Well it is 3 weeks later and time to close this blog. We have settled into marina living again, where it is secure and protected. We chose to leave the boat at Bay Port marina in Midland, as we have some work to do on the boat before we put it to bed for the winter. Bay Port offers pretty well all the services we required such as a marine store, hydro, water, fuel, pump outs, swimming pool, secure winter storage, lift in and out, blocking etc. Although about 35 minutes from Barrie, we are in a great sailing community with ample anchorage opportunities that are not available in Lake Simcoe. The marina has over 500 slips, is about a half mile across the bay (dingy accessible) to downtown Midland for shopping, restaurants and coffee shops. We are very familiar with the area having a family cottage for 50 years on Methodist Island, just off Victoria Harbour. My son lives in Waubaushene and we have already linked up a couple of times on the water with some of the grand children already. There are surprisingly few live a boards in the marina. The marina is quiet during the weekdays and gets busier on the weekend. The great thing is that we see a boaters actually using their boats, rather than staying at the docks. There is a mad exodus of boaters on Thursday and Friday as they head out to their favorite anchorages for the weekend. We see them return on Sunday night as they make the trek home, some fighting the weekend traffic south. The life of retirement allows me to avoid this trek, however I was caught up with this ritual for 20 odd years as we took the kids up and down from the family cottage. Indulgence is one of the mid sized boats in the marina, with many much bigger, particularly the big cabin cruisers. We have met a few boaters that used to boat out of Barrie, as well as several other boats we saw during our trip up from Lake Erie and Huron. We were fortunate to return to this area about 2 weeks sooner than expected and as such were here to see our newest crew member born on August 3rd… Caleb James Harold Ewles born to my son and partner Jenn. That brings my motley grandchild crew up to 9. We have told the family that we will be staying on the boat, using it as much as we can until September, when we will start to transition back home and acclimatize to life on the hard for the winter. The admiral isn’t looking forward to this, but such is life. We already have the requests coming in as to what we are doing on such and such a date, can we help out… can we sit for the grand kids and dogs, borrow the car… our calendar is filling up with these requests as well as appointments and commitments we know are coming as a consequence of being home. It occurred to us, as to how everyone survives when we are not around, we also wonder if we accept these requests as something to keep us busy, were we truly missed? Or are we just filling our time up until we set sail on our next adventure? All joking aside, the admiral and myself, did truly miss everyone, and are glad to be home. We certainly could not have done this journey without the support of our family and friends, who kept us grounded. One other note that I would be remiss in mentioning, the Admiral and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary 2 days ago… for those who made it this far, that’s the ruby one. Well this last year was our celebration of a life together. We decided, that as we had some major expenses coming up with the boat, we just went out for a quiet dinner at a local restaurant. It truly has been alifetime adventure, sharing with Jo, all the ups and down life and family throws at you. These past 40 years have sort of been the practice or training time, to ensure we were prepared to try something like taking a “slow boat to Florida” and then turn around and return. Over the past 11 months we sailed/motored over 5500 miles, at less than 6 miles an hour. Like life, there were highlights and lowlights along the way. As you may recall, I started this blog with an excerpt from my blog in 2010, when we sailed down the St Laurence River to Montreal. This was our first taste of adventuring on a boat. Some of my objectives were a) Come home with my boat b) Come home with my wife c) Come home with my wife and boat d) Get a bigger boat On the journey south, we had 3 objectives a) Take the boat south b) See if we could live on the boat for 4-6 months c) Bring the boat home. Well, we have the boat home and the Admiral is still with me, so all said and done, it was a successful Journey. We took our Dream to Reality. The past year, saw us do many things well and some not so well. We soon realized that our skills were not all that great, but we were persistent in trying to make them better. Our trip back to Canada was so much different than our trip going down. Had the trip down, been anything like the trip back … mechanical and weather issues, we very well may have been one of those couples you hear about, who have the dream and when faced with some adversary, their relationship gets challenged and they end up ending their dream and selling their boat. Fortunately we had a relatively safe trip down in the fall and our weather and mechanical challenges were small. As for the trip back, the issue with our coolant leak, the anti -foul chipping off our hull, several severe storms and squalls, extreme heat, being towed twice, electrical shorts, stuck on shoals… We both took these in our stride, maybe because we were a bit more relaxed and had some experience under our belt. The situations we faced were certainly of concern for us and we understand that you cannot take anything for granted when on the water. Here is my list of things I will not miss for a while -travelling in 100 degree temperatures (8 days in a row) – 80 plus degree temps in the evening with no A/C - being chased into the cabin at 7pm because the flys and mosquitos and the notorious no-see-ums come out. (particularly in 80 plus degree temps makes it hard to be comfortable and yet stay in happy mood the next day -constantly watching for, and running storms (hail and torrential downpours), high winds and flooding waters – tornado and hurricane notices and plans to avoid same - constant beeping of the shallow water alarm . Beeping alerts us when we in water under 9 feet (actually less than 5 feet under our keel) This alarm would go off continually some days and would require to be reset every 30 seconds for hours on end. Our index fingers actually got sore from the constant pushing of the rest button - Constant noise of a diesel engine 8-10 hours a day. The noise starts to affect your hearing as you are yelling at each other to hear one another. Maybe subconsciously we were just practicing our “selective” hearing so when we get really old, we have this selective hearing down to a real art form. -running up on shoals and being grounded -rely on BOATUS to tow me to safety. All joking aside, the above is just what goes with the territory We have a lot to do on the boat over the next several months such as re finishing the hull (epoxy coat and anti-foul0, fix our coolant leak ( it actually ended up that the core of the heat exchanger had corroded and the unit is being replaced as we speak, need to make some weather screens for the cockpit. The Admiral would like a full enclosure, but a full enclosure is nice but not necessary in 80 plus degree weather down south, explore installing more solar or wind generating power devices. THE FUTURE As you may recall, in one of my blogs in February, I wasn’t quite sure whether this was a once in a lifetime trip or whether I would do it again. Somewhere between Indiantown and Norfolk, Va, it became apparent that we both want to do it again. We are gearing up for another adventure in august 2016. We think we want to be “LOOPERS” don’t take that to mean loopy. A Looper is a boater that travels down the Great lakes to Chicago, then picks up a route south via the Mississippi or the Illinois River, or the Tenn.-Thom through to Mobile, Alabama , then down the Florida Gulf Coast to the Keys, then back up the Atlantic coast to Canada. We have done the latter part of this, so I proud to say I am only half looped. This of course depends on the stars aligning themselves again… kids, grandkids and parents are well, financially we can afford it, boat is ready and we are still raring to go. As we are still relatively young, our kids would question that, we can postpone if necessary. The opportunities once we get down there are a bit broader as I now have some experience and skills and am interested in heading to the islands or the Bahamas and would consider leaving the boat down there for 6 month. We will see. Well it’s time to wrap this journey up and I thank those that supported us and those of our family and friends that shared in this blog and helping me bring the DREAM TO REALITY. I say adieu, actually I should keep with my regular closing CIAO for now
Admiral Jo & Captain Tom
