The true north, strong and free

And white, and wet, and cold!!  They don't call Canada 'The Great White North' for nothing.  As with most parts of the American mid west, and the rest of Canada, spring has been interrupted by another blast of winter.  We fared better in Northern Ontario than many parts around the great lakes, but were still hit with freezing rain and several inches of snow.  It has been a couple of days of hunkering down with good old fashioned comfort food and some good movies.  Today is showing some promise - the snow on the ground appears to be melting again.

We visited our marina the other day, but there is still lots of ice in the bay.  We were shocked at how low the water is - down a good three feet  from 2010, when we were last here.  The marina does have floating docks, but many of the access areas are standing well above the water line.  It will be an interesting season, and we have decided that our first weekends will be spent exploring in the dinghy, to see which of our favourite places are still accessible.  There will be new routes, and new rocks to avoid, for sure.  Marinas all over Georgian Bay have been dredging to ensure they have enough water for their boaters, but that is just putting a bandaid on it.

On one of our road trips, we found this beaver dam, which has obviously made a big difference to the local landscape.

Too bad we can't build a dam on the St. Clair River, and stop the outflow there!!

Best laid plans

It has been a full month since my last post, and so much has happened that I hardly know where to begin.  I'll try to make a very long story short.

On March 7, I flew from Tampa to Buffalo,and rented a car to drive across the border.   I visited with some friends and family for 5 days, then headed back down to Buffalo to catch my flight back to Florida.  Everything fell apart when I reached the border, and the guard sent me to see Immigration, where the woman told me she considered me to be an 'intended immigrant'.  We had done our research, and believed that, as Canadians, we were allowed to stay in the US for up to 6 months at a time, and that we could 'reset' the clock by returning to Canada.  The length of time we are required to be out of the US is not written down anywhere, and reentry to the US is entirely at the discretion of the border and immigration people.

As much as I like spending time in the US, especially during the winter months, I have no desire to give up my Canadian residency, and all the benefits that come with that.  But it didn't matter what I said, she was not going to let me back in!!

So, there I was in my American rental car,stuck on the Canadian side of the border, burning up the cell signals to Michael in Florida as we scrambled to figure out what we were going to do.  Our original plan of leaving the President in Florida for the summer would still hold, but we would move the schedule up.  And now, Michael would have to do all of the work by himself.  Meanwhile, I needed to find a place to stay until we could get the Trojan in the water - and the water in Northern Ontario is still frozen!!

Friends and family came to the rescue for me, and friends in Florida helped Michael with many of his chores, and provided some much needed moral support as well.  Thank you to everyone - we couldn't have done it without you.

We are now settled into an apartment in MacTier, a little town not far from our home marina. We have been boating here for many years, and know the waters of Georgian Bay very well, but have never really spent the time to explore the local area by car.  We are now enjoying exploring the land based attractions.   It's still quite cold here, and yes, the water is still hard, but there are signs that spring is definitely on the way.

This is the view from the town dock in Parry Sound.  Brrrrrrr!