Ray and Deb's Great Loop Cruise

2010 SEPT 4-16

2011-04-16T11:13:00.001-07:00

2010 AUG 23-SEPT 3

2011-04-16T09:20:00.001-07:00

2010 AUG 11-23

2011-04-16T08:26:00.000-07:00

2010 AUG 1-10

2010-08-26T04:07:00.000-07:00

2010 JULY 18-31

2010-08-03T05:17:00.000-07:00

At the end of our last post, we had just visited Mystic Seaport Museum at Mystic, CT. We traveled to Wickford, Rhode Island and stayed at this marina. We rode our bikes around downtown Wickford. Paul, the older fellow running the marina, asked where we were going and we said we were headed to Maine before heading to Florida. He urged us to get up to Maine and get out because the weather would turn cool and the water could get rough and it could get foggy. The next morning we decided to make our way towards Maine bypassing many ports, thinking we would catch the ports we were missing on our way down.

So our next stop heading towards Maine was Onset, MA. It is located on the southern end of the Cape Cod Canal. This canal allows vessels to bypass going way out and around Cape Cod.

Above and below are Onset Bay in the morning. Not much of a town here but we did manage to ride our bikes around and see what was there.

Entrance to the Cape Cod Canal. There are 3 bridges on the canal and the first one is a railroad bridge.

Below is the northern end of the canal where it opens up into the Atlantic again. From here Boston is just 40 miles to the northwest, but we headed basically 60 miles straight north to Gloucester.

The entrance into Gloucester. Everyone has heard of Gloucester, MA. It's mostly a commercial fishing port.

This is a picture looking across from the marina where we stayed at Gloucester.

We stayed at this marina.

We had to back the boat in past the red striped boat on the left, making a left turn while backing up and backing into the slip. It was difficult because the fairway that I was backing into was narrower than the length of our boat. Below Live Wire in her slip - whew, no scratches. Since we entered saltwater in the Hudson, we have encountered tides. The further north we get, the greater the tidal heights. Here at Gloucester, it must have approached 12 feet. I was standing next to Deb in the picture below when I took the picture of our boat above. Later that day, this floating dock and our boat was almost even with the fixed dock we were standing on.

Downtown Gloucester. Once we entered Long Island Sound, between Long Island and the mainland, we started seeing multi-colored floats, sporadically, in the water. The further north we get, the more prevalent they become. They are about the size of a grapefruit, and at first I didn't know what they were for, but it didn't take us long to figure out that they were at the end of the line of a number of crab pots. From Gloucester north, there were thousands of these. I couldn't drive the boat straight for very long, I was constantly dodging these floats.

They have a nice memorial here in Gloucester for all the lost fishermen dating way back. They have a series of placards with all the mens' names.

Below is a nice beach for the kids at one of the parks.

Brad and Rich must have been in Gloucester on tour with their Strokers band.

Above is a shot, across the harbor, of the marina where we stayed. We were sitting here having seafood for supper.

Gloucester is on the southern side of a point of land. There are 2 ways to head north from here, one being a canal and the other is to go 10 miles out around. We chose to go out around, both going up and coming down.

These 2 lights are on that point just north and east of Gloucester at Cape Ann.

Below, the next 4 pictures, we are heading up the Piscataqua River to Portsmouth, NH.

Portsmouth is the home of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Later in this post, we met 2 couples that work at the shipyard, one being a nuclear engineer involved in refueling nuclear subs.

Below, looking up the river, Portsmouth, NH is on the left and Kittery, ME is on the right. The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is actually on the Maine side. The marina where we stayed for 2 days was just past this bridge on the right in Kittery.

We stayed here. Vinny, the harbormaster, was very helpful.

Below is a picture of the state run fuel dock at Portsmouth. We were told we could purchase cheap diesel fuel there, so I took this picture of it. The only problem was that our boat was pretty much full of fuel, so returning south from Maine, we timed it so we could be close to empty and pull in here and get fuel.

Next is a series of picture in and around Kittery/Portsmouth.

We took in Peter Pan play at the park in Portsmouth. What I consider outstanding about this play was that all participants had wireless microphones. I could actually hear clear out in the crowd what they were saying.

Below we had left Portsmouth heading for Boothbay, ME.

A couple of pictures of the many lighthouses along the shoreline.

Entrance to Boothbay Harbor is to the right of the lighthouse below.

Next 7 pictures are of Boothbay Harbor.

Stayed here at Brown's Wharf Inn for two nights. The town of Boothbay is a great stop, nice quaint town, lots of shops, very touristy.

Deb had lobster at Boothbay Lobster Wharf.

When I picture Maine, I picture it as foggy and rainy like in the picture below.

We left Boothbay and headed back south. It was the 26th of July and we needed to pick up our Aunt Lil and Uncle Jim on the 4th of August in Boston. We had bypassed a number of ports between Boothbay and Boston so we thought we should not continue north.

Entering Portland, ME's harbor.

Below, many of these ports have old forts; some were constructed and never used. Portland had several of them, two that we could see from the marina where we stayed.

Next series of pictures are in and around Portland.

The docks at Spring Point Marina where we stayed.

Sitting on the back of our boat here at Portland, this Liberian oil tanker came into the fuel depot dock just to our left and offloaded in 24 hours.

