A low-slung fishing lodge turned resort on the point between Discovery Passage and Gowlland Harbour, with the marina immediately below the rooms and guest houses. The per-foot rate includes shore power at every amperage, which quietly makes it one of the better-value hotel-front docks in the Discovery Islands. Seasonal — the daily moorage rate runs May through September.

The gateway stop for Desolation Sound, and one of the few places on the coast where the dock, the restaurant and the bed are the same address. Eighteen hundred feet of protected moorage for boats to 250 feet, gas and diesel on the dock, and accommodation running from lodge rooms and a harbour house to cottages and geodesic domes above the water. Rates step down hard outside July and August.

A 1912 island pub-and-inn with its own docks, and the rare operator that writes the boater’s discount straight into the rate card. Rooms, cabins and suites ashore; diesel, marine fuel and propane on the dock; showers and laundry for anyone who has been anchored out in Desolation Sound for a week. Power is limited to 15 amp, so plan around it.

An adults-only resort on the sheltered east shore of Saanich Inlet, with moorage below the rooms for vessels up to 190 feet and year-round availability — rare on a coast where most resort docks close after Labour Day. Overnight moorage carries full resort and spa access. Butchart Gardens is a short walk, and its summer fireworks are best watched from the dock.

One- and two-bedroom seaside cottages with kitchens, wood stoves and wrap-around decks, set above a full-service marina on Silva Bay — plus a forested campground if you would rather be under canvas. Gas and diesel on the dock, which is increasingly rare in the Gulf Islands, and a rate that drops by a third outside the summer season.

The Gulf Islands’ full-service resort marina, and the natural first Canadian landfall for boats coming up from the San Juans — 110 deep-water slips for vessels to 100 feet, with customs clearance on site through the summer season. Ashore there is a lodge, villas and cottages, a spa and pools. Confirm the customs window before you plan an arrival: it closes September 30.

The staging post for Skookumchuck Narrows, with gas and diesel on the dock, cabins and lodge rooms up the ramp, and a pub that fills with people waiting on slack water. Moorage takes vessels to 125 feet. If you are running Jervis Inlet or heading for Princess Louisa, this is where the trip is planned around the tide book.

Oceanfront villas above a small marina in Pender Harbour, with a spa and an infinity pool looking down the inlet. The moorage arithmetic is unusually kind: villa guests pay $1.25 a foot, and anyone tying up for dinner or a spa appointment pays nothing for the day. Slips run 20 to 60 feet along roughly 300 feet of short-term moorage, so it suits a mid-size boat rather than a big one.

A restored boardwalk village on pilings over Johnstone Strait, with historic waterfront houses, cabins and lodge rooms let out to guests, and a small-craft marina beneath them. This is a tender-and-runabout dock rather than a yacht harbour: 25 feet is the limit, there is gas but no diesel, and no services at the slip. It is also the jumping-off point for the strait’s whale water and the Broughtons beyond.