What a fabulous day we had despite the blustery weather! Our second annual Otter Lake Canada Day Boat Parade was awesome with 15 incredibly decorated boats participating. A fun and festive time was had by all; from the crews on the boat entries to those watching from both water and dock.
Thank you to Jeff and Deb Smith, owners of the Otter Lake Marina, for generously donating 2 adult sweatshirts as prizes, as well providing a space for our judging panel on the marina docks.
A big shout out to Dianne and Dave Amy for handling the registration on their pontoon boat before the parade. Another big acknowledgement to our judges, Kim Karges, Brent Osborne and Denise Exler. Our lead boat was captained by Nicole Mailloux and Brian Hindley, while the end of the parade line was held by John Exler.
The judges had a very tough time choosing the winners as there were so many incredible entries. It was so amazing to see the amount of effort and imagination that went into decorating your boats. But here are the winners:
Most Creative
Boat #15
Al Hanks and Crew
Winner of an Adult Sweatshirt – courtesy of Otter Lake Marina
Most Otter Lake Spirit
Boat #16
Morris Eddy and Crew
Winner of an Adult Sweatshirt – courtesy of Otter Lake Marina
Most Patriotic
Boat #22
Kevin Westra and Crew
Winner of an Adult Sweatshirt from Otter Lake Marina – courtesy of OLRA
Best Overall
Boat #13
The Link Family
Winners of a $100 Otter Lake Marina gift certificate – courtesy of OLRA
Recipient of Otter Lake Boat Parade Trophy
Thank you to our photographers, Terry McGlade and Gerry Doyle. If you would like a picture of your boat in the parade, please let Gerry know and include the entry number in your email to gjdoyle@me.com. Many other photos of the day are in our website photo Galleries, our FaceBook page for OLRA Otter Lake as well as will be in upcoming newsletters and email updates.
Our beautiful historic trophy awarded to Best Overall was originally used as the trophy in the Otter Lake Boat Regatta in the 1990’s. How cool is that! Many thanks to Bev Milligan and Roland Weinman for donating.
We welcome any constructive feedback on how we can improve the parade for next year.
Many thanks for being part of our wonderful day. We look forward to having a bigger and less windy event next year!
OLRA Boat Parade Committee : Denise Exler, Nicole Mailloux, Gerry Doyle and Kerry Mueller