Lake Champlain - August 29, 2011

 When we departed Plattsburgh we went into a very well protected anchorage in Hibbard Bay (north side of The Gut) on Saturday about noon and worked to get the anchor set well in all the weeds. After two attempts and waiting several hours for it to work its way into the mud below the weeds, we felt it was well set. The 50 MPH gusts we experienced during Irene's passing proved us correct.


Here's a photo of the sunset on Saturday night before Irene's arrival:


By midnight last night the barometer had started to climb (reached a low of 28.9 inches from the high at 0700 yesterday morning of 29.5) and the base-line winds were dropping to about 20 (from a high of 27/28 during the peak). These figures are all based on our own barometers and wind gauge, so may not coincide with NOAA figures.

This is how the handheld GPS looked after Tropical Storm Irene had passed. Notice how the "blob" creates an arc. This was scribed as the wind shifted from the NE to the N and finally to the NW as TS Irene passed by to the east of us. The arc is created almost exactly 150 feet from the location of the anchor!



This morning the sky is clear and the sun is shining. Three of the four other boats in the bay have already left; only a single small sailboat remains.

We'll stay here for the remainder of the day and tonight, then tomorrow (August 30th) we'll move to a marina at Plattsburgh where we have a reservation for a week while Judy flies to Kansas for her mother's 90th birthday.

On Tuesday the 30th we weighed anchor and moved to the Plattsburgh Boat Basin where Sanderling, the cats, and Bob will stay for a week. Here's a photo of the anchor chain and weeds/grass as we raised anchor preparing to depart. It's not an easy task getting rid of all the vegetation which gets wrapped around and interwoven in the chain.

Next post: a 42 foot catamaran is damaged in the storm and is removed to dry land for repairs.

Lake Champlain - August 24, 2011

We returned to the USA on Saturday, August 20th and anchored that night. On Sunday we cruised to Shelburne's Shipyard on the Vermont side of the lake just south of Burlington. This morning the yard fixed the problem that had been causing the noise under the hull; turned out to be a Spurs line cutter part that had come loose and fallen off. Had to remove the remaining parts of the Spurs and won't be able to replace them until we have the boat hauled again next spring. Also discovered another problem and Shelburne's is ordering the necessary part and will replace it before we leave the lake in a couple of weeks. In the process they realigned the engine and shaft.

All is going well. Tonight we're anchored in a small bay (along with a dozen other boats - mostly sail) in a small bay south of Shelburne Shipyard.

On Tuesday, August 23rd, we cruised a short distance north to Burlington to the temporary dock at the Boathouse Marina, went ashore for a short time to buy a few groceries and had lunch at the restaurant at the marina. We then departed and headed north past Plattsburgh to anchor in a small bay at Nichols Point on the Vermont side of the lake. We were planning on cruising southeast to Plattsburgh on Wednesday, the 24th where we had hoped to meet some relatives for a couple of days of cruising, but high winds on the lake (gusting to 30 MPH) forced us to turn around after about 30 minutes and return to the anchorage. The forecast for Thursday isn't any better; in fact, it may be worse with winds forecast to be gusting to 35 MPH. So our plans are on hold right now while we're sitting at anchor in this small bay along with 6-7 other boats, most of which came in this morning after we had already been out and turned around. 

By Thursday night the winds are forecast to die down, so hopefully we will be able to meet up in Plattsburgh on Friday morning and still have a day of cruising this beautiful area.

Here are a few pictures from our time in the anchorage, showing:

This is the track laid down by our handheld GPS during the high winds from the south while we were in the anchorage. North is up. The lower "blob" shows how we moved back and forth, side to side, in the wind with 100 feet of scope out; when the winds were forecast to increase, we added an additional 50 feet of chain and our position moved 50 feet to the north, shown by the upper "blob." This photo was taken on the morning of the 25th of August.

Compare these tracks to the tracks on the same GPS when we were treated to tropical storm Irene's winds (in the next blog post).

This beautiful double rainbow showed up evening of the 25th. It stretched from this location in the water, to directly alongside Sanderling on the other end of the rainbow. (We didn't even find a golden anchor.)

A short time later, we had this beautiful sunset, sailboat and all:

On the 26th we crossed the lake to Plattsburgh where we met Caroline and Melissa at the town dock, after getting the holding tanks pumped out at the Plattsburgh Boat Basin. We crossed the lake, heading by the anchorage where we'd just spent the past several days, thru "The Gut" and then the draw bridge on the eastern side of The Gut, to St. Albans Bay where we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening talking and catching up on our families. Judy and I spent some time going over the charts looking for "hurricane holes" where we could wait out whatever Hurricane Irene was going to throw at us.

On the 27th, with Irene looming large on the horizon for the Lake Champlain valley and amid warnings from NOAA to prepare for near hurricane force winds, we motored back to Plattsburgh and said goodbye to Caroline and Melissa (they were driving to Chicago), and headed out to find a place that we felt would be safe from Irene's wrath.

