Boats Burn - Complete With Explosions!!

I'm sure everyone's heard about the big excitement at Crate's on Friday afternoon, with the boat blowing up. Perhaps, but have you seen the videos or heard the first hand accounts? Huh? Huh?

Let's start with a first hand account from someone who was actually there - ironically enough, to look at the (once was) boat in question! Non other than Paul of 'Indian Princess' sent me this insightful insight on the sights in question;

" . . . As you have heard by now, I'm sure, there was a fire at Crates yesterday. It turns out the boat we were considering is the boat that is no more. There was an offer on the boat (ironically enough) form one of my customers, pending Sea Trial. The boys at Crates moved the boat with the travel lift to the usual launch area beside the gas dock and were trying to start it. One of the employees was down in the engine room and another employee was at the helm. The engine backfired a couple of times and then all Hell broke loose. All the employees are OK and no one was hurt, but you can bet your sweet bippy the adrenaline was off the chart. I did not have my camera with me at the time of the fire, so I can not show you the amount of smoke and flames but the resin could be smelled from a good 200 feet away. And where was our Fire Chief (Sanja) when all this was going on??????? I am amazed at the speed of the fire, it literally devoured the boat in a matter of about 12 - 15 minutes. The Police Boat - the Wat??????? can pump water from its canon at an incredibly rate, it put the pumper trucks to shame. Never seen that before and I hope I never seen it again. The Hatteras is completely destroyed as is the 27 ft Thundercraft beside it. The travel lift - well - I don't know how much damage it sustained but all 4 tires blew, one at a time of course, but the rumors of the propane tank exploding are complete nonsense. If there had been a propane explosion, I probably would not be sending you this e-mail. As to the structural damage to the travel lift, I have no idea, are the hydraulic lines serviceable? I have no idea but I doubt it. . . ."

Thanks, Paul, for that great reporting. One more quick bit of insight on the whole story. We were at the boat Friday afternoon when I got a call from our daughter telling me what she had witnessed. She started the conversation by saying that she had been at home when she heard what she thought was an explosion coming from inside our house! My first reaction was 'Great, looks like we are going to be spending the weekend at home, cleaning up the mess!'. Thankfully it wasn't, but you can imagine how loud it must have been for her to hear it inside our place with the windows closed. . .

Now on to the juicy parts. Vern - you were moaning about my boring video of the Lake Simcoe Buoy, well here's something a little more exciting.

This first one is what I captured from the A Channel News. It's a little snowy because it was on the boat TV with only a cheap antennae & I filmed it with my digital camera. Cool thing is, after it only being on YouTube for 22 hours (up to now), it's already had 149 views! *******************************

Hello - Summer??

Still waiting for that thing called summer to show itself. Waiting. In the meantime, we've been keeping busy (and warm) at The Cottage by running back to our boats for another sweater, or coat or just to make sure the heater was on! Oh well, despite the sometimes frigid temps, I've had a really good time so far this season. And I'm becoming somewhat of an expert at installing electronics and programming MMSI numbers. . . Of course, we may need another load of firewood before too long, since some 'troublemaker' we know insists on making the fires every night - even in the rain :-) Apart form battling the cold & rain, we have actually been able to get out on the water - even if only on the dinghies; Poor Anchor Girl hasn't even been able to work on her suntan; We met up with Water Wings a couple of weeks ago. This was our second time out on the lake this year and we actually spent a couple or three hours on the water, cruising slowly around Thorah Island; Check this out. This is made up from two photos that I put together for a panoramic effect. . . . (There goes the firewood); Myself doing a speed run on Boogaboo Tender. The new radios me & Graham (Graham! Graham! Graham!) got have built in GPS(s) so we can track our speed. I've gotten my little boat up to a blistering SIXTEEN MPH! Cool;