Below is the primary lighthouse guarding the entrance to Portland's harbor. We passed very close to it heading south that morning.

The marina where we stayed at Portland, ME - Spring Point Marina.

We wanted to stay at Kennebunkport, so we could stop by and visit with the Bushes, but quite frankly many of the ports here on the east coast only have private yacht clubs. Many ports have little or no facilities for transient boaters.

Above and below are pictures of President Bush's home at Kennebunkport. You can see one of the security zone buoys, although this local boater was well within the boundaries.

From Portland, we headed past Kennebunkport and stayed at Newburyport, MA.

Approaching Newburyport.

Stayed here at the city's park on the wall for three days.

Newburyport had a week-long city festival going on that we happened to stumble on right in the middle of.

Newburyport is a town transient boaters would like to clone. It has to rank as one of our most enjoyable stops this year. Not only is it a nice town with a lot to offer, but we met 2 great couples who work at the naval shipyard in Maine. They were on vacation travelling together with their boats.

Counterclockwise from bottom right: Deb, Katie, Debbie, Tim, Bert, John and his wife. Deb and Bert; Tim and Katie worked at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

Every night while we were there, they had a concert at the park.

Saying good-bye to Deb and Bert. They were heading back to Portsmouth with their boat. We left 1/2 hour later for Salem.

Arriving Salem, MA.

Stayed here on the right at Pickering Wharf Marina.

Pictures around Salem, famous for the Salem Witch Trials.

Salem is just north of Boston, about a 45 minute ferry ride. The Detroit Tigers were playing Boston so the day before we took the boat to Boston, we jumped on this ferry with our bikes and rode out to Fenway Park and watched the ballgame. I rode with the captain in the cockpit the entire way. He asked me what kind of boat we had and as we entered Boston's harbor the next morning, he was just leaving Boston headed back to Salem and gave us a big wave.

Next blog, the city of Boston and further south.

2010 JULY 6-17

2010-07-22T05:21:00.000-07:00

We left New York City at the end of our last posting and headed up the East River into Long Island Sound and stayed at the Imperial Yacht Club at New Rochelle, NY. Unfortunately, I have no picture of the marina, but this picture is a couple miles north of that location. Everyone must be a multi-millionaire out here on the east coast; it seems like every home is a big estate. On July 8th we arrived at the port of Norwalk, CT.

We stayed at the municipal marina for 1 night here at Norwalk.

We stayed right in front of this Grand Banks below. We didn't do much but ride our bikes around. Norwalk is kind of a rough town.

The next day we pulled in here at Milford, CT.

Stayed here at the Milford Municipal Marina. Milford is a great little community. We stayed 2 nights. They have the second longest common on the east coast; Boston Common is #1.

The tides here range about 6-7 feet. You don't notice the tides unless you your slip happens to be close to shore because most of the docks are floaters; we have only been to 1 marina that wasn't a floating dock.

I took this picture of the municipal marina here at Milford from a footbridge and then turned around and took a picture toward town.

This is an old stone bridge in town over the creek.

Below is Live Wire sitting at the marina.

Leaving Milford.

Arriving at Guilford, CT.

The yacht club here at Guilford is about two miles from town, built in a marshy area. While at Milford, we had heard that there was going to be a Corvette show here and the town was going to put on their 4th of July fireworks even though it was the 11th.

Above: Looking towards Long Island Sound.

We rode our bikes to the Corvette Car Show at Moroso's World Headquarters. Moroso is a supplier of auto speed parts.

Our next stop is the town of Old Lyme, CT.

Stayed here at the Old Lyme Dock on the Connecticut River. Put on fuel at $3.02/gallon and were not charged for dockage. The businessman that owns this lives in the home just up the hill and commutes to and from Boston via his private helicopter in front of his home.

Below we are entering New London, CT.

Below: As we approached the harbor, the Coast Guard came on the marine radio with a security announcement that they would be escorting a naval vessel into the harbor and for all vessels to keep their distance. We looked behind us and you could make out the conning tower of a nuclear sub following us in.

There were two of these inflatible boats with machine guns and a tug boat escorting it in.

There are four different ferry lines that run out of this port.

The sub that followed us in. I thought once the subs were tied up at the dock that they would raise higher out of the water, but they all stayed mostly submerged.

The green building is General Dynamics electric boat division. They build subs here at New London, CT and up the river 2 miles is the naval submarine base. We traveled up the river to see the sub base but have no pictures because they frown on that. They did have two patrol boats guarding the sub base.

We stayed here at Burr's Marina.

A few pictures of New London.

Above is a picture of Defender Marine Supply. A week before we arrived here, I was in the bilge and put my knee in the wrong spot and broke a bilge pump, so I got on line and discovered that one of the best marine supply houses was just a couple of ports away. I rode the motorcycle 3 miles to Defender; they had a working display of a computerized toilet so I went ahead and purchased that as well and spent the next day installing it.

This is a picture of the Nautilus; it is at a museum adjacent to the submarine base. It's higher out of the water because it is at the museum. We did not visit the museum because it was too difficult for us to get to.

Our next stop was at Mystic, CT. Mystic is the home of Mystic Seaport museum, a small marine version of Greenfield Village. It was one of our favorite stops so far this year. We spent 3 days here.

I thought of Mark Freeland, this boat followed us in. It is a little larger than Mark's.

