Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - We made it!

Jennifer, Deb, Karen, Gary, Brad and Joe celebrate the completion
of Sea Catcher's great American adventure

Well, it was a lot of work getting ready and it took a long time to complete the trip. We will now reflect on it for a while. We had some great experiences and some not so great experiences. The good far exceeds the bad. We had two or three days out of 51 that were pretty miserable and that isn't too bad. I think the new rule is any waves over 1 to 3 feet or any winds over 15 miles an hour and we stay in port. Our last day wasn't one of our worst days, but it was far from one of the best. We started out with almost no wind, but by the time we got into the Burlington Harbor the wind was out of the northwest at 10 or more with gusts to 15. Docking was a one-shot deal. I was glad the owner of the boat next to us stood by with a boat hook. It worked out fine, but it was the second most anxious docking of the entire trip. We were glad we could share the trip with our daughter and some friends. We wish our son, Keenan, could have joined us and we are very thankful that we had no mechanical issues that impeded our trip in any way. We never felt we were in danger. We did feel that two tropical storms before the season was supposed to begin was a little unfair and that March-like winds for over a week off New Jersey wasn't right. Someone at the dock in Burlington told me I was lucky today and I asked him why. I thought he was going to say something about completing the trip or that we didn't have any major problems, but he said I was lucky to be able to do the trip. We do realize we were fortunate to be able to do this trip. Our last trip adventure was going to ReRa's Irish bar for a celebratory Guiness with Deb and Gary whom we met while going through Georgia. They started the loop from Michigan last August and are on their way north to Montreal and beyond. They joined us for a toast with Joe and Jennifer and it was nice way to end the adventure.

Monday, June 25, 2012

The southern end of Lake Champlain

The new Champlain bridge

Le Bistro du Lac at Yacht Club

We left Whitehall Marina at 9:30 a.m. Whitehall is at the bottom of Lake Champlain where it looks more like a river than a lake. We really felt like we were back in Vermont as the clouds came in and it began to sprinkle rain. We almost never have misty, light rain in Florida. When it rains in Florida, it really rains, but then the sun comes out. We put on our rain gear and stayed outside for the ride to Westport, NY. The lake veers to the west just before the new Champlain bridge completed last year. After the bridge, we turned north and put away the chart plotter for the final 10 miles or so to Westport. From now on, there is plenty of water from shore to shore except for a few shoal areas that we are familiar with. I found myself continuing to watch the depth even though I knew we had plenty of water. That is habit that will be hard to break after touching bottom a number of times over the course of our trip. We arrived in Westport at 2:30 p.m. and were soon welcomed by another rain shower. The rain let up later in the afternoon and we spoke with our friend Jeff who lives on the lake in South Hero. He decided to meet us by boat at the marina. It is about 40 miles, but it took him only an hour and fifteen minutes. It takes us nearly five hours to travel that far. He arrived with a bottle of champagne -very nice- and his neighbor, Fred. There is a French restaurant on the water not far from the marina, so Jeff ferried us to the restaurant. Tomorrow we complete the final leg of our trip that has taken us over 2,000 miles. The trip will have taken 51 days and 230 hours on the engine. We will have burned 2 gallons of fuel per hour at 4 miles per gallon. Tomorrow, we will complete the trip when we arrive at the Burlington Boat House in downtown Burlington. We are looking forward to being back on land again and we are feeling a great sense of accomplishment.


Sunday, June 24, 2012

Early morning fog at Schuylerville Yacht Basin

We left the dock at 8:30 a.m. and arrived at Whitehall at 2:00 p.m. All of the locks were ready for us as we locked through the until the last lock at Whitehall. The canal was finished in 1823 and the series of locks and newly dug canals and improved riverways allowed for the passage of raw materials out of the Champlain Valley to New York and beyond. The opening of the Champlain Canal marked the beginning of the Champlain Valley's entry into the national economy. In 1841, Burlington businessman and my great-great-great grandfather Timothy Follett, along with John Bradley formed the Merchants Lake Boat line. Their use of sailing canal boats which were more efficient and


A portion of the 24-mile dug channel
from Lock 7 to Whitehall 

faster than standard canal boats greatly increased the speed, use and profitability of shipping to and from the Champlain
 Valley. The decline of shipping through the canal began to
 decline in 1853 when rail lines connected the area to Montreal,
 Boston and New York. The rail lines could run throughout the
 year and they were much quicker.

