The second boat we were to look at was in Wiarton,  with the closest big town being Owen Sound.

So before we checked out, using the hotel wifi we confirmed our airb&b booking, they graciously had let us change the arrival date. 

Downtown Toronto is eclectic and interesting,  again it was hard to leave without exploring the city.  The expressway we took out of the downtown area was elevated above the city and as it was so busy and being bumper to bumper at a crawling pace we got to see a few of the city landmarks.

Throughout this whole boat seeking process we had been dealing with Kelly Bickford out of Tampa Florida, he had helped us coordinate to meet with local agents and had handled the deposit payment and refund from Santa Lacura and again he organised for us to meet local agent Jack Parry.

The drive from Toronto to Owen Sound is 190 km,  2 1/2 hours plus a coffee stop on the way.  

The further north we drove the more snow there was, what started as piles of mucky gravel filled snow progressed to field upon field of glistening white, frozen lakes and snow covered houses and gardens.  It was all so incredibly pretty.  

Luckily our hire car had a good heater, heated seats plus a “heated steering wheel” it was luxury.  The landscape is so different to what we are used to, really old stone buildings - farm yards with huge barns and skidoo’s in the driveways.  The wildlife crossing signs are for deer and turtles !  The architecture is like our alpine ski resorts all steep gabled roofs, angled view windows and pretty front porches.  

Many of the properties fly the red and white 11 point maple leaf flag, it really stands out.

Owen Sound is a mid size pretty town on Lake Huron in Georgian Bay and we found our airb&b using offline google maps. We stayed with a lovely couple originally from Guam, we were their first airb&b booking in fact they hadn’t  been aware of our previous nights booking, it was only when we messaged them to ask if we could move the booking forward one day ( as we had not made it out of Toronto) that they realised how airb&b worked, so we were lucky we had stayed in Toronto- it could have been awkward. 

And of course we dumped our luggage and headed straight to Wiarton 28km away. 

It’s hard to explain how cold it was.

I had packed my rip curl ski parka as a raincoat and Craig had his green volcom jacket  that is really warm, talking about it later he only brought it as it was new and he didn’t want to pack it away in storage for years. 

I had thrown in our Aldi thermals only because I thought it might get cold overnight or early mornings on the water. We had packed other warm/long sleeved shirts, beanies etc but they were contained in the 3 boxes that were still sitting in Melbourne.

We had packed our suitcases for living in Miami not -6 Canada.  We rugged up as best we could but we were not equipped for this weather. 

We located the marina and Adriana 1, her hull looked so incredibly clean she was on her stand and all we could do was look around the outside. 

Back to Owen Sound for some hot soup from Tim Horton’s for dinner. Tim Horton’s is an institution in Canada in fact the most rubbish you see anywhere has the Tim Horton distinctive red packaging with the white logo 

Friday 22nd March 2019

We met with Jack Pady the broker and Bill Wilderboer the owner,  at the marina for a look inside. We had to climb an external ladder, her cover was off so she was not cocooned like the other boats.

Bill and his wife Shani had owned her since new, they had done numerous trips as a couple but also with grandchildren and family onboard.  They had explored all over the local waterways but had also sailed further afield to USA including the ICW loop and the Bahamas. 

We knew immediately she was the one !!

We had a good inspection, her living areas were immaculate and in such good condition, her working parts, engine rigging etc was used but clean and well maintained, remember she had spent nearly every winter unused and out of the water and the water was lake water not corrosive salt water.

We spent as long as we could listening to Bills stories of his adventures but in the end the cold seeped into our bones and we had to use the cars heating accessories and then find some hot soup.

Adriana 1 was named after Bills wife, her first name is actually Adriana but she has always been known as Shoni .

In Canada just like in Australia you have to check the boat registry, Adriana was already being used so she was named Adriana 1.

We returned on the Saturday and met with Bill to go through few more things and ask a few more questions.

Bill is such a character he has recently handed over the running of his chain of real estate offices to his son but is still very busy.
Bill and Shoni are involved with their church and after 10 children they have over 40 grandchildren.  One of the other yacht owners we met at the marina described Bill as “his hero”. And if anyone knows Craig they will understand when I say “Craig could listen to Bill’s stories for hours”. 

Sunday 24th March 1019

We did it !! We put in an offer 

Adriana had originally been listed way over our budget, Craig had been looking at her for over 12 months, but always felt she was out of our price range and how the hell do you get a boat out of the Canadian Great Lakes !!

After a few phone calls between Jack Paddy the broker, Bill the owner and ourselves, we all agreed on a price.   SOLD 

We now owned a boat - on a frozen lake, in the middle of Ontario Canada.

Once we knew that we were staying in Wiarton we had to offload the expensive hire car, our lovely hosts offered us their sons car to use at a very reasonable rate, they also allowed us to stay with them for a couple of more days until we found something closer to our new - to us boat. 

Our hosts very kindly offered to coordinate the hire car drop off from the airport and drive us to their sons car.

We jumped at the offer of cheaper car hire, it wasn’t until we said our goodbyes and sat in the car, did we realise oh phew it stunk, it smelt like the son had spilt the bong water when he was cleaning out the car ready for us to use, then we realised the car was almost unroadworthy with trim hanging off and loud scraping noises when you turned the front wheels and to our horror no seat or steering wheel warmers and only a dodgy heater - but it was cheap.

We had a look around Wiarton and there are lots of holiday apartments and empty unused holiday homes (Canadians call them cottages) close to the marina.  We were optimistic we could find something within walking distance.  But it was a Sunday and everything was closed.