Frozen Boats! Winter is For The Birds

 Still suffering from cabin fever, I thought that a road trip was in order last Sunday (Feb 28th), so we headed up north for another Georgian Bay tour. This time we made a circle around the west side Lake Simcoe, up to Midland and Penataguishene, returning through Orillia and down the east side of the lake and home.

 Actually, the previous Sunday afternoon we went east - up to the cottage for a quick pop in and then continued north to Lagoon City, with a quick stopover at Lock #41 (Gamebridge), so we'll be starting with that stuff.

 I herewith submit the following report;

 As the title of this post implies, things were going to the birds around our place. Anchor Girl had been bringing a couple of young cockatiels home on the weekends from the pet store where she works. Seems the boss wasn't going to be in the store and A.G. didn't trust the kids working there to remember to watch them, so we were surrogates for the time being. I never thought I'd take to birds, per se, but these two (especially the one with the grey feathers) were a lot of fun. Amazing the personalities of these little creatures. And they love people, especially perching on your head for a walk around the house - even if it is a square head :-)

 

Onward and upward. The second stop of the day was at lock #41, Gamebridge. This one is right off of highway #12, so it's easy to get to for a look; 

 

As you can see, the bottom side blue line walls are getting some substantial repairs, most likely as a result of the $63,000,000 that the federal government has pledged in capital improvements to the system over the next five years;  

 

A couple of sunny, albeit winter time pics from Lagoon City Marina;

 

This is our usual haunt when we are up there for the long weekend specials;  

That was from two weeks ago. Let's see what the Boogaboo Crew did last weekend (for those of you who are still awake)

Last Sunday's adventure took us up firstly to Midland and then on to Penatangueshene. This was taken at the Penatang Town Docks and is a shot of the local tour boat 'Georgian Queen';  

Next, we have another big old boat that was tied to the same dock (you can see the bow of 'Georgian Queen' to the left of this shot) and frozen in for the winter. I talked to to some guy who was aboard the big blue vessel who said  he lived on it on the weekends to do work for the owner. As he told me, the owner bought it as a partially sunken derelict in Hamilton 16 years before and has been restoring it ever since. Ya, I had a boat like that once too. I got smart and dumped it.

 As you can see behind the blue one, there was a third vessel frozen in along side of this dock. I guess they all got a special rate for the winter ;-)  

Here's one I took for a certain someone I know, but I think he spells his name with an 'I';

Not to be outdone with all the frozen boats in Penatang, the Port of Orillia is hosting it's own 'We'll store your boat for the winter' special promotion, as well;

 

 

To finish things up, we made a stop at The Narrows to take a look at the open water passing by. Just to clarify, it was more like I took a look at the passing waters at The Narrows while A.G. elected to stay in the warm cabin of the truck while I played.
 Either way, it sure is a great feeling to be close to the open water after seeing the frozen stuff from our front window every day;

  

This big guy and his mate were there to keep an eye on me;

 

 

Finally, not to be outdone by the docks a Penatanguishene and Orillia, Crothers Marina has also decided to get into the obviously lucrative business of offering in-water docking for the winter months.

 
And to think that the rest of us dummies have been wasting our money all these years by having our boats actually taken out of water each fall. Now THAT'S for the birds;