http://www.lcmm.org/shipwrecks_history/history/history_commercial.htm

After we arrived in Whitehall, we put the mast back up and began looking forward to being on Lake Champlain for the rest of the trip.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Leaving the first Champlain Canal lock

We left the dock at 7:00 a.m. We didn't know how long it would take to get through the 5 locks we planned for the day, so we left a little early. The crew on the Champlain Locks were very accommodating. There wasn't much traffic and it felt like they were there just for us. When we got to the second lock, we didn't have to show our pass ($15 for two days). The lock tender from Lock number one called our information ahead. We had to wait about 15 minutes for the first two locks because there were boats locking through from the other direction. The rest of the locks were open and ready for us. Joe's sister, Patty, lives within walking distance of the 4th canal, so she and her son, Joe, came to the lock as we were locking through. They joined us for the leg from the lock to our marina. The lock tender wanted to know our schedule and when we told him we would resume tomorrow morning, he asked where we were spending the night. He told us to call Lock Number five when we were ready to leave the marina, so they would have it ready for us when we got there. Pinch me. We arrived at Schuylerville Yacht Basin at 2:00 p.m. The weather forecast was 20% chance of rain and we found it. Joe's sister and her son had about 15 minutes of nice weather before a storm seemed to come up out of no where. The wind was gusting over 30 miles an hour and we were in a downpour shortly after that. On WeatherBug, the storm cell covered western New York and parts of Vermont. A couple we met on a 33 foot Grady White while passing through Georgia were two locks ahead of us. They sent us an email at the end of the day asking how we did in the storm. They stopped for it, but because we can pilot from inside the cabin, it was easier to continue through the storm.

The lowest bridge clearance is 15'4"
We lowered the mast the day before
and lowered the bimini to get under this
bridge. We had to duck to get under it.

The winds were
 pretty strong and the rain did a nice job of washing off
the boat. By the time we arrived at Schuylerville, the wind
 had ended, but we did get pretty wet docking in the rain.
After about an hour the sun was out again. Patty's husband John arrived with the car which gave us an opportunity to go to a grocery store and then we meet for for dinner at a very good Mexican restaurant two blocks from the boat in downtown Schuylerville.

Friday, June 22, 2012

Dinner on the deck overlooking the marina

We left at 7:45 a.m. for Shady Harbor Marina in New Baltimore, NY. Between the dirt road, restrooms that reminded me of what you might have in an old camp and docks covered in goose excrement, we couldn't get out of Hyde Park Marina fast enough. If there had been a review in ActiveCaptain we would have surely avoided it. There will be a review soon, so other cruisers can avoid it. Shady Harbor is an Active Captain First Choice and the reviews were from this spring. We arrived at 2:30 p.m. and we were immediately impressed. It took about an hour longer than we anticipated because we were at the end of an outgoing tide that shaved about 2 miles per hour of hour speed. We took down the mast so we can get through the Champlain Canal and had a meal of Lobster and She Crab soup at the restaurant on the property. There was a very fun live band which made for a great evening. We talked to some members of the Donovan family who run the marina and their pride in the property was very evident. They had planted palm trees and had potted palms around the pool area. The store was neat and clean and they had a nice selection of things like milk and orange juice. This was the kind of stop that makes for an enjoyable trip.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

View on the Hudson

We left NYC to head up the Hudson River at 9:20 a.m. It was a sticky, humid morning and we were glad to be on the water. The surroundings are very different from the ocean views we've become accustomed to. The water was perfectly flat, so it was very comfortable. We had planned to stop earlier, but it was so hot, we figured it would be better to stay on the water rather than being stuck in the cabin to avoid the heat. We arrived at Hyde Park Marina in Poughkeepsie at

Hyde Park Marina

4:55 p.m. There was almost no wind and the temperature was 95 degrees. The marina is pretty rough around the edges. The cruising guide said there was a restaurant nearby, but that must have been along time ago. This area was hit pretty hard by Irene last year and a number of marinas haven't reopened or will never open again. We got a cab to the Culinary Institute located a couple of miles away for a great meal. One more day before we begin going through the 12 locks necessary to get into Lake Champlain

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

9/11 Memorial

We spent the day in New York City. The Liberty Landing Ferry leaves the marina on the hour and half hour for the 15 minute ride to lower Manhattan. The Memorial and the rebuild effort are incredible. We had to reserve tickets online and we were struck by the number of people waiting in line for tickets and then the number of people at the Memorial.

Joe and Jennifer joined us in the evening and we begin our trip up the Hudson River tomorrow morning.