This is the worst time of year. It's cold, snowing, and dreary - and it's months until boats go back into the water. That's a reality if you're a boater in Canada or the Northern USA, but that doesn't make it any easier. So what to do? Going stir-crazy isn't a good option... We've been planning, of course! Looking at a couple of boat projects we can do while at home, or at least prepare, so that we can get aboard and get ahead of the game when Spring finally arrives. So lots of YouTube videos to learn how to complete some of these tasks. One is a new marine vinyl project for the upper helm bench. Jacqueline ordered the material, and has the sewing machine. Sailrite has been great for informative videos and "How-To", here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/c/SailriteDIY Also, I've been looking at the maintenance and mechanical pieces to ensure I've got the bases covered for my preventative maintenance schedule. The big installation this Spring will be the Solar Kit! I'm not smart on electrical and solar, so YouTube has been brilliant for learning. I highly recommend Jeff Cote and Pacific Yacht Systems' videos. Smart, comprehensive, and tailored for the newer boater who wants to learn....here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/c/pacificyachtsystems/videos The videos on batteries and solar are particularly good! And finally - what will 2022 look like for boating? Well, who knows?? But Jacqueline and I do know that we want to optimize our time on the water, at the Islands, or on a mooring ball. That involves adjusting our work/vacation schedules a bit, but I think it's going to pay off! The Thousand Islands is full of history, and there's always a bit more to learn every time I open a book or read an article about the area. It's fascinating, and we can't wait to explore!

You have a boat that's perfect...except for the name. Maybe it's silly, inappropriate, or is named after your Ex. Who knows, but the name needs to be changed. Simple, right? Nope. Seafarers are a notoriously superstitious lot, and there are many, many variation on how to de-name and re-name your boat without Angering the Sea Gods! There are boat-related rituals that go back to antiquity - some of them contradictory, but to appease the Deities of the Sea, it's best to follow the simple rules to ensure that your boat stays Lucky! In this video, we'll cover the historical bits, the denaming and renaming rituals, as well as the select libation for the ceremonies. It's meant to be both fun and informative! Here are some links - I quote Mr. Vigor's de-naming invocation here - https://goodoldboat.com/renaming-a-boat-how-bad-could-that-be/ Other information were taken from these sites: The Royal Museum Greenwich - https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/ship-launching-ceremonies Mentalfloss article - https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/12612/why-are-bottles-champagne-smashed-new-ships Victoria University of Wellington - http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-Bes01Reli-t1-body-d5-d2-d3.html And - if you are going to re-name your boat - Have Fun with it, and make the ritual and ceremony your own!

It's the end of 2021, and with snow on the ground and cold weather, we spent evenings reminiscing about our cruise - the take-aways, both good and bad. So, to follow are some of our key points - but the main one is to Go Outside Your Comfort Zone!!! It's both frightening and liberating. What we found is that the cruise enabled and strengthened our boating skills, because we were forced to use them every single day. And we had fun. Which was the whole point, really. The timing of our cruise fell on the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. I urge all of you to read on this topic, and contemplate the impact of the Residential School systems on the Indigenous community and our country. I'm not trying to be political, but I think this is a topic of grave importance to all Canadians. For us, being in the 1000 Islands was the perfect place to contemplate the colonial relationship with the indigenous peoples of Canada. Here's the site - https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/national-day-truth-reconciliation.html

Camelot was another great island - bigger and more to explore, with paths less well-marked (which made it more fun for Chloe than me, honestly!) While walking around we saw that friends of ours from the marina were staying at a mooring ball on the south side of the island. That looks like fun - but with Chloe, we'd definitely need to bring our tender to get her to shore to have her potty breaks. Around noon, we thought it was time to leave. The weather was perfect and it was tough to say goodbye, but rain and wind was expected the next day, and I really didn't want to dock at the marina in those conditions. So, off we went. A straight shot up the Canadian Middle Channel, then north to The Landing at Ivy Lea. Easy run, maybe 30-40 minutes. We talked a lot about the trip - what went well, and what needed improvement - but we agreed that with each day, we got better and better at docking, communicating, and handling the boat. That's a big deal. Overcoming challenges together is one of the reasons we bought Aqualibrium in the first place! I think a "Cruise in Review" video is in order to really outline the highs and lows of the trip, and things we'll do differently next year, because there will be a 2022 cruise! And so, back at the marina, where we woke up to a cold, rainy, and windy morning....it always pays to look at the weather forecasts, because we came back at the right time. What an awesome cruise!

