Happy Birthday, Dear!

We were visiting the Lake Erie town of Port Dover when to my surprise, I discovered an old friend of mine, the Amherst Islander ferry, built at the Kingston Shipyard in 1955. When I lived and worked in Kingston Ontario (near the east end of Lake Ontario-250 miles east of Port Dover and a different lake!) I had ridden this ferry many times from Millhaven to Amherst Island. What was this old retired thing doing in the wrong lake? I took the picture and moved on, doing what you do in Port Dover, eating a meal of fried perch,  enjoying the excellent museum, hanging out on the beach etc.

A few years go by and by chance I meet two Port Dover residents. It turns out that the wife of the owner of Townsend Lumber of Tillsonburg bought this boat for her husband for a birthday present. No word on how it was received, but it's been at the dock ever since with a For Sale sign on it.