I have a little mental trick I use to get me through non-boating season: 1. My favourite day of the off-season is Dec. 21, after that day every day of winter is getting longer, and therefore warmer as the sun creeps northward towards boating season! (You can actually FEEL the days lengthening!) 2. My SECOND most favourite day of the off-season is around mid-January in Ontario when the Toronto Boat Show opens and we can all bask in the almost sunny artificial lights and emerse ourselves in all things summer boating-related. 3. We make sure to take a week long vacation (really you need 10-14 days to properly unwind) in a sunny location on the water, ideally bareboat sailing in the BVIs. (Ideally towards Feb./Mar. when we're at wits end with winter - another treat to look forward to helps stave off the depression.... 4. When we come back IT'S TIME TO START PREPPING THE BOAT FOR LAUNCH on the last weekend of April! (Usually I have a winter project to do in the basement like making a new folding table for vessel.) April becomes a desperate juggle to leverage the warmest days for bottom-painting and polishing. The Boat Show is hugely therpeutic because it is possible to start early in the day and intersperse seminars and lectures with chats about boats and equipment of every possible description. Sadly there are many fewer sailboats on display than in days gone by, but it's always a pleasure to poke around in them, as well as check out a few of the enormous 'stink-pots' (as we sailors call them ;-) to see what the folks with money to burn on fuel are living like. The new sign-up system to get onto the larger boats is a big improvement over standing in endless lines that sometimes used to restrict you to an entire day in lineups, with no time to wander around. GO TO THE SHOW and experience a bit of summer in the midst of winter!