Boating To Florida?

 A question came to me the other day about whether we have ever considered taking our current boat - or any boat for that matter - south to Florida for the winters. Given the fact that live aboard our boat for the summer months, it seemed logical to this person that we just fired up the engines when it got cold and pointed it south towards the palm trees and sandy beaches. . . Here is my reply.


Yes, we currently call 'Boogaboo IV' home from May to October and love the lifestyle. It's a bit of effort to make happen, as I still work full time in my own contracting business and have to commute daily to and from the boat. The good part of that is I get to travel mostly through country roads, so it's quite scenic. As for taking her to Florida, we have discussed that possibility, but not any time soon. Again, I have a business to run for now and being away toooooooo long, or having to commute back and forth to Ontario throughout the process is not something I would entertain at this point.

That said, we are unsure as to which way the fickle winds of fate may send us as we travel through this plane of existence. Ultimately, we would love to be able to step off the boat at the end of the season and head south for the ensuing six months until the boating season resumes the following spring and that is something I am working towards. To that end, I have just released my first, feature length travel video 'Cruising The Trent Severn Waterway'.

 One other option we toyed with was to buy a second boat to keep in Florida, but the overall costs currently make that prohibitive, but something we may revisit down the road. Despite the life of Riley that many folks may perceive from my endless postings, we are like most of the rest of the working world; car payments, a mortgage and all the rest that comes with every day living. The one major difference is that we have made a solid decision to live more on our own terms and take advantage of the good days as much as we can. With my MS diagnosis a few years ago, we learned quickly that good health is precious and not to be taken for granted. We have worked contentiously to reverse my condition and a huge part of that has been stress reduction and, like I said, living life on our terms - even if it does mean maxing out the old credit card once in awhile ;-)

 Laughing at ones' self is also paramount to a healthy life, so thanks you for recognizing that. I stopped taking myself too seriously awhile back and that helps to lighten the load, so to speak. As for the lovely deck hands you mentioned you've spotted some of in my videos, I'm not sure on their availability, apart from my own Anchor Girl. She's got her hands full with taking care of me and the MAJOR reason I am working at making our lives more fun. And that, is the funnest part for me . . .

:-)

Writing a Book, One Brick at a Time

For those of you who have been following this Blog or my YouTube channel for the past few years, you will have already seen the posts from our grand adventure when we purchased 'Boogaboo IV', back in 2010. Well, after retelling many highlights of that experience over the ensuing years, I have been inspired to put it all together in the form of a book. Yup, you heard right - I'm writing a book.

(Actually, I'm in the midst of writing two books, but the other one has a much deeper, personal resonance to it which I'll delve into more in a future post.)

Referring to that event as a grand adventure isn't mere hype. It was truly a milestones that would mark a turning point in our lives - not only in terms of our boating travels, but in our whole outlook on life and what we CAN do as a couple - and survive it intact!!

In Michigan with our soon-to-be 'Boogaboo IV'.

  Survival was the key to the whole story. And the whole story is a whole lot more than can be properly conveyed through mere Blog posts, hence the book. Survival, as you will learn, has many connotations and will be used in the context of this story to relate to not only surviving a voyage of nearly 700 miles, but also that of mental, emotional and yes, marriage survival! Perhaps 'ordeal' might have been a more descriptive term ;-)

Applying the name on the transom before leaving Michigan, making it 'Ours' :-)

 So, what the heck do bricks have to do with it all, you surely must be asking yourself? Read on . . .

 As I am going on about my day, especially when I am involved in physical labour (which is most work days, in my contracting businesses) I feel that my mind is somehow released and that more far reaching thoughts and inspirations come to me, most especially when I am working alone. Take this weekend, for example. As part of our preparations to move onto the boat full time, we had to make some changes to the house and I was basically pushing a paint brush and roller for hours at a time. Put on some good music & it gives me time to think.

 And think, I do. Lots of it! As I continually point out to my lovely Anchor Girl, I could fill five more lifetimes with all the thoughts, aspirations and inspirations that come to me. But that's OK, because I firmly know that when this current plain of existence ends, I (we) will continue on with a much higher propose, so ultimately, I got lots of time :-)

 But I digress. Back to the bricks!

 I find it amazing how thoughts seem to come to me out of the blue, then only to be reinforced, or revisited a short time later by that same 'spark' being presented to me in another context. Almost like it's trying to show me something. . .

 Case in point (and finally getting to the darned bricks!); As part of my free thinking moments yesterday, I was reflecting on one of the 14,286.419 pieces of seemingly useless information floating around my head, that being a fact I recalled that Winston Churchill (former Prime Minister of England & 20th Century icon) would spend a great deal of time working at his estate, Chartwell, doing - you guessed it - bricklaying!