Above and below: We stayed here at Mystic Downtown Marina, a great little mom and pop marina.

A view in both directions from the Mystic River bridge. Above on the right is Mystic Seaport museum.

All the remaining pictures are of Mystic Seaport museum.

Below is an old lifeboat. It had a metal skin and they sealed themselves inside in case it rolled over.

In the building devoted to tugboats, they had this video that you could practice piloting a tug with barges up the Hudson River. I thought for sure this boy was going to crash.

In the shipyard, they actually restore old wooden ships and boats. They are always looking for timber and it lays all over the yard.

Below is the keel to an old sailing ship that was found in the mud in one of the nearby ports and brought here in 1970.

Sawmill.

Above is a picture of the ship lift that they built in order to lift the Charles W. Morgan that they are currently restoring.

The Charles W. Morgan, 1841, is a wooden whale ship that outlived all other of her kind.

They allowed everyone to tour it. Here is the fire pot they used to boil down the blubber to get the oil.

These two heads were in the stern of the vessel just off the captain's quarters and dumped overboard.

The captain's bed swiveled on posts so as the ship listed, the bed would stay level.

I found this building very interesting. The old sailing vessels required miles of rope. This building was moved to this location. It was originally 1,200 feet long. This exhibit showed how they took hemp, turned it into string and eventually into rope.

If you make reservations far in advance, you can dock your boat right at the museum. I had to take a picture of this Viking carrying two motorcycles.

2010 JULY 4-5

2010-07-14T05:46:00.000-07:00

We are 2 weeks behind posting. Today is the 18th and this posting is of July 4-5. In our previous post we had just arrived in Manhattan and stayed three nights here at Lincoln Harbor Yacht Club which is directly across the Hudson from the Empire State Building. This was the best location to view the Macy's fireworks. To get a slip here, we had to stay a minimum of three nights. We arrived Saturday and left Tuesday morning. My son, Jason, flew in, and Deb's daughter, Michelle, and her 2 boys, Zach and Justin, drove in for the fireworks. Michelle and the boys stayed with us for a couple of days. I have no still pictures of the fireworks but at the bottom of this post, there is a short video. This is my first attempt to attach video to the blog; hope it works well.

NOTE TO ALL NEW VIEWERS: CHECK OUT THE PAST BLOG POSTINGS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE. "Blog Archive"

The fireworks were on Sunday, the 4th and around 6:30-7:00, we started to see activity on the water - Coast Guard and police blocking off the Hudson. The fireworks are shot off from pairs of barges each with their own tug; there were six tugs for a total of 12 barges. In this picture below, these fighters flew down over the Hudson.

One of the tugs and its two barges was directly in front of the marina. Two of these were to the right, one centered on us, and three to the left as we faced the river, spaced about an 8th of a mile apart. They were not anchored. Each set of barges had the same fireworks shells and were shot off by computer control for a simultaneous display.

The fireboats practiced.

Our boat was located in the center of the marina, so to get a better view, most people watched from the 20' wide walkway on the pier that separates the Hudson from the marina.

All the barges were lit up with the Macy's sign.

Good looking couple just before the fireworks.

The entrance into the marina. You can see the pier from which we viewed the fireworks.

Again, a view of the marina looking toward the Hudson and Manhattan in the background.

Did some sightseeing in Manhattan. Here is Times Square. We were able to catch the bus right out front of the marina. There were no other stops between the marina and downtown Manhattan. Once we were on the bus, it only took 10-15 minutes traveling either direction through the Lincoln Tunnel.

Ground Zero sight is very impressive with many tourists. The buildings are just starting to be erected.

Jason was our guide the day before Michelle and the boys showed up.

Just a picture of one of the many buildings.

We didn't do much in Manhattan but walk around and look at all the buildings. It was sooo hot - 100 to 103 degrees - the three days we were there.

Deb, Michelle and the boys went to the top of the Empire State Building. Deb took this pictures.

The view up the side of a building.

We wanted to go to a New York Yankees, but they wanted over $200 for a ticket, so we went to a Mets game. They happened to have fireworks that night.

Michelle, the boys and the two of us left Lincoln Harbor on Tuesday morning, Michelle leaving her vehicle at the marina. Just two miles south of the marina is Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. We didn't visit these; it was so hot, I wanted to move on and find a marina with a pool.

We missed many attractions while at New York City, but Deb and I will be returning through here at some point and we will have an opportunity to see the things we missed.

There are many security zones here on the East Coast. We have to be careful not to get too close to some of these sights.

In this picture below, the Statue of Liberty is just to the left. We are headed to the East River to the right of Manhattan.

Entering the East River at lower Manhattan.

I believe this is the Brooklyn Bridge.

We headed up the East River so that we could travel Long Island Sound instead of heading out into the open waters of the Atlantic. All of our paper charts and Cruising Guides covering our travels ran out at the end of the Hudson. Our stay in New York City was during the holiday weekend and we were unable to purchase more charts. I have all the electronic charts and knew I could get to our next stop. I had researched on the internet for a marina with a pool and a retail outlet where I could purchase paper charts. We were heading for New Rochelle, NY where Post Marine Supply is located. It's a large marine supply retailer. New Rochelle was about 40 miles from Lincoln Harbor marina.

Above we are approaching United Nations Building.

