Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Cortes Community Docks Cortes Community Docks has had a very busy winter. The projects in Whaletown and Squirrel Cove are nearing completion, and a new one is about to begin in Cortes Bay. Cortes Community Docks has a new website, and all the railings on its docks have been painted blue as a visible reminder that they are not a government organization.

"We never have been. These docks are here for the community, they're utilized by the community and they're supported by the community," explained Harbor Manager Jenny Hartwick.

Narrator: That was also the rationale behind their recent name change.

Jenny Hartwick: "We wanted to choose a name that really reflected the direction we want the organization to go and why those docks exist."

"Our biggest news is that the rebuild of the Whaletown dock is almost complete. Cortes Community Docks was extremely lucky. We got a $560,000 ReadUP grant to rebuild the Whaletown dock. There's been a lot of construction in Whaletown Bay recently, and the Ferry Construction has kind of overshadowed what we've had going on at the dock, but we've had a contractor there since about September of last year. There's been an extensive rebuild done, and the facility looks phenomenal."

"The Whaletown dock is owned outright by us. So to obtain a contractor we solicited bids from several local Vancouver Island contractors, based on recommendations from engineers. We are extremely thrilled to have Rob Clarke of Coastal Marine Maintenance doing the work for us at Whaletown. Rob incidentally is also doing some Small Craft Harbours work on the other docks, but we didn't have a role to play in awarding those contracts."

"Rob was the maintenance manager at the Comox Harbor Authority for well over a decade before he opened his own company doing dock maintenance and repair. He's now a familiar face up and down the entire coast at Harbor Authorities doing maintenance work. Rob incidentally also was the president of the Harbor Authority Association of BC, which is our umbrella organization for all of the harbor authorities on the coast."

Rob Clarke, of Coastal Maintenance and Repairs, explained, "The Whaletown rebuild project went really well. We rebuilt 11 footings and nine separate pilings, reconstructed the top side and shortened the whole facility up a little bit."

Jenny Hartwick: "The majority of the construction material for a marine structure is a very specialized type of material, which is treated with ACZA, which is not a standard pressure-treated material, and there's actually only one plant in Western Canada that manufactures it. So a large portion of our material was actually specially ordered, but outside of that, wherever possible, Rob made an effort to get everything he could locally. So the cedar decking for the railings, the upright posts, everything on the Whaletown dock that he could was specially ordered, milled through Klahoose at their sawmill."