 From many accounts, Sir Winston derived a similar mental escape through building walls, fences and other brick structures that seemed to clear the way for inspirations to flow freely. His bricks, my paint brush. Or drywall trowel, or whatever the tool du jour happens to be. Perhaps it was through this release that Mr. Churchill found the abundant inspiration to write more than 50 volumes in his time.

 Do I have 50 books in me? Dunno. Two years ago, I would have scoffed at the idea of me writing ONE book, let alone two! But here I am, knee deep into it and finding that writing and me seem to have a long suppressed destiny.  I hope that you will look forward to reading about our boating adventure - and more. I will promise you that I'm going to do my best to keep you entertained, and more importantly - inspired!

 Quickly getting back to the connections between these thoughts that seem to come out of nowhere. Yesterday I was thinking and jotting my notes to share with you about our Mr. Churchill and his bricklaying release. Today, I was looking at a web site (boating related, no less) published by someone we know but haven't haven't talked to in too many years and what pops up? A photo of a boat with the name 'Chartwell', along with a caricature of Winston Churchill on the transom, produced by this very person!

 Was this a coincidence? No sir. Just one more sign that our new path, book, rekindled relationships and so much more yet to be discovered destinies are meant all to be. And I'm grateful for that & the forces that are moving us along this path :-)

:-)

Book Review - 'Leap of Faith, Quit Your Job And Live On A Boat'

I don't recall when I first came to hear of the book 'Leap of Faith, Quit Your Job And Live On A Boat' (Leap), by Ed Robinson, but I'm sure it was during one of those times when I was dreamily pondering our own upcoming move to the boat. I was most likely searching for stories of folks who took their own ship's south to escape the increasingly unpleasant winters we are forced to endure. . .

Cover of 'Leap of Faith - Quit Your Job & Live on a Boat'

Whatever my state of mind, it must have been that 'live on a boat' part of the title that caught my eye. Now, before we dive into Ed Robinson's tale, I should let you all in on a little something; 'Leap' represents only the fourth book I've read in my 50 years on this planet. Don't get me wrong, I actually read quite a bit, but my attention span is for more of the bite size chunks, something that I can get through in one sitting. So, to say that I actually read this book from cover to cover really speaks to the strength of the author to keep a reader like me engaged, entertained and ultimately, inspired.

Photo: Ed Robinson.

  Ed refers to himself in the book as 'the luckiest man in the world'. Quite a statement and reason enough to read on to find out why he can say that . . .

 Like many of us, he began to feel trapped in a never ending rut of going to work, coming home to bitch at the wife about the day's stresses, go to bed and start it all over again. And again. And again. As he says, it was sucking at his soul. It wasn't as if he was struggling with a lower paying job that was stressing him out, but rather that he had a management position, bouncing between babysitting staff and kissing a** with clients.

 Sounds all to familiar with my own experiences.

 Beyond  the work related stress, he found himself increasingly frustrated with the endless BS he was bombarded with in the news. Crap that seemed to be piling directly on top of him; political fighting, financial crises, American Idol and all the rest of it. There is an entire chapter on the madness of the world that we live in that is more akin to an extended rant. I found myself reading this chapter in a hyper fast way, not missing a beat - I could have wrote it myself!

You can now see how I was drawn further into his tale . . .

Photo: Ed Robinson.

  Don't worry, it's not all bad news. In fact, apart from those two segments, you'll find it increasingly uplifting as the story moves us past the virtual despair and frustration and into hatching a plan to move Ed's life forward and away from the madness. Initially, escape came in the form of the musical storytelling from the likes of Jimmy Buffet and all those great Trop-Rock singers. Songs of passing the days in hot tropical climes, palm trees and boats. I mean really, who wouldn't find escapism in a song that spoke of ice cold Corona beer and sunsets on the beach?

 Did I mention I was really getting drawn into the book?

Photo: Ed Robinson.

  Now that these visions of a new life in flip flops and Hawaiian shirts had planted themselves in his mind, the next thought was how he would make it become a reality. Naturally, any sane person would come to the conclusion that selling everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) and moving to a boat full time would be a logical course of action. . . Or not. Apart from his wife, Kim, pretty much everyone around him thought he was crazy. Perhaps not only because he didn't have a boat, but that he also had a big debt load to overcome before saying adios to his job.