The cruise is slowly coming to an end.... The little dock at Aubrey Island was perfect! Out of the wind, peaceful, and perfect - although taking Chloe for her last washroom break was interesting because there are a lot of rocks to negotiate as you leave the dock, and it was dark! I think puppy-dog felt that it wasn't worth taking a long walk, so she went to the end of the dock, up one or two rocks to a flat place, did her business, and turned right around to go back on board! The next day, we decided to try Camelot Island - several friends had docked there in the past and mentioned how good it was, and they were certainly correct! After a short cruise from Aubrey, we docked at Camelot and were immediately impressed - new docks, nice and wide, great facilities. And the Island is big enough to really feel as though you're exploring something. It was a great spot! This took place on 30 September, which was the first official Day of Truth and Reconciliation. It's an acknowledgement of our Canadian Government's role in the Residential School program - a policy of cultural genocide, removing indigenous peoples from their culture and homes. The very real scars are evident today, since the program only stopped a few decades ago. Jacqueline and I spent time discussing Residential Schools, the European settler/colonist relationship with indigenous peoples, and how we very literally walked in the footsteps of thousands of people over thousands of years. I'll talk about this day in another episode. But it was important to Reflect.

A bit of a late start from Confederation Basin, and a pressing need to refuel. Since we were running off of our port fuel tank, and our fuel gauges were not very operational, and even less accurate, I was estimating our consumption based on a "gallons per hour" estimate. We had looked at Kingston Yacht Club for refueling, but they were closed, so we travelled a bit further West to Portsmouth Olympic Harbour. Easy to dock and fuel, and give Chloe a quick walk. Portsmouth is right beside the infamous Kingston Penitentiary - now closed, but open for tours during tourist season - and a point of interest for any traveller. Gas is pricey. This should come as no surprise! From Portsmouth, we cruised East, passing Fort Henry as we cruised up Deadman's Bay to the Canadian Forces Base Kingston Yacht Club (which is where we had our Sea Ray docked in the 2019 season). Lots of friends still cruise out of that club! Then between Howe and Wolfe Island to the cluster of islands south of Gananoque. We settled on Aubrey Island again, because we were able to grab that single dock to the south east, and it was perfectly peaceful and quiet...Mermaid Island was in the path of the wind, and Beau Rivage's docks were full. With that, a lovely meal, a fire in a wood-burning stove, and an early night!

Milton Island was great - we had it all to ourselves, after all - but the wind shifted overnight and we had a bumpy sleep with lines and fenders squealing. Around 4:00am I got up and fixed the worst of the squeaking by putting a microfibre cloth between the line and the hull. Reduced the friction, I guess, but at least we were about to get to sleep! It was fun to walk around the island, and again, I'm always so impressed with the great condition of the park facilities. Money well spent! And then, off to Kingston. It was a short hop, and the staff at Confederation Basin were great - from letting us know the best way to get into the berth, to having a deckhand ready for us, to the clean showers and toilets at the marina. I really appreciated the security of having a key-code to access the facilities and the marina. Dinner was takeout from the Kingston Brewing Company (https://www.kingstonbrewing.ca/) and we were joined by some good friends for food and drink on board! (We aren't reimbursed or paid or gifted anything by the KBC, by the way, I just love their food!) In the video, I mention the Martello Towers, part of the defences for Kingston Harbour in the 1800s. Here is some more information if you are interested in the fortifications... https://incredible-kingston.com/martello-towers/ And, of course, Kingston itself. What a tremendous city! Come visit - I'm sure you'll love it as much as we do! Here's a site to check out - https://www.visitkingston.ca/

