Day two

Clearing Customs into Canada is always interesting and today was no exception. About 20 minutes from the Bedwell Customs Dock Chris saw a patrol boat approaching our port side with blue lights flashing.


We stopped and the agents ran us through the usual questions; why are you coming to Canada? How long will you be in Canada? Are you traveling with any other boats? What will you be doing while you are in Canada? Do you have firearms on board? Why don’t you have firearms on board, how do you plan on protecting yourselves? (We found this last question rather disturbing. Since when do we need to protect ourselves in Canada….?) Anyway, the agents instructed us to proceed to the custom dock for check in and disappeared as fast as they had appeared. We had all of our paperwork in order, passports, health certificate for Max, no more than the allowable amount of liquor, no objectionable fruits or veggies, and NO firearms to declare. Within minutes we were tied to the dock and Chris as the captain of the vessel headed up to the customs office with notebook in hand while the crew, Max and I, waited dutifully onboard. When I saw Chris returning I thought we were surely good to go and began preparing to cast off the lines. Instead, Chris informed me that Canada no longer allowed “foreign soil” into the country and that we must remove the three large planters of herbs and flowers we had on our back deck. ( In reality, the same large planters that we have had on the boat and all over Canada for the past three years! ) Last year in addition we had an enormous tomato plant on the deck, a coffee plant upstairs and several house plants in the cabin, no problem. Lucky for me all of my house plants were still at Terri and Don’s house this year, but we had to leave everything else behind.

The funny thing …. Some of the succulents and soil in one of the planters I dug up in Canada last year and took back to the US! That I could probably be arrested for.