They did a "Le Mans Start" which means they made us run down onto the dock and jump in our boats. My kayak was on the dock, it takes me a while to get it in the water and get in. The bigger sail boats had to be rowed out of the harbor. (Victoria rules: No sails in the inner harbor). So I kept up with the pack but expected them to start tacking offshore. Outside the harbor I was surprised when several boats hugged the shore with me and kept rowing. I discovered I could draft some of these boats and save myself some work for a while.
It wasn't until "the fleet" made the turn to go north along Vancouver Island that the sailboats started veering offshore. There was a flood tide going north, but I would rather have launched earlier and had more daylight hours to paddle in. Earlier I could have eddy hopped north until the tide turned. So I just paddled straight north to Portland Island and arrived around 8:00 PM. I had camped here once before 16 years ago. There were 6 sailboats in the cove, and I worried that the campground would be full. But all the boats were live-aboard and I had the campground to myself.