Day 2 started out rainy and gusty, making for a restless sleep, and me getting up far too early. But if you can't sleep, you may as well get up - so I did, and made some coffee while enjoying the approaching dawn. Options? We had plenty. Well, we really had two. Stay Put or Go Explore. By Noon we had Aubrey Island to ourselves, and while I had initially wanted to move the boat to the small dock on the East side of the Island, I realized that the wind and waves would have made for a very uncomfortable stay - so that idea was not viable. As the morning progressed, it looked like we were going to have a break in the weather....the wind was less gusty, and the rain more sporadic. What to do??? Decisions, Decisions!

Cruise 2021 Day one - we had a plan. A detailed and carefully constructed plan. A perfect plan. And we didn't follow the plan! To be fair, the weather wasn't really in our favour. We were cruising into the wind, the current was against us, and it was pretty loud for me...and for Chloe. You'll see the small whitecaps in the video as we go to Gananoque! So it was a bit of added stress, since we weren't really sure how the engines were going to perform! We intended to spend our first day on Beau Rivage, but the depth was making me very uncomfortable, so we went with an alternate Island (maybe all of 5 minutes away) called Aubrey. And it was excellent! Great trails, lots of critters for Chloe to sniff after, an Otter, and....the chance to grill a fantastic Black Angus rib-eye for dinner! What fun!

We lucked out! It seems the docks on the Islands are still pretty full, even after Labour Day. We expected to maybe cruise around and find nothing for the weekend, which would have kept us at the dock. I noticed that some friends were out, so I texted them and asked where they were and if there was a spot. They replied that they were on an Island, there were no extra spaces....BUT...they were leaving Saturday morning so if we got there around 10:00 am, we could swap spots! Tremendous! It was really windy and gusty by the time we left the marina on Saturday morning, but we got to Grenadier Island in plenty of time, swapped out the spots, and started to get settled. Some other friends contacted us, and we let them know that there was a free spot for their boat. So a great weekend was had with good friends! Chloe was the Star of the Show, and the weekend. She was constantly sniffing, tracking, and chasing any critter she could see. It was so much fun to see her so serious and alert as a Hunter! She caught nothing, by the way. On Sunday, heading back to the marina, we stopped into Huck's Marina for a fuel-up and pump-out. What a beautiful facility and really helpful staff! As the bad weather starts coming in, it's more important for us to take advantage of every weekend on the boat!

It's easy to lose track of the little things that aren't little things. Boating is new to us, so in all the preparations and making sure we get the drills down right and don't forget things (like making sure the shore power is unplugged before we leave the dock!) it's easy to forget Mother Nature and the Weather! Check the weather often - before you leave, and frequently when you're en route, and so on. We have a habit (now!) of looking for weather warnings and patterns throughout our trips. We learned that with Mzungu once, where the winds really picked up at our former marina and coming back was a bit of a struggle, and docking was a time of High Emotion where I was caught by a gust and the stern swung and I almost hit a very nice sailboat. A lot of good lessons that day! I would not want to be docking in the weather that hit us a couple of weeks ago - eventually, it will pass. Might take awhile, but I'd rather wait at a dock or mooring somewhere than try to race ahead in extreme winds and rain. So - check a couple of sites (I use Windfinder and WIndy and standard Weather Network information) and stay safe!!

We bought a kayak. It's pretty exciting because we had never owned one before, but they look really fun. Good luck finding one during the pandemic, though. Every toy gets bought pretty quickly and the stores are usually out of stock. But our local Canadian Tire (if you're not Canadian, look it up - they have some of everything!) must have received a shipment - because during a random search, there were kayaks and they were in stock! I jumped allover this and picked up a Pelican Summit 100X. Bare-bones entry-level, but still super fun! (I'm not being reimbursed for any gear reviews, by the way) For the price, it delivers what it promises - and it's only 36 pounds in weight. That's a big deal for me. Also - it's rare to see a boat under sail go through our narrow channel, (I've never seen one) but a sailboat did it beautifully. Lots and lots of wind on that day! Finally - Muskrats. We have lots of various creatures in our area - Swans, Canada Geese (aka Cobra Chickens), Peregrin falcons, turtles, many types of fish, and furry animals like mink and muskrats. One tenacious little muskrat decided our friend's boat was a perfect place for a nest and started dragging grasses into his port exhaust! Yikes!