On the north end of Manhattan, toward the end of the East River, we were overtaken by this yacht, Blue Guitar. Michelle researched on her Droid phone and it turns out that it is Eric Clapton's yacht. Apparently, he has a home on Long Island.

Here we are leaving the East River and to our right is the control tower of LaGuardia Airport.

Below is my first attempt at posting a video. It is of the Macy's fireworks - give it a try.

2010 WEEK TWO 6-27 THRU 7-2

2010-07-03T12:23:00.000-07:00

At the end of our last post Mike and Marge were leaving us to return home to Michigan. They took a cab to the Amtrak station which was about 5 blocks from the marina. Deb and I rode our bikes there to see them off. They rode the train back to Ticonderoga, NY on Lake Champlain to pick up their car. It all went like clockwork.
This is Albany Yacht Club where we stayed.

The next 5 pictures are of Albany as we headed south. Albany is about 145 miles north of New York City and still that far north is used as an industrial seaport. The river is about 1/2 mile wide here.

The Hudson-Athens Lighthouse we encountered on the Hudson.

The next 4 pictures are of our approach to Kingston which was New York State's first capital. The British burned it to the ground in the Revolutionary War so it was moved to Albany. This is the Kingston Lighthouse.

If you look close, it looks like rock, but in fact, it is the channel seawalls just above the water at high tide. When we keft Kingston, the tide was much lower and I could see that it was a seawall.

We arrived Kingston on June 27 and stayed here at the Kingston City Dock for 3 days. It just happened that Kingston was having their 4th of July celebration that day. There were a number of bands that played. The music was great and an evening of fireworks shot off from this bridge.

Below the city marina office.

The Kingston waterfront used to be called the Village of Rondout. In 1828, the Delaware-Hudson Canal was built to haul coal 108 miles from the mountains of Pennsylvania to Rondout for reshipment to cities along the eastern seaboard. Right in front of our boat here in Kingston is a long island that splits Rondout Creek. This island is where they used to store the coal and at its peak in 1870, they shipped 3 million tons of coal. The Village of Rondout was becoming more prosperous than Kingston, so Kingston convinced Rondout to be annexed. We saw old pictures with nothing but piles of coal, but now its totally overgrown with trees.

The next three pictures are looking down our dock at Kingston towards the festival site. I tried to capture how the crowds were growing.

They had a Maritime Museum that we visited. They had 2 or 3 PT boats there that they were going to restore.

We rented a car while at Kingston and visited the Frederick Vanderbilt mansion on the Hudson River. We also visited the Franklin Roosevelt home which was his parents' farm. His parents were well-to-do farmers and I believe that it was 1,000-1,500 acres with servants. He was an only child and always called the farm at Hyde Park, NY home. He married his fifth cousin at the age of about 23 and they lived in his boyhood farmhouse with his mother. A great place to visit but I forgot the camera so I have no pictures. We also visited the FDR Presidential Library located here.

A nice pleasure boat that pulled into the docks while we were there.

Everywhere we go we see rowboats here in the east.

We left Kingston and headed to Newburgh. The next 8 pictures are of our travels between these ports.

This is the Vanderbilt Mansion pretty much hidden by the trees. It is owned by the National Parks Service.

Where we stayed at Newburgh.

The next 6 pictures are of Newburgh. Newburgh was once a vibrant marine center building wooden ships and barges, then on to steam vessels. The town is full of old ornate homes, but unfortunately it has seen its better days. It's overrun with minorities that are just letting it turn into ruin.

George Washington used this home during the Revolutionary War.

Leaving Newburgh, we headed to West Haverstraw, NY. This stretch is particularly pretty and we passed West Point Military Academy.

Approaching West Point heading south on the Hudson.

On the roof of West Point Fieldhouse says "Beat Air Force."

West Point.

The next three pictures are of Haverstraw Marina. As luck would have it, they were having their fireworks while we were there. We spent 2 days here. We tried to stay at Stony Point Bay Marina 1/4 mile upstream from here and had a little trouble getting into their marina. This entire area is shallow and we are now dealing with tidal waters that Deb and I are not used to. Their buoy system was a little confusing, but as we approached we saw a 38-39 foot boat coming out of the marina heading for open waters on the Hudson so we took his exact path. He left a trail of silt but as we tried, we touched ground, got nervous and turned around. We decided to spend $1/foot more for deep water. We paid $3/foot.

Leaving Haverstraw; next stop Manhattan.

Our first view of New York City.

Approaching George Washington Bridge. This is the bridge that the pilot had to clear when he ditched the airliner in the Hudson recently. He was heading in this direction.

The next 4 pictures we are getting closer and closer to downtown Manhattan.

We've arrived in NEW YORK CITY! This is a picture taken from Lincoln Harbor Marina & Yacht Club where we stayed for 3 days. It's directly across the Hudson from the Empire State Building in Weehawken, New Jersey. We arrived July 3rd.

2010 YEAR TWO

2010-06-26T13:17:00.001-07:00

Welcome back, everyone. For those of you that did not follow along with this blog of our Great Loop Cruise last year, we will give you a quick update to get you caught up. June of 2009, we set out with our boat to do the great loop which is down and around Florida, back up north around the Mackinac Bridge and back to our port in Michigan. Instead of heading straight south via Chicago, we headed north around the Mackinac Bridge and southeast through Canada. We ended our summer in Plattsburgh, New York at the end of September where we stored the boat for the winter. To catch up with last year's blog postings or just to review, you can scroll down to the bottom of the blog to archived postings. A reminder to all who view this blog, the pictures can be enlarged by just clicking on them and clicking on the back button to get back to text.

