It’s a bit odd writing a blog a year late, but 2019 was an odd year. (2020 would prove to be a great deal odder, but that’s a different story).
2019 was to be the year of living in a dizzying number of places.
True North III was still tucked up in her shrink wrap in Loyalist Cove by the time January saw us spending 4 days on an Ontario farm owned by friends who wanted a winter getaway, babysitting 45 chickens and a dozen or so barn cats. We collected lots of eggs every day and didn’t lose one chicken to a coyote. The timing was such that we had to survive three of the coldest days of the year, complete with blizzards and freezing water pipes, but all those omelettes kept us warm.
February saw us losing our rented apartment in Toronto where we had been living since selling our house there in 2016. This rental was our “half-way” house for us to use as a base and cruise on the boat in summers – which we did, in 2016, 2017 and 2018 – while we waited for our new condominium, just down the road, to be built. Completion was scheduled for September 2017.
Wrong.
In fact, the condo – as of this writing in March 2020 – is still not quite ready. (Of course, the pandemic has affected that as well, but that, again, is part of the different story).
So: Back to February 2019. Since the condo completion date had recently been pushed back to September or October we decided to skate around the intervening 7 or 8 months by travelling here and there til we could live on the boat after we had launched in May. First, we moved out of the apartment and put all our stuff in storage. Easier said than done, but done all the same.
After a brief stay with Michel’s sister Wendy and husband Bill in Campbellville, Ontario, we spent most of the month of March in Mexico, where it was very hot, and the guacamole and margaritas outstanding.
We returned to Canada at the end of March and stayed with poor Wendy & Bill again while we checked on True North III and found that the waters in the Great Lakes and the St Lawrence were rising again, to levels even higher than in 2017 when the flood was supposed to be “once in a hundred years”. As a local mayor was saying: “That hundred years passed very, very quickly”.
We scurried back to Campbellville and packed our bags again: we were off to the UK for most of April….which I’ll post soon in the Spring chapter.
Hi Stephen,
So good to get another one of your blogs, to see what you and Michel have been up to. Mexico looked fabulous, particularly the Mayan ruins – had a good laugh at the safety inspector comment! Looking forward to getting the follow-up ones to see how the rest of the year played out. Greg and I sailed for most of last summer – it has been Greg’s dream to sail the Great Lakes, so it was 3 months on the boat. What a great life! We spent a fair bit of our time in Georgian Bay and the North Channel. Hoping to get back there again.
Cheers!
Margaret
Hi Margaret,
That’s great that you got up to the North Channel and Georgian Bay – for 3 months!. They are magical cruising grounds and it is/was our aim to head back up there this summer and to base the boat up there for a few years. We’ll see whether or not that is even possible this year. Stay well and all the best to you both.
Stephen & Michel
So enjoyed your moving around pictures and stories from here to there. Your like is always so very interesting.
Hi Dianne:
Good to hear from you again. Hope all is well with you and yours in the “new normal”. I do hope I can get back to those Islands this year.
Stephen
You guys are amazing! Well done.
Wonderful! I have been to Mérida and seen the Mayan ruins there too – quite fascinating!
Hi Cathy:
Good to hear from you again – and we hope you’re all safe in Ottawa. We’ll see what happens with the boat this year – maybe nothing. We’re “on the hard” at Toronto Outer Harbour marina.
Stephen & Michel