Work never stops. In this episode, I decide to replace a broken aft bilge pump. This is a safety factor - if water is pouring in for some reason, you need functioning pumps to at least keep you afloat long enough to get to shore, or get a tow. Being under the aft cabin dresser, I spent a lot of time with my head down in the depths! Next, and at random, I decided to repair the hot water tank. It had a slight drip, the wood underneath was wet, and I was afraid that the wood would get saturated and start getting punky. After a few trips to various stores to get a replacement, I got lucky at a nearby marina and found a newer replacement. About an hour later and it was all done. And no leaks! Finally, I put a waterproof case on my Akaso camera and took the plunge, as it were. Into the river to see what I could see, and to see if there was any leakage (there wasn't!). This will be fun in upcoming videos. And Chloe made a friend!! Bella is a cockapoo being looked after by friends of our, and they came by for a quick visit. The dogs did the inevitable butt-sniffing, then started to play. It was fun to watch! A work of caution - the weather is hot and muggy and it's critical to keep your pets hydrated and out of the sun as much as possible!

All Systems are GO! We took Aqualibrium out for the first cruise of 2021. After a couple of years (thanks to COVID) our daughter visited from Alberta, so we were thrilled to see her and host her on board!! At first the intention was just to test out the engines, make a stop for a pump out and a top up of fuel, and then just explore the 1000 Islands a bit and scout out a few spots we hadn't been to before. Well, that turned into an impromptu stop at Endymion Island, where there was free dock space! After a couple of friends of ours showed up in their boats, and after a quick tally of our supplies, we decided to stay the night! - Food? Plenty! - Drink? More than enough! - Fresh Water? We didn't really have enough, but our friends loaned us 4 liters to get us through the day (and coffee the next morning!) - Batteries? That was the big question. I was running with two G31 batteries (which I had isolated), and we didn't know how long one would last...however, we had a number of battery-powered lanterns and flashlights and fans, so we minimized our use of the 12V system. Endymion has a number of snakes, and Chloe had absolutely no idea what to make of those wiggley, slithery things! She could smell them, she saw and followed them, but her Schnoodle-brain couldn't process what they were. I would have filmed the encounters, but was laughing too hard! So, a quiet evening with friends. A swim or two around the dock. A lovely dinner and drinks. And then sleep. The next morning was odd because the smoke from forest fires in Northern Ontario gave the sun a red colour. There was fog as well. I was up very early and managed to find every spider web from the dock to the park toilet. With my face. It was a bit creepy. After breakfast, and a chance for Jacqueline to try out an inflatable kayak, it was time to go back to the marina, and then home. What fun!! I will say that the National Parks are lovely, well-cared-for, and worth paying to stay at. The 1000 Islands are an absolute treasure!

"What do you do on the boat?" We get asked that a lot. And the answer is "many things!" So for the recent long weekend, we filmed various clips of the many things we do...from making meals and walking the dog, to just hanging out and puttering around. I find that working on our many projects are fun, and give a real sense of accomplishment when they're complete, mainly because this is all very new learning for me. But there are other times where you can sit back with a good book and just enjoy the surroundings. And sadly, we were on the water, but we weren't Out on the Water, if you take my meaning. Starboard engine is still giving issues and in the spirit of being better safe than sorry, we made the decision not to risk going out and having to limp back on one engine. It's maddening, really, but not much we can do until it gets fixed. So what do you do? You make the best of it, and enjoy the time you have on the boat! As I've said before, a Rainy Day on the Water is better than a Sunny Day at Work! Enjoy!

