Tuesday May 29: In the Water :-)

 After a nice (as well as productive) week and a half in Ohio, we had the perfect plan!

Turn in our rental car in Cleveland Sunday and exchange it for a car that we could drive directly to Orillia (one of our favorite places on the Trent Canal in Ontario).

This was a first as in the past we had to pick up the car in Cleveland, drive to Toronto, pick up a second car, drive both to the Toronto airport to turn the first car in (it HAD to be dropped at the airport) then drive the second car to drop off at the local rental in Orillia.

This year? They let us pick up a car in Cleveland and drop it off at the local rental in Orillia!! I don't know why Enterprise changed their policy on this but it sure made life easier for us :-)

Still shrinkwapped for winter

The plan was perfect. The execution of the perfect plan was perfect.

And then we drove out to the marina on Monday.

And were greeted with what you see at left! Guppy still nicely tucked away in the winter shrinkwrap 😞 .....

Seems it was a long cold winter up here with an emphasis on long. Last year, the marina started launching boats on April 9. This year it was May 1 due to the ice still being in the marina area until then!

We had spoken with Connie at the marina a week ago and figured that it was going to be a long shot at having the boat in the water on Monday when we arrived but even so we didn't expect to see Guppy still wrapped for winter - and a boat blocking it in!

Guppy in the water and ready to go

So we went back to town and reclaimed our mom and pop motel room for another night. It was the cutest place! A four poster bed, nice real-wood furniture - right out of the fifties! Very clean and updated bathroom with a super bathtub. We were happy :-)

Returned today and after several hours of sitting around (during which Steve returned the rental car), Guppy was ready to be put in the water!!

Now the work starts :-)

It'll take a few days to get things put away, repair the few things that we knew needed done and in general get the boat ready to live on for the next three months.

It should be a great summer!