These are the major players at Mooney Bay Marina, Jim, the owner, is in the middle. An old military friend, from Knoxville, TN was kind enough to come to Michigan and transport us and our stuff in his vehicle to Plattsburgh. Mark and his car remained with us for 10 days so we were able to travel around and see a number of tourist attractions. The boat was put in the water on May 28 and after preparing the boat for this year's leg, we departed Mooney Bay on June 15 and headed across Lake Champlain 20 miles to Burlington, Vermont. As we moved the boat, Mark took the ferry to Burlington.

Leaving Mooney Bay.

This is where we stayed in Burlington, Burlington Community Boathouse. The first attraction that the 3 of us visited was the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of it, but we did learn that there were many military skirmishes on the lake. There are about 300 known sunken vessels on the lake, both military and civilian, that are still being discovered and researched.

Our second stop was the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory.

Our third stop out of Burlington was the Shelburne Museum. Approximately 50 acres of items that Electra Webb had collected throughout her marriage to James Webb, an heir of the Vanderbilts. Electra came from a wealthy family herself, an heir to Domino's Sugar. This museum is similar to Greenfield Village.

This is Colchester Reef Lighthouse, a lighthouse that was located between Plattsburgh and Burlington on Lake Champlain that was moved to her grounds.

Electra purchased the steamboat, Ticonderoga, without her husband's knowledge. It was the last steam-powered paddlewheel on Lake Champlain. It was originally built by the railroad company to shuttle people from the end of the railroad line to where it picked up again. Eventually, the railroad tracks were completed and these types of shuttles, so they turned into excursion boats. Mrs. Webb paid to have this steamboat moved 2 miles inland to her museum site.

This is the train station at the museum. The Webbs were wealthy enough to own their own rail car to travel in. It is here at the museum.

I especially enjoyed the blacksmith shop. There was an older guy forging some parts. This blacksmith shop had the ability to build wooden wagon wheels with many parts like spokes, hubs and the iron rings that were used as tires on the wheels.

Electra's father had a collection of carriages and sleighs that she eventually had a large barn erected to house them on the museum grounds.

One of the last attractions that we visited with Mark via the car was the Haskell Opera House/Library in Derby Line, Vermont, 3 hours north of Burlington on the Canadian border. On our way up there, we passed this covered bridge in rural Vermont. For some reason, I have no pictures of the Opera House and Library. Sometime over the past winter, I had seen on the History Channel, a program all about borders, both federal and state borders. It showed this library in Derby Line that was intentionally built straddling the US/Canadian border. The library is situated on the first floor and the opera house on the second floor. There is a black line on each floor that designates the border. You must exit the building from the same side that you enter or you will be in big trouble. Yes, you may cross the border while you are in the building. The three of us attended a play.

This picture is looking out from the marina in Burlington, just before we left to head south.

The next three pictures are of open waters of Lake Champlain as we headed south. Lake Champlain is 12 miles wide at its widest and there are not really that many touristy boat stops on the lake.

Leaving Burlington, we traveled approximately 50 miles south to where the lake narrows to between 1/4 and 1/2 mile wide. Passing Crown Point which are the next 3 pictures. Crown Point is where a major bridge was imploded last fall after the authorities had discovered its foundation to be bad and closed it. They have already started construction of a new bridge.

And put in place a temporary ferry.

Our next stop after Burlington was 1-1/2 miles past the town of Ticonderoga. We stayed 2 days at Chipman Point Marina, a little mom and pop marina run by a mother and her 35 year old son, Chip. The mother lived on the 3rd floor of the clubhouse that was built of stone in 1824. We think the stone for their building came from the ruins of Fort Ticonderoga. We had arrived here on Saturday, June 19. Mark departed our company in the morning at Burlington. After Deb did the laundry, we rented the marina's car to visit the town and fort at Ticonderoga. They were only 1-1/2 miles north by boat, but 10 miles by car. We had to take the Fort Ti cable ferry established in 1759. We took some pictures of town and visited the restored fort. At some point the fort was abandoned and locals removed stone for their buildings.

Mike and Marge Kovacic ("Grand Escape"-Grand Banks at Ellenwood Landing) joined us for a week on Sunday. They have most of the summer off and had driven to Florida for a week, then on up to us. Amtrak follows the shorelines of the Hudson River and Lake Champlain from New York City to Montreal with a stop at Ticonderoga. So Mike and Marge left their car at Chipman Point Marina with hopes of catching the train somewhere down south to return to their car.

Fort Ticonderoga

Fort Ti Cable Ferry established 1759. This is the Vermont side of Lake Champlain. It has been proven that stone from the fort built this home.

You can see how narrow Lake Champlain gets on the southern end. The Amtrak train stop is right at this ferry landing.

The town of Ticonderoga.

The entrance to Fort Ticonderoga.
The French originally built this fort in 1755 and named it Fort Carillon. Later, the fort was captured by Ethan Allen and renamed Fort Ticonderoga.

A view south from the fort of Chipman Point.

