Back in the 1970s Canada decided to add a holiday for August, which was the only month without one. Since there was apparently no obvious candidate for a name, they just called it the "August Holiday". Ya gotta love a country with a sense of humor... We picked the Starport Marina because of our very favorable experience at the Starport Marina at Lock 45, and we also wanted to be off the water for the busiest boating weekend of the season. However, rigorous honestly compels me to say that the concept of a heated pool (photo at right) is what really sealed the deal. We were regulars there in the mid afternoon, and really enjoyed the bright sun and warm water. Understandably with the short boating season not many marinas on the Great Lakes have pools so this (heated) pool was an extra special treat!
The smile on the Admiral's face tells it all. Having a fairly large pool with hardly anyone else in it really made the days here very enjoyable in spite of the many hours spent doing wash and catching up on the financials. I spent most of my time trying to catch up on the blog, and while I did not get totally up to date, I made a lot of progress. The best news of all is that the Admiral figured out how to upload pictures (very quickly) from her iPad, which will help me greatly when we are at a marina with the typical slow internet. I can do the text okay, but uploading photo from my PC with a slow connection can literally take hours.
As I said yesterday, there are no restaurant within walking or even within easy biking distance, so we are eating on the boat, working, enjoying the pool and walking a lot with Lucky. The main entrance to the marina is a drive about 200 yards long with about 30 feet of grass on both sides and then a dense forest. It is an especially good place to walk Lucky since it is also in the only official off leash area. We do not let Lucky totally loose, but we can use her 50 foot leash, which allows her to run and fetch with relative freedom.
They have a lot of doggie station with plastic bags and collection boxes, but someone with a sense of humor labelled this one in the off leash area.
...and meanwhile back at the pool. This time it is me looking happy and maybe a little annoyed (?) at the photographer (smile!). There were almost always other people at the pool, which means that we are probably not going to be able to read to each other. Somehow reading out loud amid the staccato "Marco" followed by "Polo" just does not work.
We also went to the marina store several times. The Admiral found a LED light tube to replace the 12V fluorescent bulb over the stove. It definitely is much brighter than the old bulb as well as more energy efficient. We have also continued to check out the floating mats that many boaters and cottages have. They look so useful, but the price is...
The first Starport at Lock 5 had a marvelous lounge and bathrooms, and this Starport has an exact duplicate (photo at right). The bathroom and laundry are in the one story wing across the back with the lounge having the wonderful v-shaped window wall. The design was probably taken from a wonderful house plan designed to maximize the view and natural light. We have been using the marina bathrooms more in Canada because of the exorbitant (my opinion) prices charged for pump outs. We are conditioned to $5 or even 10.00 per pump out, but in Canada we have been charged as much as $34.00 (Cdn. funds) per pump out, which converts to about $24.00 in US funds. That's just price gouging! End of rant!
Not very exciting pictures for our rest/work days, but we were pretty serious about the pool and work! So, I will end with one final pool photo that is the Admiral's favorite view of the pool (photo at left).
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