Mike and Bill at the beach
You may recall that last year, we spent 2 months at the Lake front cottage my friend Sue owns in Grand Bend, ON We cleaned, painted and slaved for them and it went so well, we came back for more “punishment” this year. God, life is hard when you have to clean or paint for a couple of hours and then walk 2 minutes down to one of the best beaches on Lake Huron to rest and work on the tan.
Unfortunately we could only spend about 3 weeks here this year so we only got to paint one more room but every little bit we do, is less for Sue and Paul to do when they come up. Not sure how anyone maintains both a house and a cottage, and still manages to enjoy the cottage without working on it the whole time they’re on vacation. I’ll stick to my little 38 ft trailer for now!
So spring started off pretty cool and cold, but it did get sunnier closer to the end of our stay and it did eventually warm up so no complaints about the weather. We didn’t work all the time either.....our friends Chris and Ian came up for one weekend and introduced us to Stand Up Paddle (SUP) boarding. Dave and I both loved it! I even managed to get the hang of it without falling in....lets just say that the VERY cold waters of Lake Huron were good incentive for me to keep balanced on the board. No way was I going in and boy it didn’t take long for my legs to cramp up the first time I tried it. Once I got a feel for it, I managed to relax a bit while still staying vertical. Keeping your balance on these things is harder than it looks, it’s a great core workout!
Dave, did alright, managed to stay up long enough to get a feel for it but he didn’t stay as dry as I did. :-) But he still enjoyed it and it was enough of a first experience to determine he needed a bigger, more stable board. So we bought Ian’s old beginner windsurfer board along with the sail (it’s just the right size to fit in the trailer’s garage). It also works great as a SUP board and is so stable it would probably hold the both of us.
You know it’s no fun to do some of these water sports alone so we had to get me an SUP board too. Space in the trailer is limited so we found an inflatable SUP board online that doubles as a kayak. It’s pretty neat, when it’s deflated, it all packs into a bag and when it’s inflated, you’d never know it was full of air. Really sturdy. Too bad we didn’t have it with us while we were at Grand Bend but we did manage to go back and try it out on Canada day when Sue and Paul were at the cottage. Works great for me as an SUP board and both Dave and I should be able to use it as a Kayak. Looking forward to getting in some more beach time to play with our new toy!.
Check out the Grand Bend pictures from this year.
If you’re interested, here’s more pics of the cottage and the area from our stay last year.