 How would he move the plans for his wife and himself from a fantasy of tropical escapes to the reality of living feet up on a boat in the middle of south-west Florida? It was very simple, actually; make a firm plan, and work it with disciplined resolution to see it through. The carrot on the end of the stick would ultimately become a goal of not running Away from a world that was crushing his spirit, but rather running To a new life of utter contentment.

Photo: Ed Robinson.

 Even if chucking it all and living in the shade of palm trees isn't your speed, this book offers compelling and practical insights as to how any one of us can better our current financial standing and enjoy the freedom that being debt free allows. That said, I might offer a word of warning before you read the book yourself. You may end up being so moved by the enticing world they have discovered that you could find yourself perusing online ads for boats that could one day become your own piece of paradise :-)

Photo: Ed Robinson.

The book is available at Amazon.com - both in print and Kindle e-reader versions.

  A big thanks to Ed for being good enough to allow me to share some his beautiful photos in this review, all of which have been taken during his enjoyment as 'happiest guy in the world'.

 

 :-)

Shrink Wrap Off Boogaboo

This past weekend I took advantage of both three days off and cooperating weather to remove the shrink wrap from the boat and polish the hull sides. Anchor Girl joined me on Saturday to clean the boat and help get Boogaboo ready for relaunch, which happens this Friday :-)

 All in all, I was able to get almost everything done that was needed for the big splash. With any luck, we won't have to deal with the high winds - and snow - that I experienced for last year's launch.

 Here's a video I put together form the weekend's work;

Summer Boating on Georgian Bay #1

Back on The Bay

Ya, ya, ya - more Georgian Bay stuff . . .

 Can't help it, I love boating on The Bay :-)  Nothing like dreaming, planning and looking forward to getting away for our summer boating holidays - and The Bay has been the place to dream about for the past number of years.
 That said, I'm really looking forward to going back to there this summer, but work commitments might not allow for our regular three week hiatus.  We might have to break things up a bit to two or more shorter holidays, including a possible run eastward on the Trent . So, the lovey Anchor Girl & I are talking about, in addition to a shorter trip to Georgian Bay, maybe doing a week or so eastward, toward Peterborough. We'll have to let time & tide decide . . .

 Speaking of holidays and time off, we've been fortunate enough to spend some time down south in Florida this past year and we are already planning for spending even more time down there. Ya, like retirement - but that's a ways away. Believe it or not, but I got one or two pictures I'm going to be sharing here, along with some video of our time in Fort Lauderdale. But that's for another day.

 Back to today's post. Due to the large number of pics that I'm compelled to share, I'm going to break this up to a couple or more posts & will break those up with some stuff from our new home at Lagoon City - including the long winded story of why/how we came to find ourselves there. Apparently, some of you hadn't heard the whole story. Or something like that.

 The Bay. Let's go - - -

 Pulling out of the Pefferlaw River. This would be one of the last times leaving here :-(

We had a BIG little stowaway while crossing Sparrow Lake;

Arriving at the top side of Swift Rapids Lock (#43);

It was nearly 5:00 by the time we got through the lock, so we decided to spend the night here;

Here's some video from this HOT day one of our holidays;


Notice that there's hardly any water flowing over the water control dam. It had been pretty dry out for the previous week or so and the runoff was minimal, resulting in little current through the system. We wouldn't have the same conditions on our return, making for a fun time at Lock #45, as we'll see later on;

 End of Day 1 brought our first pretty sunset of many on this trip;

Next morning we continue on westward;

Next stop - well, more like slow to a crawl - was the Big Chute Marine Railway;

In case you missed it earlier, here's another video review of the ride over (down) the marine railway;


Leaving the bottom of Port Severn Lock where the Trent-Severn meets Georgian Bay. This was the calmest conditions we have ever seen going through here. I'll be including some video from here a bit later on, showing how dramatically things changed by the time we came back home;

All thumbs up as we are officially back on The Bay for another season's worth of memories!

When we got on to Georgian Bay, our first stop was going to be a few nights at anchor at Beausoleil Island. Well, as we keep discovering, boating plans tend to change rapidly when traveling. This time it was our anchor windlass malfunctioning. When we attempted to launch the anchor, the windlass rapidly let out all 100' of chain + rode - and then would not respond to controls any more. Fortunately, I was able to use the built in manual winch to retrieve the anchor, but we didn't want to spend a night on the hook without having the ability to get up and go quickly if need be during the night, so we went to Midland Harbour to tie up and fix the windlass.
 Good thing, too, as that night we had a strong storm blow through with lots of rain and strong winds. So much so, that the rain was blowing through our transom door with such force that it blew the carpet back & soaked it. Lucky? More like protected :-)