The picture below is the southernmost end of Lake Champlain near Whitehall, New York.

This is Whitehall, New York which is the northernmost end of the Champlain Canal system. There are 11 locks in the system-the southernmost lock in the system is at Waterford, New York and is where Lake Champlain water meets the Hudson River.

We stayed 1 night here at Lock 12 Marina and had a great dinner with Mike & Marge at the Finch & Chubb Restaurant located on the 2nd floor.

The biggest attraction in town is Skene Manor built by the local judge 100 years ago and now owned by a non-profit organization.

We were told it was only open on the weekends for sandwiches, but I rode the motorcycle up there to try to get a better picture and a lady came out of the house and invited me in to take a tour. I took a bunch of pictures so everyone else on the boat could see what I had seen.

Dining room.

Entering the first lock the next morning at Whitehall.

Buying the 2 two-day passes at $20.00 each.

The maximum air draft on the Champlain Canal system is 17'o". We were 16'4" with our radar off. This bridge and all of them looked lower than that, but we made it. Someone had suggested that we mount a fishing pole from the bow pulpit as a gauge when approaching a bridge. I found this quite helpful.

Approaching one of the locks.

Mike at work in a lock.

Passed a bunch of barges and tugs. Learned that GE was charged with dredging for PCBs.

Once we left this lock, we made a 160 degree turn to starboard which took us up the Hudson River a half a mile to the town of Fort Edward. The fort has long since vanished.

Our first view of the Hudson River heading upstream.

Stayed here on the wall at Fort Edward municipal town dock for free. It includes power; a maximum of 2 days stay.

A look up the Hudson.

Above and below Fort Edward.

The neighboring boat needed fuel and arranged for this delivery, so we topped off at $2.87/gallon.

All water pools were supposedly maintained to guarantee 17' clearance under bridges. But at this bridge they were preparing to sandblast and had installed 8 cables hanging 3 feet beneath the bridge so they could lay corrugated sheet metal as a work platform. 17 feet minus 3 feet equals 14 feet - not good. We approached with the fishing pole and it looked like we might clear. We decided to put Mike up on the hardtop with the dock pole thinking he could lay on his back with the dock pole extended and possibly push up on all 8 cables in order to clear all the hardware on the hardtop. We were fortunate enough that we cleared without him having to do that, but he did lay up there until we were through.

Notice the corrugated steel they are starting to lay across. These construction workers were not friendly at all, in fact downright rude; so we mentioned that at the next lock and the lockmaster said that we were not the first to complain and that they had contacted Albany and Albany was going to have a conversation with the contractor.

This is Lock 3. Between Lock 3 and Lock 2 is the lowest bridge on the Champlain Canal system, with a normal clearance of 15'0". Last year, before heading to Lake Champlain, I checked with the New York canal system to make sure I could make it under all the bridges; they said there was only 1, this one, that would be a problem, but they could lower the pool of water by 2' if we gave them 24 hours notice. This is not quite true - we did not have to give them 24 hours notice; the lockmasters communicated with each other and the pool was ready when we arrived. We did ask this lockmaster how this was done and he said they call the power company that controls the dam and they can lower the pool 2 feet in 45 minutes. That amazed me because it is 1 mile between locks and 1/2 mile wide.

2' lower water level.

The bridge.

Mike is praying.

I think that reads 17'2".

Ray is happy he didn't have to turn around and go back to Oswego.

Next stop Mechanicville.

Stayed here, again for free.

Entering the last lock on the Champlain Canal system.

Arriving at Waterford, New York. We are through the Champlain Canal; we are on the Hudson River, but have 1 more lock to go which they call the Federal Lock. Once past the Federal Lock, we will be in tidal water even though we will be 160 miles north of New York City. Here at Waterford is where the Erie Canal meets the Hudson River. Waterford is 20 miles north of Albany.

We made a 90 degree turn and headed west up the Mohawk River toward the entrance of the Erie Canal to Waterford's town dock on the right. Again, you can stay 2 days free with power.

This is the city dock and the first lock of the Erie Canal.

City dock offices and restrooms.

This is a picture at the top of the first lock of the Erie Canal looking back toward the city dock.

In the above picture, you will notice the intersection of four different water routes. The two to the left and right are part of an old Champlain Canal system no longer used. The next series of pictures are all of canals no longer used here at Waterford.

Notice this path. Horses used to draw wooden barges along the canal on these paths.

What is left of a lock.

Found this GE Silicone products plant at the end of the abandoned canal.

Thought this was interesting. They had devised a system to weigh the goods being shipped by the total amount of water displaced and based their locking fees on that weight.

City of Waterford.

From the other end of town.

We walked to the grocery store. We made Deb and Marge push the cart back to the boat.

Sky, I got to thinking of you. This boat was about to enter the Erie Canal the morning we left.

The Hudson River looking south from Waterford.

The Federal Lock. Once we are past here, we are in tidal waters.

Picture of Troy, New York just north of Albany.

Arriving at Albany. These two pictures are of the old Delaware & Hudson Railroad headquarters. Now it is the home of State University of New York Administration.

New York's state capitol building.

Mike, Marge and Deb on the South side of state capitol building faces Empire State Plaza.

Empire State Plaza.

View looking east from Empire State Plaza toward the Hudson River.

