We settled into our new home, Craig took over Heathers kitchen and cooked some amazing meals and we were treated like family.  Craig introduced Todd to dim sims Canadians have not embraced this delicacy like we do.
As soon as the season opened, we walked up the hill to the local fish shop and bought some Whitefish for fish and chips, whitefish is the equivalent to our flake.  A big hit was the steak and Guinness pie, for Craig and I the highlight was bowls of ice cream after dinner and house made fudge and popcorn.

The house was a constant 23c and was so cosy and comfortable.

Craig had a constant companion in the kitchen, Izzy was ever hopeful of a dropped piece of chicken but she was partial to raw veggies as well. Todd and Heather were also never far away when Craig was cooking.

On about the 2nd night we were invited along to watch Heather play her weekly girls only curling competition, the girls were so welcoming and allowed us to have a go … I didn't know  that they wear a slip on slider on one foot and a slip on grippy sole on the other, these slip ons go over their normal shoes, next time your watching the curling on Tv check out the way they scoot across the ice.  My impression is that lawn bowls is the summer version of curling, they play ends and have a skip and the stone turns as it slides just like bowling balls have a bias.

I must admit I could not work out if the sweeping actually made any difference, but it seems to be an integral part of the game.  Our arrival at  Heather and Todd’s coincided with the end of their playing season and we were invited to the clubs end of year dinner and awards night, the food was lovely.  We had oven baked chicken, mashed potatoes, Caesar salad plus a spinach salad w mandarins, mixed veggies bread rolls w butter and for dessert apple & strawberry pie or blueberry pie prepared and served by the wife of the marina manager. We knew a few people there so felt quite at home.
Check this out the curling club has a mixed social competition, now that marijuana is legal they are embracing the bong.

Another social event I was invited to was a fashion show put on by a local boutique as a fundraiser for a local charities group, they were fundraising to help set up a skate park to give local youth something to do. It was good fun and its interesting to see other communities even on the other side of the world, all struggle with the same issues.

It was coming to the end of the Winter sports season, we enjoyed watching The Toronto Maples, go through the preliminary final rounds on Tv, Craig went to watch Todd and his friend Bill play ice hockey a few times, the kids here have grown up ice skating and Craig could never quite get over their skills on the ice.

As we waited for the snow to disappear time seemed to go so slowly mostly because we were waiting but also because we were not working and it being too cold to do much more than potter around for an hour or so on board Adriana, the cold would seep right into your bones no matter how many layers of clothes we wore, it was like hanging around in a commercial cool room. 

It snowed on and off, some mornings we would wake up and there would be a fresh blanket of snow over everything, the sun would come out to a beautiful day with stunning blue skies,  or it would rain and it was cold and miserable, but eventually the snow started to melt.

We returned to Wiarton on the Monday only to find most of the shops and services close on the Monday’s too during the off season. 

We called into a real estate office but they do not handle the cottages. We called a few phone numbers listed on the outside of buildings and chatted to anyone who showed any interest in us.

I had noticed that the local lolly shop did airb&b and we wondered, if they didn’t have any bookings, they might be able to do something for the weeks before the summer season started.  We tried going in to ask but they were also closed.

It was about this time we had noticed the local Foodland supermarket sold hot takeaway food and coffee for $1.00.  
So off we went for a bowl of hot Chilli soup and a bread roll.  The first time we had bought soup and bread rolls from them we hadn’t noticed the sitting area and ate in the smelly car but we soon cottoned on to the warm dining area with free Wi Fi and a bathroom.  The soup was hot and tasty they also do fried chicken and hot chips so Craig was extra happy. 

To make contact I had to go through airb&b and enquire about a pretend booking.  airb&b automatically block phone numbers and email addresses so it was looking impossible to get through,  I received a reply,  yes.  it was the lolly shop they messaged " we are home - at the rear of the shop why don’t you call in".

We entered into a lovely garden where we were greeted by a man in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, this was Todd, we were to learn that this is Todd’s uniform Summer and Winter,  he made me feel colder just looking at him. 

We were invited inside to a lovely cosy apartment under Northern Confections.  Todd is a born and raised Bruce Peninsula local, Heather hails originally from Nova Scotia, they purchased the building approx 5 years ago and as Todd is a trained confectioner they opened their lolly/ice cream and coffee shop. It’s a very cute shop and they sell the best maple syrup covered popcorn and maple syrup fudge ever,  Craig who has now admitted to buying a little square of fudge every time he went  to the  mini mart  in Cowes, was beside himself. 

