Many boaters are anxious to get their season started, but there's still a lot of ice on the lakes in the region.
A sturdy steel ship called the Indian Maiden pushed its way through chunks of floating ice on Georgian Bay on Monday afternoon, carrying people and supplies between Christian Island and Cedar Point.
Cpt. Mike Cass says the ferry broke its own path across the channel on Friday and the passenger ferry is now officially in service.
“It's a vital link for the community to have the boats going, we can withstand more wind than the hover craft or the scoots,” he says. “Transportation is a lot easier rather than hauling stuff off the shoreline to the hover craft and loading it in and getting less passengers.”
The ferry is about the only vessel operating on Georgian Bay now besides Coast Guard ice breakers that have been pushing their way from port to port over the past two weeks.
Commercial shipping is slowly getting started, but recreational boaters will have to wait a little longer for their season to begin because most harbours and boat launches are still ice covered.
The latest satellite images show Georgian Bay is still about 50 per cent ice covered with most of the ice along the eastern shore. The ice is broken up outside Collingwood Harbour, but the ice hasn't moved inside the sea walls.
Mike Campbell was one of the few sailors at the Collingwood Yacht Club on Monday getting ready for launch day, which is scheduled in about four weeks. He says there is plenty of work to get done before the boats can go in the water, but some warmer weather is needed first.
“We haven't even touched our boats this year and we are into April, so I would say we are well behind. We have docks to put in, that means repairing docks, resetting anchors from the docks, the booking all up to the attachments to land,” he says.
Back at Cedar Point, Cass expects the ice to break up quickly now that a channel has been cut; he hopes to have the larger car ferry operating by the end of the month.
“We need to back it out to swing the turn, where this one I can spin it around in the harbour.”
While the ferry is up and running, some snowmobiles are still traveling across the ice at Cedar Point. Police, coast guard and the ferry captain are all advising ice users that conditions are changing rapidly.