June 12, 2010 YEAR TWO

2010-06-20T07:12:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. We are on the the boat again and will be posting to the blog weekly, usually on Sundays. I will try to make a detailed post later today, June 20th.
Ray

Week 15, Sept 14-22

2009-10-10T16:11:00.000-07:00

This will be our final post for this boating season. We have learned that if you click on any of these pictures they will enlarge for better viewing. To return just click on the back button. In the prior post, we were in Montreal. In this post, we have left Montreal and are making our way to Mooney Bay Marina just outside Plattsburgh, New York on Lake Champlain where the boat will be stored for the winter. We intend to return to the boat June 1st of 2010, so this blog will stay dormant during the winter. We don't know if this site will be deleted because of inactivity; we may have to start a new one. We have never done this before. Leaving Montreal, we needed fuel so 2 miles east of Montreal we stopped and this 1924 wooden boat was sitting across from the fuel dock. This is Marina Saurel at Sorel, Quebec. Sorel is 50 miles east of Montreal on the St. Lawrence River and is where we entered the Richelieu River that will take us through the St. Ours Lock and the Chambly Canal Locks enroute to Lake Champlain. A mile west of here is the entrance to the Richelieu River.
We have just left Marina Saurel; in this picture we are looking east down the St. Lawrence River with the marina in the background. We are directly in front of the entrance to the Richelieu River so I took this picture below looking west up the St. Lawrence. This is the entrance to the Richelieu River with the grain mill on the left.

A picture of the river one mile south of the town of Sorel.

Three pictures of the St. Ours Lock. It is about 75 miles from Sorel to Plattsburgh, New York. Because it's a river and we throw such a large wake, we never traveled over 8 knots so we split this stretch up into 3 days. After we went through this lock, we started looking for someplace to stay. We ended up staying at Chambly Marina right at the entrance to the Chambly Locks which is a series of 8 locks.

The picture below is the entrance to the Chambly Locks. It's a series of 8 locks with this first being a series of 3 locks or a flight lock. To the left of this picture is the marina where we spent the night. It is 8:30 in the morning and the lock system has just opened. We are the first ones in.

In the picture above and below, we are at the top of the third lock. These two pictures are looking either direction. We had to wait about 15 minutes for the school bus to pass so they could open the swing bridge and let us go.

In this picture and the one above, we have just exited the first set of locks. The Chambly Canal is a stretch of eight locks and, as you can see, quite narrow canals. It was really cool. The series of 8 locks took us 4 hours.

In this picture, we are approaching the fourth lock. The canal widens into a turnaround pool and then narrows up again.

Took this picture of a shy lock attendant.

We never met oncoming traffic.

Canal on right side - river on left. You are only seeing a small portion of the river. It is actually quite wide here with rapids.

We are approaching the north end of St. Jean, Quebec. Just one more lock to go.

Town of St. Jean is on the right. We spent the night here at Le Nautique St. Jean Marina. Our highlight here was great fish & chips. Went to pay with credit card and discovered they did not accept credit card. We could not come up with enough cash, so Deb sat at the restaurant while I rode the bike back to the boat for cash.

Le Nautique St. Jean Marina is on the left. You can see the entrance to the Chambly Canal looking north.

We have just passed the U.S./Canadian border. Fort Montgomery was built in the early 1800s and is abandoned. It is privately owned. There is quite a debate going on about whether it should be preserved.

Just as we were approaching the border, we saw the Canadian customs office, a small brick building on the edge of the river. It had a place for you to tie your boat and check in. We crossed the border and this US fort and saw a large flashing orange highway sign that said "Customs" with a huge arrow pointing to US Customs. All they had was a white construction trailer with a rickety floating dock. Wow, looks like they were roughing it. We are members of the Nexus system which allows us to just phone in to Customs; so I was going to pass them by and call when arriving at Plattsburgh, about 12 miles south of here. As we were passing, we saw three agents heading down to the dock to jump into their high-powered inflatable to chase us down. So I told Deb, maybe we should head over there and say hi. It was a good thing we did. I was right. They were on their way to board us. Being the diplomat that I am, I got things smoothed out and we were on our way.

Next stop, Mooney Bay Marina, Plattsburgh, New York.

We arrived 6 days before they could pull the boat. We needed to rent a car to drive home, so we decided to rent one for the week.

We had time to kill, so we drove to Burlington, Vermont to a National Hot Rod Association meet.

The remainder of the pictures are of Mooney Bay Marina. Met some very nice people here. We were invited to the end-of-season party on Saturday night. There is a restaurant on the property that closes after Labor Day. They opened for the party. Had a buffet that was exceptionally good.
90% of the boaters at this marina are Canadian.

Mountains in the background. Beautiful setting here.

End of blog for 2009. See you in June of 2010. Ray and Deb

Week 14, Sept. 9-13

2009-09-27T13:02:00.000-07:00

The previous post we were leaving Ottawa. There are two locks on the Ottawa River between Ottawa and Montreal. Here we are arriving at the second lock, St. Anne de Bellevue. From here we are about 10 miles west of the heart of Montreal. This is where the Ottawa River meets the St. Lawrence River. On the other side of this lock, the St. Lawrence River is about a mile and a half wide and very shallow. It's actually called Lake St. Louis. From this lock, there are two ways to get to the heart of Montreal, which is called Old Montreal. For small boats, you can take the Lachine Canal which has a height restriction of 8 feet. Larger boats must zig-zag back and forth through shallow Lake St. Louis following an extensive buoy route to the shipping channel of the St. Lawrence River. Once in the shipping channel, you must lock through two large shipping channel locks, St. Catherine and Lambert, that take you to Old Montreal. Even though it's only 10 miles from here to the heart of Montreal, we traveled 25 miles and it took us all day to get there.