There are 2 apartments above the shop that Heather airb&b's over Summer but rents to doctors from the local hospital over the quiet Winter months, both top apartments were being used.  But they had a spare room and we were very welcome to move in!!

As we all found it difficult to talk money Heather said she would txt us an amount.  As we were driving back to Owen Sound we received a txt with a very reasonable rate, we said yes.

It was a bit weird driving away from the Owen Sound airb&b in their sons car, Canadians are very trusting.

We piled our belongings into the bedroom, the bed was really comfortable, the house was lovely and warm, a constant 23c and we had a new friend in Izzy.

Izzy is a  Poodle cross Bichon, she is a rescue dog that  had her back broken when she was a puppy. Heather spent months doing physio on her legs and got her walking again, she now runs around almost as good as if nothing had happened to her, she is very cute and very loved.

Our first weekend in Wiarton -  it dumped down snow, really heavy snow, the snow did not stop for 2 days solid.... we still went out walking and even went to a Rotary fundraiser on the Sunday, it was at an Elk Farm that collected processed and produced maple syrup. 

We were actually very lucky to be in this area at this time of year as maple syrup production was in full swing and we were given a few jars of maple syrup from various people we met along the way including a 2litre bottle from Bill Adianas now previous owner.

The trip to the elk farm was an adventure it was only a 10 minute drive but in the heavy falling snow it seemed to take forever, we slid off the road at one point but luckily Craig didn’t miss a beat and guided the car back on to the road without stopping and with no damage. Thank goodness, if we had had to stop and wait for help we would have froze we were very unequipped for adventuring out in the snow.  

I had bought a pair of cheap $15 boots that I discovered on that day they were not waterproof, everyday from then on I wore plastic bags over my socks and the boots worked a treat, I remember doing this growing up in the snow in Scotland.  Craig on the other hand was getting by with normal everyday runners. 

There is a very cute video of us on the tractor ride to the area where the activities were, we had maple syrup waffles, maple taffy, watched a two person log sawing competition, stood around a fire and learnt about maple syrup production. I thought I was going to die on the tractor ride back to the car I was so cold.

You can go to our zencrasailing Facebook page to see more...

Bill and Shoni very graciously allowed us access to Adriana so we stowed our suitcases and “summer clothes” away. Bill still had to clear out his belongings, we were very lucky to be gifted a number of useful guides and maps from Bill.

We quickly organised for Steven to send our boxes to the Marina address.  They arrived in about 10 days which was a relief as the cost to send them was over $1000.00 .  Inside was Craig’s wet weather sailing gear, some smaller tools, a stack of sailing books that Craig had treated himself to when we sold the garden supply business, we also shipped our Thermomix which we probably won’t be able to use as Canada and USA use differently ampages to Australia.

So then it was a waiting game waiting for the weather to warm up and the ice to melt. 

We had one particular part of a park that we would visit most days to check the progress, it seemed to take forever but in reality it was less than a month before we saw the ice melt completely.

We walked most days and wondered at nature awakening from its Winter sleep to blossoming spring. The Bruce Peninsula had experienced up to -20C over Winter.

We had to pay for Adriana which proved to be harder than it should have been.  We had most of the money in a Wells Fargo US account that we planned to transfer to pay for the boat.  The problem was transferring money from US to Canada and we were Australian and there was no Wells Fargo branch we could access.  Eventually we worked out a way to manage this.  It it involved us transferring money to Kelly the American broker who then transfer it to Jack, the Canadian broker who then paid Bill plus we had to split the payments due to daily limits.  I was very stressful having our money out there in cyberspace for what seemed like forever.  Then we had the same problem with the payment from Australia to Canada but eventually all monies were transferred and on the 29th March 2019 we settled and we finally owned Adriana 1.  

having a celebratory champagne with Todd and Heather

The next issue was that we wanted to register her as an Australian vessel.  To get our registration we had to wait for the Canadian registration cancellation to come through, we needed to have the bill of sale, forms had to be completed with things like hull measurement, tonnage and mast to bottom of keel measurement. We had to have a Public Notary sign the forms.  We were lucky the lawyer in the practice up the road from Northern Confections was also a public notary and he agreed to sign them for us for $25.00 but said “no charge” after he had completed the signing so we left the $25 with Todd and Heather to run a coffee tab for him and his lovely receptionist who is his wife.  

In Australia before we left we had to pay $200 (and that was half of what he should have charged us) for a Public Notary to sign forms on the closure of property we sold in the USA, we had to use him twice.