That's a hilarious title, because nothing is "final" on a boat. The work never stops, whether it's cleaning, basic maintenance, emergency repairs, and so on, and so on.... But we are getting to a point where the chaos is less, the many projects are fewer, and we feel the boat is ready enough so that we can relax on board without jumping up to do another thing. And Chloe was on board. And nervous. She knew the boat, but after almost a year (which is almost 7 dog years!) she was very unsure. After several hours, she was starting to settle down a bit. So - cleaned like crazy! Fixed exposed wiring in the engine room. Replaced toilet seals. Installed the VHF radio finally. And likely several other things I forgot to film. But our hard work is paying off. There are still some issues with the engines due to feeding both from the port fuel tank - the carbs were completely empty despite my best efforts - so it's over to the mechanic to resolve. As long as we get into our slip, we can settle in more. And have more accessible power and water.

Finally! After weeks of worry, Aqualibrium went splash late last week. Once we had the starboard fuel tank drained, we could finally start work....so much cleaning, and then a layer of anti-fouling paint, running out and marking the anchor rode, bringing all the mattresses and cushions on board, MORE cleaning, replacing the battery charger, and so on, and so on.... For painting the bottom of the boat, I will say this - it is a unique feeling to be underneath the boat, realizing that 16,000 pounds or so is sitting above you, held in position by some wooden blocks and a couple of metal stands. The mind does tend to wonder, "What if..."? Jacqueline and I were exhausted after working on the boat while she was on the hard, largely because to get on board (or bring anything on board) we had to climb a step ladder to the swim platform, then up a vertical ladder to the aft cockpit. Doing that once or twice is okay, but after 20 or more times in a day....? Our bodies hurt! But she is floating now. There is still so much work to do, and yes....more cleaning...but it is such a joy to see her on the water. This coming weekend we will stay on board, and bring Chloe! This will be fun! * and corrections from the video: - I refer to a 6:1 ratio (length of chain : water depth) for the anchor chain (the "scope"). It should really be 7:1 although apparently 6:1 is acceptable for a short stop. Regardless, at least I know what my markings signify for depth.

A few short weeks ago, things were looking great! We had done lots of preparation to get ready for Spring Launch, with all sorts of thinking and planning and dreaming about the 2021 boating season! And then we found gas in the bilge! Gas and gas fumes are dangerous and you don't mess around with that stuff! Where was it coming from??? The marina owners worked with us to figure out the source of the leak, and to figure out the next steps - it looks very much like a fuel leak in the starboard fuel tank. So - drain the tank, flush the bilge, and reassess the situation. And there might be a way to salvage the season! With the fuel tank eventually drained, we could start bashing on with getting the boat ready for launch - but time wasn't on our side! Overall, it could have been much worse. We found the leak while on the hard, which is much better than finding out when you're enjoying a leisurely cruise, or when it might be too late. Stay tuned! And wish us luck!!

This one's a bit overdue, but similar to Episode 2, here's a transition from Winter to Spring at the marina, courtesy of the webcam. It's really quite peaceful to watch the seasons change - the docks and islands stay the same, while the snow and ice eventually recede, leaving the ramp, roof, and docks bare. And finally, a couple of boats in the water and at their docks. While COVID restrictions have certainly delayed Spring Launch by weeks, it doesn't mean that the season is ruined! Even a shorter season is better than no season at all! Thanks as always to The Landing at Ivy Lea - http://www.thelandingivylea.com/ Enjoy!

Time to reminisce a bit. John talks about the first boat - a Sea Ray 280 Sundancer, and how it felt to experience boating for the first time. Luckily, learning the skills on the Bay of Quinte at the end of the 2018 season, with perfect weather and wind, sure made it a lot easier on our stress levels! It was a great boat - quick and nimble - and it showed us what boating could be like. More importantly, that season or two showed us that a cruiser wasn't what we really wanted, and led us to the Carver aft cabin. But you never forget your first!