We spotted this freighter in the shipping channel while we were maneuvering through Lake St. Louis. We caught up to it and followed it to the St. Catherine Lock. We had heard it can take as much as four hours to lock through the commercial shipping locks on the St. Lawrence because of commercial traffic.

I pulled up to the pleasure boat dock at the St. Catherine Lock as the freighter was pulling into the lock. We had to tie up here, get off the boat and check in via intercom phone to get our locking instructions. I thought they might put us in with him, saving us time. As the freighter past, 75 feet to our left, his prop sucked water from around us and pulled us into the dock popping the fenders up onto the dock, putting several deep scratches in the hull. Lessen learned- stay away from freighters. No they didn't let us lock with him. We had to wait an hour and a half.

Entering the St. Catherine Lock.

Leaving the St. Catherine Lock.

This is what the shipping channel looks like. It arcs around the southern side of Montreal. Next stop the Lambert Lock.

Lambert Lock.

If you look close, you can see four red lights on the tower. The red lights mean "Stop - Do Not Enter." Next, there are four amber lights. They count down in one minute increments. Amber light #4 will flash for one minute, go out and amber light #3 starts flashing, and so on. When the green light comes on, they are ready for you to enter.

To the left in this picture is a 40 foot SeaRay that is tied at the pleasure boat dock waiting to lock through.

This is the Montreal skyline and where the St. Lawrence shipping channel meets the main St. Lawrence River.

When we turned left to head upstream to Old Montreal, there was a very fast current, 6 to 7 knots. I was operating the boat at a normal 10 knot cruise speed and going 3 knots.

To the far right, you can see the still water out of the current. The marina where we stayed Port D-Escale, is up this calm water about a mile.

This is the same boat we saw at Burritts Rapids on the Rideau Canal.

This is Port D-Escale where we stayed.

Had to mount my satellite dish on the hardtop to get the signal over the wall for reception.

This marina, Port D-Escale, was once a commercial shipping dock that has been converted to a marina.

Across the street from the marina is Old Montreal.

One street over is this street with old cobblestone.

Many shops and restaurants on this street.

While we were in Montreal, we rented a car and drove 100 miles north to a lumbermill, Eco-Cedre at St. Donat, Quebec. They specialize in northeastern white cedar. I am looking for a source for clear boards (no knots) to build a lapstrake dinghy. Had a nice conversation with the owner, Paul Foster. He has turned down other requests, but he said he would supply me because we had made the effort to visit the sawmill.

This is a Norwegian Cruise Lines ship that cruises between Montreal and Boston. It left for Boston while we were there.

The boating season is about over. The next new post after this one will be our last for this year.

Week 13, Sept 2-8

2009-09-12T13:03:00.001-07:00

This is Pete. We met him when we first arrived at Ottawa at Dow's Lake Marina. Hooked up with him again at Hull Marina in Gatineau, Quebec across the river from Ottawa. Pete operated his boat all by himself even through the locks by aid of a wireless remote bow and stern thruster system. Pete is a very personable fellow and provided us with a lot of good information about the area. Very much appreciated his hospitality.

Visited the Canadian Air Museum in Ottawa. This is a picture of the oldest existing plane to have flown in Canada.

Thought this amphibious tour bus was unique. It entered and exited the water right in front of our boat at Hull Marina.

Our second weekend in the Ottawa area was Labor Day weekend and they had a big hot air balloonfest. On this morning they happened to fly right over the boat.

We took a steam locomotive train ride from Gatineau to Wakefield, Quebec. It's about a 100 mile round trip tour. This picture is at Wakefield at the turntable. These two fellows are leaning on the timber used to hand push the turntable around.

The locomotive is being driven onto the turntable so it can be turned around and the train return back to Gatineau.

A view of Hull Marina.

Frank and Stephanie made our stay at Hull Marina enjoyable. Gatineau is in Quebec and Quebec is mostly French. Frank kept saying "Canada is across the river; this is Quebec."

Picture of Parliament Hill and the flight locks in the lower left side of picture. The picture is taken from the bridge between Ottawa and Gatineau which we rode our bikes across several times.

Statue of Samuel D. Champlain, an explorer.

Picture looking back at Hull Marina and Gatineau from Champlain statue.

Looking down the Ottawa River from Ottawa. This is the direction we headed when we left.

By boat from Ottawa to the heart of Montreal is about 100 miles. Forty-two miles from Ottawa, we stayed here at Montebello which is the largest log-constructed structure in North America. It was built over 100 years ago as a men's hunting lodge and is now a high-end family resort. It is a must stop.

Montebello Marina.

There are two sets of locks on the Ottawa River between Ottawa and Montreal. We are tied up at the first lock, Carillon.

This is a pretty good sized lock.

We had to wait for about an hour because of this tour boat which was heading toward Ottawa and had priority.

Leaving Carillon Lock. Next post will be arriving on the western edge of Montreal.