Well….. 2020 sure has been a different year to say the least !

With the boat moored in the Point Roberts Marina, as soon as the US / Canada Border closed our access to the boat was cut off.

The mass exodus of boats actually started before the border closure but we decided to “wait and see”.

Like many others, we waited for several Months to see if the Border would re open but finally on July 3rd we had MV Tolly Roger moved into Canadian waters.

We didn’t have much choice on the day they moved the boat and as it turned out it was a cold and rainy day but at least we had our boat back!

We were quite lucky to find a slip at Captains Cove Marina

Now we could finally get cleaning and getting the boat ready for the season!

I’ll spare you the details but lets just say despite having the boat fully ready to go for our now annual cruise to Desolation Sound….. “Life” got in the way and we had to cancel.

We did finally get out for a week at the end of August and included attending the Canadian Tollycruisers non-rendezvous .

Fast Forward a bit to the end of September and it was time to haul the boat for some long overdue maintenance.

On the list was Bottom Paint, Zincs, Cut Polish and Wax, an Insurance Survey, a minor Fiberglas Repair and a new Boot Stripe. While “on the hard” we decided to replace the house bank batteries as it’s a lot easier to handle these in the yard rather than at the dock.

Here are a few pictures:

New House Bank Batteries are US Batteries supplied by Hub Power in Burnaby

I was going to sand and re-paint the boot stripe like I had a few times before until I discovered that Kickplate Graphics could save me all that effort and apply a vinyl stripe!

We are very pleased with the vinyl stripes. If you look closely you will notice that we also had him replace the 1″ stripe just below the windows.

It’s great to have all these projects completed.

I had great plans to get all this done in the Spring but the events and circumstances this year certainly changed that plan.

We are definitely looking forward to a better boating year in 2021 !!!

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Additional Notes

First a big thank you to everyone for their kind comments and compliments about the boat. (I had no idea how many people actually read the blog)

I’ve had several people asking how we had the boat moved in Canada so I thought I would add it to the post.

The process is actually quite straightforward.

There are a few “boat brokers” who have a business that can still operate in the US and Canada. We used Westwind Marine. They operate the repair/haul out business in Point Roberts and also have a Boat Brokerage Business. One of their employees moved the boat from Point Roberts to Steveston (about 20 nautical miles) and cleared Canada Customs at the public dock.

After Customs had inspected the boat, Peggy drove him back to the Point Roberts border where he walked across. Phil and I then took the boat about 7 miles up the river to Captains Cove Marina. Easy. Not inexpensive but all-in-all we repatriated the boat and with limited choices we felt this was our best option