We posted off the originals to Australia and crossed our fingers they would arrive quickly.

I had sent off an anniversary card, a couple of birthday cards and a couple of packages of treats to our boys, when we first arrived in Canada and they actually never arrived in Australia. so I was rather nervous of the Canadian Postal service.

We had to find international health insurance, this was highlighted when Craig had a bout of gout, he is on medication and the medication required a back up dosage, so after about  4 days of pain we headed to the local doctor, who worked out of the local hospital. Well we were stopped in our tracks it was going to cost us up to $500 to see the doctor then we would still have to get the prescription filled, Craig knew what medication he required.  

We had walked there and Craig was in a lot of pain, he nearly cried.

After talking to Heather we found out there was a walk in clinic in Owen Sound that us “out of country folk” could visit at a cost of $50, woo hoo, we did have our original travel insurance but really all we needed was to have a prescription filled. The doctor was very thorough and Craig was in there for almost half an hour, the doctor went through the problem and upped his dosage.  The local chemist was also incredibly thorough, she even phoned Craig to check he understood the medication.

We wore our Aldi thermals every day and night for the first three weeks.  As we knew the weather would warm up and we would not need “snow gear “ we were a bit reluctant to invest too much money in really thick winter clothes.  

I was offered by Sue one of Heathers friends that she would purchase some clothes from the shop she worked in that was closing down, then with her staff discount the price was even lower, so through Sue I acquired 2 pairs of lovely thick fleecy leggings, 2 nice thick cream jumpers and a puffer jacket, I also picked up a few pieces from the local thrift shop.

I would say we collected about a dozen food containers, a chopping board, ice block trays and even a cocktail shaker for $2.00 from the Local Salvation Army op shop in town. Adriana had been purchased with a fair amount of kitchen items but we also did a few trips in the bong mobile to Walmart and Canadian Tire to help fit her out.

Craig bought electric tools, Allan keys, tapes, sandpaper, wrenches, hammer, etc, mostly the same items that we had given away or stored back home.  We did need to invest in imperial tools such as tape measure and wrench set as Adriana was American built and we required tools in inches and feet to work on her.

While we had the car we did one big grocery shop $500 worth of cans of soup, baked beans, canned veggies, pasta sauce, rice, pasta, condiments, cleaning products, toilet rolls etc.  all those things like salt and paper worchestir sauce, tomato sauce we had to start from scratch.  

We held on to the bong mobile for a couple of weeks but it really was a bomb and felt unsafe, we didn’t want it to break down or fall apart on us so we delivered it back to Owen Sound.

We had the very generous offer of using Todd and Heathers car if we needed it and as we felt we had done the bulk of the provisioning and the larger items, we were happy to walk back and forth from the supermarket, hardware etc.

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.

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.

We had to return our dodgy hire car back to Miami and catch a 6.50am flight to Canada so we decided to take our time driving back, have a sleep in the car and use the dealers drop box for the car hire keys on our way to the airport.

It was raining and rather cool, little did we know putting on a windcheater was nothing compared to what we had ahead of us. 

We rearranged our suitcases, we pulled out our few warm clothes which were really only what we had worn to the airport leaving Melbourne. We put on socks and shoes and headed back down the highway to Miami.

Picture this it’s 4am we are in the back lots of Florida we had passed scrap metal yards and dodgy “we will cash you pay check” offices, the garbage trucks were the only vehicles on the road.  We have booked a taxi and we are waiting and I hear “mate any spare change for a coffee” and again I’m picturing us getting robbed and being left standing with nothing, but the person wandered off, we genuinely didn’t have a nickel we’d used all our change on coffee and donuts on the drive down. The taxi seemed to take forever, it really was quite scary, talk about being aware of your surroundings and not letting yourself get into vulnerable situations.

We made it to the airport, through customs and border security without any drama.

20th March 2019

Our flight was Miami to New York, New York to Toronto. Total time with layover 7hours.

It was so exciting to see New York City from the air, the lovely young man sitting at the window seat allowed me to lean over and take some photos, we didn’t see the Statue of Liberty as we flew in on the wrong angle.

The New York airport departure lounge is the busiest one I’ve ever seen, everyone looked so interesting and the accents !!

In the Us and Canada people can take their pets on flights that’s why I could see people with their little dogs sitting on their laps.

Onwards and upwards 

So after what to us seemed like a lifetime but was really only 5 days we flew into Toronto.