For years, I tried to convince my good wife to buy a sailboat; but, when we chartered she would say that she didn't like being wet and cold, didn't like the "tilting" deck and when we got to a nice anchorage felt like we were stuck in a dark basement.
"What about a powerboat?", she would ask. I would grumble that they weren't as seaworthy... to which she would ask: "Why don't the Coast Guard and the fishermen have sailboats?" I had no good answer for that.
Anyways, eventually, I realized that unless I listened to her, we'd never have a boat. Like the OP, we live on Vancouver Island and could have access to several lifetimes of remote and scenic coastline exploring.
We bought a Nordic Tug 37 and this has opening up a wonderful world of coastal cruising for us. Having a boat that cruises comfortably and economically in all sorts of weather at 8 - 9 kts and can push up to 17 in a pinch means being able to time tidal slack-time windows or transit Johnstone Strait in a single tide cycle before the next bad weather moves in. With the time constraints of jobs and family, we can enjoy a wider cruising range with our holiday time than many of our sailboat friends.
When we get to nice anchorage in December, we can enjoy happy hour with a panoramic view from the pilothouse. No more dark basements or being wet and cold.
As to seaworthy? Our boat is remarkably good in snotty sea conditions or in the occasional open ocean transit. The boat can take a lot more than we can.
I don't see us ever going back to sail.