For the past 20 years that we’ve lived in Atlantic Canada I’ve struggled to find a cottage rental that is on a fresh water lake. Growing up in Ontario, where there’s nothing but fresh water lakes, it’s a comfortable swimming hole for me (I love to frolic)  and I love salt water to swim in, don’t misunderstand me, but I also like a body of water that stays where I left it.

About 3 years ago I finally found a rental that I thought would suit. It was on the ocean, so salt water was a given, and that’s fine, but the pictures showed a beach that looked perfect. The photos even showed young families frolicking by the seashore, so I booked it.

My daughter and her 2 young children came up to stay and we wasted no time getting our beach adventure underway. The shoreline was across a narrow country road and through a field of tall grass but it was a short walk so we packed up our picnic and donned our inflatable toys and started through the grass. When we emerged onto the shoreline we were shocked to see the beach was gone. The lovely lapping shoreline was about 200 feet away and the ground in between was mud. Ahha,,,,,, so I didn’t factor in tides.

We walked along the muddy under-beach for a bit but as it was too wet to sit on our towels and too muddy to play we soon trudged back to the cottage. I found a sprinkler in the shed and we turned that on for the children to play in, and while they seemed no less content, I felt short changed (where’d the water go?) And how’d they get that picture in the advertisement, night cameras? Who frolics in mud?

I noticed a poster on the wall in one of the main living areas that listed tide levels and schedules and realized, only for the first time, it was going to require some strategizing to coordinate our ‘frolic’ time with nature. (I hate a holiday that’s work)

Interestingly I found over the next 2 weeks that tides really don’t care about frolic time – they do their own thing. And because the timing for our beach adventures had to work around nap times, we really didn’t see much ‘beach’, accept from a distance, so while we ended up having a wonderful vacation (it’s all about the people) it wasn’t the seaside holiday I had envisioned…..so my search continued. (and I had my work cut out for me) They don’t call Nova Scotia “Canada’s Ocean Playground’ for nothing, because despite the fact that there are fresh water lakes inland, they are largely uninhabited and those that are built up are carefully guarded.

It’s taken me the better part of 20 years to find a cottage rental that’s on a fresh water lake and I can hardly wait because this time I know when I go to the beach each day, it’ll be exactly where I left it, and that’s how it should be…..stupid tides.