Today is the big day as we start an extended stay on Canada for 5 weeks or more. Yup, it will be a first for Lucky Us. We have been in Canadian waters several short periods of times during our first Loop, but as long as you do not dock or anchor, you do not have to clear Canadian Customs and Immigration. As usual, the Admiral was walking Lucky very early and captured this picture of the sunrise (photo at right).
Over night there was a big hatching of the lake flies (aka Canadian Soldiers). The photo at the left shows a large accumulation of the lake flies on the main marina office building. They did not seem to stick on the smooth metal door, but the very rough concrete blocks walls were thick with them. There was also a large accumulation on the ground of those that had been killed by flying into the light. This one photo (at left) shows thousands of them.
Lucky has developed this huge fondness for eating the lake flies. We want to have her outside while we are preparing to get underway, but since we are busy getting the boat read for departure, it is really impossible to keep her from eating them. As far as we know they are not harmful for her although, of course, we do try to discourage her from eating them... The photo at the right shows her cleaning them off of the sun screens over the windows for the lower helm station. They do not scare easily so she finds them to be easy pickings...
We departed De Tour, Michigan (photo of the marina at left) at 6:40 am after checking several hour by hour weather forecasts for both De Tour and Thessalon, Ontario, which is our destination. The forecasts were for rain after 2:00 pm and later for some possible thunderstorms, but we planned to arrive in Thessalon before 10:00 am. It sure is nice being able to watch color weather radar on the internet, and see the loop for the previous 2 hours. It was clear to us that we had a 5+ hour weather window in which to make our three hour trip. Plus we were travelling the same direction as the weather, which would increase the length of our window.
The photo at the right is a view of the Thessalon Municipal Marina as we arrived. The one story white building with a blue roof is the marina office, and the two story building just behind and to the left is a nearly new building housing the laundry, bathrooms and a lounge on the second floor. The v-shaped side on the left faces Lake Huron and is all windows. The view from the first floor lobby and the second floor lounge is excellent.
As we arrived, we were treated to a view of the lake freighter Michipicotin loading limestone aggregate at a government pier a half mile east of the marina. She is 703 feet long, and while we were securing the boat, registering with the marina and clearing Customs and Immigration, she finished loading and pulled out of port so I was unable to get a picture of her underway.
We have cleared customs and
have hoisted our courtesy flag for Canada being careful to fly it below the US flag. I reported in to Customs and Immigration by phone from the Marina, and we were assigned our number, and the number is affixed below our port and starboard side windows opposite the lower helm station. The special phone was in a doorless wooden phone booth attached to the outside of the marina office building. Amazingly enough, the phone call was free. The Admiral had gotten us US passport cards to facilitate the process. I had to give them the card numbers and answer a few simple questions, and that was all it took... Pretty simple process.
There was an additional warning sign posted at the phone booth, and I was asked if we had firearms or alcohol in one question. I was able to answer no to both parts of this question. I have given up answering with the qualifier that we do have a flare "gun" on board. That is not a lie since the flare "gun" is also referred to as a flare launcher. While I was on a role, I called the auto parts store where I had ordered the oil and filters several days ago. In about 2 hours the oil and filters were sitting on the finger pier alongside Lucky Us. We are staying here for 2 nights so my project for tomorrow is to change the oil on our two main engines.
At this point we were ready to relax a bit, and I set off with Lucky to tour the marina grounds and find her some grass for some important business. Then we were ready for lunch, and the marina staff recommended a restaurant about a mile away. The Admiral and I set off on foot hoping to see a bit of the town on the way to the restaurant. On our journey we crossed the street with the main business district, which is very convenient to the marina. About half way to the restaurant, we crossed a bridge with these marvelous baskets of flowers (photo at left). I had broiled whitefish with fries, which was very good. We are finding that the restaurants lately do not always have freshly brewed ice tea, and I must say that ice tea from an aluminum can is just not nearly as good as the real thing.
When we got back to the boat, it was time for a relaxing and much needed nap. After our naps, we went back into town to explore some more. It had a large Ace Hardware, two variety stores and several nice clothing stores that we visited. Over the course of the day, Lucky had three more walks that totaled just over 3 miles. She was a little disappointed that whenever we got to a shoreline that there was no beach with her favorite rocks, but she did find the water at the boat ramp to be very tastey... We had dinner on board Lucky Us, and after a quiet evening, it was early to bed...
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