Peter Vassilopoulos confesses to getting hooked on snorkelling and free diving early on, “at age 11, maybe 12,” while growing up oceanside in Cape Town.
“By my late teens, I was boating and using scuba gear in the south Atlantic and Indian Oceans, diving with friends who were into catching lobster.”
His paternal family hailed from the shores of Ithaca, off Greece, home of legendary Ulysses. They were a creative bunch: artists, carvers and chefs, all overachievers. Peter was a TV journalist and remembers being motivated to set sail when interviewing cruise liner captain Sir Sholto Douglas, commanding officer of the RAF during WWII.
The newsroom window overlooked the island of Robben, where Nelson Mandela was sitting in prison. Peter was feeling slightly imprisoned himself and, like his grandfather, suffered from wanderlust.
So, bumping (literally) into his future wife proved a serendipitous event. Rolling into Cape Town on her scooter, Carla fell head-over-heels and, after a whirlwind romance and marriage while cavorting around Europe, flew with her handsome, young Poseidon, scuba suit, typewriter and wit, over two oceans back home to BC.
“My first ocean dive in BC was at the waterfront home of friend, Terry Jacks, the ‘Seasons In The Sun’ singer. Towelling off, I reckoned this was the life for me.”
Dropping anchor in Vancouver, Peter was asked to write a scuba diving feature for Liz Bryan’s Western Living Magazine and the next leg of his voyage quickly became apparent. With great gusto, he did a deep dive into publishing.
“I created a mock-up of my vision of a diving magazine and ‘onboarded’ by showing local diving industry people, who introduced me to scuba diving manufacturers. In no time, our magazine had taken off and we began to attend dive shows in the States to promote it.
Heady days for the enthusiastic Vassilopoulos couple had begun. DIVER promoted British Columbia as a diving destination: “bringing our coastal waters and its many attractions to the attention of readers throughout Canada. We travelled this country and the world to dive and promote diving sites. We’re proud to say that the magazine helped encourage marine life protection and was instrumental in having government proclaim a number of popular dive sites marine reserves to stop octopus and spear fishing.”
The couple became fast friends with Jacques Cousteau and his son Jean-Michel, Lloyd Bridges and Phil Nuytten, the “Nautilus man who plans to build a city beneath the waves” and who bought DIVER magazine from Peter in 2003, today publishing it quarterly.
While getting the magazine off the diving board, so to speak, Peter was on the masthead at Pacific Yachting magazine, testing and reviewing powerboats and producing numerous destination features, which, along with a number of cover photographs, were in PY regularly for nearly 46 years. His “Power Pitch” column was in every issue for a decade.
“A series of features on coastal classic boats became the subject of Antiques Afloat, which I both wrote and published.” The book was well received and is still in print.
“Peter has been a go-to-resource since the 1970s and continues to provide interesting and informative content for the magazine,” writes Pacific Yachting‘s managing editor Sam Burkhart.
Six guidebooks were produced: Docks and Destinations, Anchorages and Marine Parks, Cruising The Gulf Islands, Cruising Desolation Sound, Cruising the Sunshine Coast and Broughton Islands Cruising Guide plus Cruising the Inside Passage and Adventures on the West Coast of Vancouver Island.
Docks and Destinations, a compendium of all the marinas and facilities where boaters are able to stop and spend time while cruising the coast, “has been my best-selling marine guide, with nine editions and a total of 10 printings with over 30,000 copies sold. A new edition is in the works for 2020.”
Peter’s book OOPS! lets boaters in on how to avoid situations and keep from embarrassing themselves while out on the water, while a novel, Turn of The Tide, is a recently published “mash-up” of lobster poaching and a Mandela prison-breakout, inspired by his monitoring of Robben Island all those years ago.
A second novel about smuggling along the west coast of Vancouver Island is in the works, and Peter is loving every minute of massaging its plot-thickening. Marine photography, painting and reading Wilbur Smith are other passions, although networking is his first love – he’s always looking for connections, reconnecting with friends, matching boaters with boats, introducing boaters to divers, writers to publishers, divers to diving spots and delivering new and used Monaros to their new owners.
Book publishing has suited Peter who always tries to collaborate and inspire others. Ask him a question and he’ll refer you to somebody else who does it better. His strength is as a great promoter for everyone and everywhere West Coast. He has inspired local writers for years and enjoys having his name show up in book acknowledgements. When Global TV asks for community photos for their weekend feature, he often contributes, sometimes with aerials, which he took while updating his guidebooks from his friend’s plane.
Pat Ardley, author of BC bestseller Grizzles, Gales and Giant Salmon: Life at a Rivers Inlet Fishing Lodge tells of Peter’s intervention: “Peter and Carla visited George and I at Rivers Lodge many times over the years as they travelled up the coast. Peter was always so enthusiastic about our stories of living in the wilderness, combating loneliness, facing the challenges of living away from civilization with grizzly bears and cougars and surrounded by water.”
“From the very beginning, he inspired us to write a book. He loved to hear about the adventures we were living. Year after year, he would ask, ‘have you started your book yet?’ It was with Peter’s voice in my head that I signed up for a writing course and, after many stops and starts, I finally published my memoir in 2018. I thank Peter for his many years of encouragement.”
Peter and Carla are still active on the coast every summer, popping up in coves and inlets, at marinas and marine parks, in bookshops and street markets in coastal towns. They enjoy spending time with friends in every port. Peter’s joie de vivre is apparent in every expedition he mounts and in how he encourages others.
Most off-season days he is still hard at work at his desk in Tsawwassen updating his guides, networking, manning booths at boat shows, hauling his books to remote marinas, and preparing for speaking engagements in this province and down south in the Seattle area, and delivering boats in and around the Salish Sea. Networking energizes him. His iPhone is always singing a nautical tune. Severe sciatica has slightly slowed him down and only temporarily. Carla says he’s finally made time to see the chiropractor on a regular basis.
“My favourite place to unwind is Hot Springs Cove on Vancouver Island’s west coast with its very appealing series of hot pools. When I get old, I’ll spend the rest of my days floating around in those magical pools reading Wilbur Smith all over again!”
“Our whole thrust has been to inform and bring an awareness to the typical BC boater about safe, environmental-friendly boating. It needn’t be expensive; it needn’t be overwhelming or dangerous. And if I’ve inspired the youngster of even one boating family to become a lifelong protector of the seas and sea life that would be a most wonderful legacy.”
For more information, visit www.marineguides.com
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