunset on Labor Day, Sept. 6, including marine areas 6 (eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca), 8-1 (Deception Pass to East Point), [...]

Sitting in the cockpit the other day, looking across Coal Harbour at the glittering Vancouver skyline, all glass and sharp angles, the city I’d grown up knowing seemed at once familiar and foreign. Arriving by boat, of course, provides a much different perspective on a place known previously only by land. Neither Marty nor I [...]

A Whidbey Island entrepreneur says he has a solution for Northwest boatyards facing stricter environmental regulations and the threat of lawsuits over toxic stormwater runoff. And if it works, it could hold a key to efforts to clean up Puget Sound. Tim Wandell has developed a chemical product that he says can completely eliminate water-borne [...]

Boat sales during the first quarter of this year were strong enough to make brokers tentatively optimistic that the region’s marine industry was finally heading upward. But sales took an alarming plunge during the second quarter, underscoring the slow economy recovery being felt nationwide. Total boat sales in Washington were down 13.6 percent – or 2,081 [...]

Issues that hit boaters squarely in the pocketbook dominate a list of legislative priorities adopted by the Northwest Marine Trade Association. The NMTA’s government affairs committee recently identified the list of five priorities the association will be working on in the months leading up to next year’s legislative session in Olympia. And while the association [...]

Faced with funding challenges, the Center for Wooden Boats — the beloved Lake Union institution devoted to preserving and promoting the region’s rich maritime heritage — is scaling back its operations over the upcoming months, including cutting several staff positions, reducing weekday hours and canceling two regattas.  CWB Executive Director Betsy Davis said the changes are necessary to balance [...]