What's bugging you?

An entomologist would be happy as a clam (at high tide) here. As Jon mentions, there are all kinds of bugs. An innumerable variety of flies which you have to swat away because some can take a chunk out of you, and a wide variety of buzzing and hopping insects. The white of the deck seems to draw them like a fly-strip. Some appear to be flying by and stop in for a rest. I saw a really nice dragonfly, and a Japanese beetle- actually very pretty with bright fluorescent red wings, a black and white spotted petticoat, and mean looking jagged legs. The scourge of roses, I'm glad that bug hasn't made it to California yet. The big fuzzy yellow bumble-bee looking thing finally sent me below when it landed on my arm.

Jon forgot to mention that the customs booth was absolutely infested with spiders of all sizes. Let me explain: when you cross the border between Canada and the U.S., which runs roughly through the middle of Lake Ontario, you have to clear customs before going ashore. In Canada, it usually involves a phone call from the boat. In the US, it involves going and making a phone call from a phonebooth type building equipped with a video phone, at least that's what's at the Youngstown Yacht Club. These eastern spiders are really active, especially at night, and since we arrived about dusk, the booth was just squirming with them. Spiders of all sizes- half-dollar to tiny, zipping around, and trying to drop on you. Just awful! I had to hold my passport under some kind of camera below the phone, and I could barely do it long enough before I had to escape from a particularly large one that looked like he wanted my arm for dinner. The customs agent laughed and said he should send someone out to clean it out.

A standard piece of boating equipment is a can of bug killer. The instant you arrive at a dock, the spiders (they can swim), start crawling up your dock lines, and you have to zap them to slow them down. Canada isn't as "green" as I expected.