The next day I got in touch with the windlass manufacturer & the fellow I talked to suggested the source of the problem & how to remedy it. Fortunately, it was a simple matter of disemboweling the foot controls and cleaning the contacts for the solenoid switches & voila! All operating more better, according to the professional Anchor Girl.
 Listen to the sound of my voice discussing our time at Midland;








 Just north of Honey Harbour the landscape & water becomes much more rough & rocky. This is approaching Monument Channel;

Gotta stay on top of them charts to stay on course in the 30,000 Islands area;

Although this spot looks wide open, there's only a narrow channel marked to get through. No problem, but we wound up catching up to these folks just at the bottom entrance to it and they weren't moving too fast at all. Just after we got behind this boat, Anchor Girl went into the cabin to make me a sandwich. When she returned to the bridge a few minutes later, we hadn't moved very far & she thought they had hit bottom & were stuck!

O'Donnell Point marker;

Sure is pretty boating up here;

Passing through the narrows at Starvation Bay means we are only a short distance to Henrys Restaurant;

See, I told ya ;-)  Taking the 'Inside' passage & doing a slow cruise, this leg of the trip took us 3-1/2 hours from Midland;

Some cool looking rock formations we saw on our dingy trip over to Wreck Island;

The view from our dock at Henrys. Those islands and rock formations in the distance mark the main entrances to the anchorages of the Massasauga Provincial Park & the Moon River basin - an adventure all to itself;

Here's a group of three photos I stitched together to form a panoramic shot;

I took many pics form this vantage point out the back of the boat, attempting to capture the beauty & essence of this spot;

Anchor Gilr walks back to the boat with a bag of ice, as we are moving on to the next spot;

 A quick parting shot of the docks. You can see they can accommodate a number of boats in a row, with the policy being that if you are at the front (closest to shore) by around 3:00, you are spending the night. There's room for up to 50 boats here. Generally, they pack 'em in for lunch & dinner, but overnight usually sees roughly 20 boats staying;

Here we are, pulling in to LeBlanc's Marina - which is right around the corner & on the same island. We needed a pump out & I learned the hard way a few years back that if there's a facility nearby that can do it, take advantage of it;

They also have a small variety store with highly inflated prices. They are also an agency LCBO outlet;

Speaking of highly inflated prices, gas here was $1.90 per litre. That works out to $8.64/gallon. Oh well, ya gotta remember that this place is on an island, many miles from where it has to be delivered from by water, and the the next closest place to get gas is at least an hour away. . . . Nobody said boating was a poor man's hobby. It only makes poor men out of us.
 No, we didn't get here - this time ;-)

Next stop was Parry Sound. Good municipal marina & complete shopping facilities available, as the local Sobey's supermarket offers a free shuttle service to their store for the boaters. And there's a Canadian Tire right beside it, along with the usual assortment of stores in these bog box pods.
 This is looking out from the back of the boat;

 . .  . And a look forward from the flybridge;

We were only here a day or two, to catch up on groceries and do some laundry, hit the beer store, etc.. We'll be returning after our next adventure.
 I just wanted to share this pic of us leaving, as the big express boat to the left in this shot (a Canadian built Neptunus yacht) was equipped with a wireless remote docking apparatus. We saw the captain pulling that thing into the gas dock in town - with him maneuvering it standing on the bow. A neat show & when I yelled over to him that I considered that cheating he laughed & called it a marriage saver ;-)

Next stop was Killbear Marina;

This was our first time visiting here;

Did I promise nice sunsets or what?

Killbear has alot of bigger slips, all with 2x30 amp shorepower;

Our 2nd big bug visitor of the holidays;

Of course, Anchor Girl saw that & immediately zipped up & snapped in all the canvas. She already had one big bug on board & didn't want any more getting on;

A look out on to The Bay from the southern dock;

This is looking back from the office/chandlery store;

They have a restaurant (upstairs) and small grocery store (down) in this building. The restaurant food was quite good - they served both regular Canadian fare, as well as specialty German dishes;

Killbear Marina is in a very well protected cove, surrounded by land on three sides;

This photo shows how far out of the water the fixed docks are, a testament to how much the water level has dropped in the past 20 years;

A brave soul heads out on a windy day;

Enjoying the sunset as I prepare an evening snack for the first mate;

Mmmmmmmm, garlic bread;

 Next time, we're heading north. And then south.
 Stay tuned to see our encounter with a swimming dear, a very tight passage and video tours of a bunch of anchoring bays of the Moon River Basin. Heck, I might even throw in some more spectacular sunsets :-)

:-)