Plan C
Canadian customs were easy with only a couple of questions about our intentions, although we did have a scary moment going into customs as Craig’s passport wouldn’t automatically scan but it was all ok. The lovely young man gave us a beautiful smile as we moved through.

Straight off the plane and over to the car hire desk and the first thing that hits you - after the shock of the -3c, is how friendly Canadians are.

It wasn’t until the excitement of travelling to another country - it’s rather exhilarating that we could make that decision and just do it - that the reality of the weather sunk in.  When you are in a warm place, we had just left Miami at 23c it’s hard to comprehend the reality of what minus -3c really feels like.

The car hire staff were so interested in our story and full of helpful advice, so much so that we forgot to get a GPS.

This made for a stressful couple of hours. 

In Miami we had purchased a SIM card at the airport, at Toronto airport we could not find a SIM card outlet and the US sim no longer worked.

We were in a new country we knew we had to get downtown but we had no idea what direction to head in, luckily there was a map in the paperwork we received with the car
It’s the city 8am in the morning, we are on a freeway by now and realise we are heading out of town not downtown and we couldn’t pull over. My iPad had offline google maps but no facilities to give us directions, we had been messaging the broker in Toronto and he was expecting us to meet him it was just a wee bit stressful.

We managed to find an exit and get back on the city bound road.  My map skills are ok but I also had to keep checking Craig was on the correct side of the road, roundabouts were scary. 

Once we turned into the city area the speed of the traffic slowed down and we found a petrol station to pull into to buy a SIM card but no it’s not that easy, because Canada is so large SIM cards don’t cover the whole country and you need to buy for the area you are going to be in.  As we had no idea what our plans were, we couldn’t buy anything just yet.

We worked out we could still txt on our US sim, the broker met us miles away from the marina and we followed him back there.

There were piles of snow on the sidewalks, mounds of snow in car parks and full streets still with a thick coating of snow. And this was in the city centre.

In Canada because the lakes freeze over and become solid ice they take the boats out of the water.  All of them every single one, only once did we see boats in the water and that was in Tobermory and they had bubblers around them to keep the water moving so the ice could not set in.

The boats are put on stands and are encased in a plastic wrap.  It’s really strange climbing external portable steps and climbing into a plastic cave.  The broker gave us a little pair of slippers as we had to remove our shoes to go in.  It was mind numbingly cold.

This one was a beautiful Hunter 50, immaculate and very very nice, and very definatly above our price braket. We had a look around and we were very impressed but could only stay for a quick look around due to the temperature.

The broker selling Pending offered us a night in a downtown hotel on his company, probably as a sweetener to buy the boat but I also think he felt sorry for us, remember we had slept in the car the night before and had just spent all day travelling, we were wrecked. 

We had pre booked a night in an Owen Sound airb&b but there was no way we could have driven there it was late, getting dark and really cold.

The hotel was beautiful and not just because we needed it, it’s one of those trendy revamped boutique hotels in an interesting historic building.  Apart from appreciating the king size bed and wall mounted tv, the décor was luxurious and quirky. Included was a record player and a selection of vinyl, there were locally sourced treats and unusual gadgets to purchase and some boutique liquor and wines in the fridge.  We were so thankful to have a warm building, and a hot shower.

We had long hot showers and headed up to the rooftop bar for a well deserved drink.

That's me about to cross the road to the hotel

After a very expensive drink we decided to brave the elements and go for a walk to find something for dinner, we found a little Vietnamese restaurant where we had an interesting chat with the owner, a young Vietnamese mother of 2 who had arrived in Toronto to study finance, completed her studies and worked in banking but hated it, so with her husband who loved cooking she followed her dream and opened this top quality authentic Vietnamese restaurant, her father also has 2 restaurants in Vietnam. There were pictures of her father with Barack Obama and other famous guests.

The next morning much to our delight we did not have to check out until 11am, so we had a lovely relaxing morning.

Our first mission was to find a Canadian SIM card, this was not so easy. The one shop we found explained - most Canadians are on plans that include home internet, cable tv etc. and again told us that as Canada is so big you need to buy a sim that covers the area that you are in, so we decided to wait until we had a bit more of an idea what we were doing.