News from Burlington Bay

When 81-year-old Marat Shalychev moved to Burlington two months ago to live with his daughter, he fell in love with Lake Ontario.

(published in Hamilton Spectator and Burlington Post on 27 July 2021)

The kindness of strangers makes 'last big' dream come true for Burlington newcomer

“He said that his last big dream in life is to go sailing while he still can,” said Jenya Tate.

So, his daughter posted an inquiry on Facebook about renting a sailboat with a crew. The next thing they knew they were sailing the waters of Burlington Bay with the commodore of the Burlington Sailing and Boating Club, Scott Lowell.

Lowell, his wife Cathy, and two other club members, Hub and Kelly Sinnock, organized “this amazing trip” on July 25 that made her father’s dream come true, said Tate.

The experience of leisurely cruising the lake for more than two hours, watching a race in progress and learning the ropes of sailing, will be a wonderful memory for her dad and the family, as she and her husband Charles Divita were invited along, she said.

Shalychev, a native of Ukraine, “loved it.”

“He was very grateful, just being there, experiencing it, it was so incredible for him.”

Amid all the negative news these days, the Lowells’ and Sinnocks’ gesture was “kind and supportive to complete strangers,” said Tate.