We chose to motor back to The Gut and stay in a small area, Hibbard Bay, on its north side during Irene's passing. Turns out it was a good decision.

See our next post for more details on dealing with Irene.

Sorel-Tracey August 15, 2011

After departing Montreal at 0955 on August 12, 2011, we headed downstream on the St. Lawrence River and anchored for the night off the main river channel at Contrecoeur - a nice, protected spot. About midway to Contrecoeur our Canadian SD data card for our Garmin chartplotter stopped loading the Canadian charts, so we relied on our navigation laptop and paper charts to guide us around the buoys and into the channel where we were anchoring. Nothing brought the Garmin Canadian charts back to life; something similar had happened several times in the past, but we were always able to get the charts to display after restarting the chartplotter. Fortunately, once we get down the Richelieu Canal north of Lake Champlain the pre-loaded charts will kick in again and we won't have to rely on the SD card charts.

We departed the anchorage on August 13th and a couple of hours later were tied to a temporary dock at Marina de Sorel in Sorel-Tracey, near where the Richelieu Canal meets the St. Lawrence River. As we approached Sorel there were a number of large freighters anchored in the river, apparently waiting for pilots to come aboard to help them proceed upstream from Sorel. Since we've been in the marina, there have been freighters coming and going from the anchorages every day. We moved to our "permanent" transient dock about 1145 after Judy had picked up our rental car and the dock cleared of boats that were due to depart. Later in the day a beautiful 1933 power boat 65 feet in length came in and took the space in front of us; the boat was the Dolphin built here in Sorel and beautifully maintained.




We rented a car in Sorel and spent Sunday (August 14th) in Quebec City. It's a beautiful place to visit, and we'll definitely have to come back to spend more time and see more of the sights. Basically we took two walking tours (around the Old City and through the Citadel) and walked by ourselves just to enjoy the ambience of the old city. The old city was very crowded with tourists. Restaurants were packed in the lower city (along the river), as well as just to the west of the city wall along a row of restaurants outside of the wall. Despite a forecast including 70% chance of rain, the temperature stayed in the mid-70s and the rain didn't materialize until our drive back to Sorel.



We decided to stay an extra day at the marina to do some laundry, turn in the rental car, buy more spider spray, and wait for sunny weather on Tuesday (August 16th) to start the trip south on the Richelieu. Spider spray? Have I mentioned that with all the docks we've been "moored" to this summer the boat is accumulating spiders faster than we can kill them! We've found that washing the boat doesn't really remove them (perhaps they hide somewhere out of the way of the wash), but spider spray does a good job of killing them. So, we needed more spray and Judy found some at the Canadian Tire store (really more like a Home Depot than a tire store) here in Sorel when she drove to turn in the rental car this morning.

Totals for cruise: 420H20M - 2627.0SM

Montreal - August 8, 2011

We departed Bellevue at 0730 in order to allow most of the day for the passage through the St. Lawrence Seaway locks. We had been told that pleasure boats may have to wait up to 3-4 hours at each lock, and there was no option but to get to Montreal at the end of the 37 mile day!

As it turned out, the passage through the first lock was delayed only by freighters passing through, one directly in front of us and others heading upstream which we passed before and after entering the first lock. The Great Lakes freighter John D. Leitch turned into the canal leading to the first lock just before us (coming down river) and had to slow considerably to permit to upbound freighters to pass in the straight stretches of the canal. After the John D. Leitch started to enter the lock, we tied up at the pleasure boat dock, bought our $25.00 pass for the first lock, and waited until the John D. Leitch cleared the lock going downstream and another freighter cleared heading upstream.

By 1420 we were at the second lock and by 1610 we had completed the day's trip to the Port d'Escale Marina in Montreal. The last several miles were against the 6 MPH current on the St. Lawrence River after it had cascaded down the rapids we bypassed on the Seaway. Since we make only 7.3 MPH under the best of circumstances, we were making only 1.4 MPH over the ground heading to the marina. About 1/4 mile before the quay where the marina is located, we passed through the current and entered still water, then turned into the basin and into the marina. The staff spoke passable English (70% of the population in Montreal speaks French) and directed us to the dock where we would be located for the next few days; another young hand was on the dock to help us with our lines.

Now we're sightseeing in Montreal, and a beautiful city it is. The first full day (August 9, 2011) we took the Metro to the Botanical Garden, and today we walked through the old city visiting the Archeological Museum, the Notre Dame Bassilica, and the Notre Dame chapel and a few other spots along the way. Tomorrow we're heading back out toward the Botanical Garden to visit the Olympic Stadium (1972) and Biosphere and inclined tower. A Canadian friend and his family are arriving by boat tomorrow and we're planning on dinner out with them tomorrow night before we depart on Friday heading to Sorell.

St. Anne de Bellevue - August 7, 2011

August 7, 2011

A quick post to bring you up to date since we departed Ottawa.

We tied to the lower wall at St A de Bellevue this morning after anchoring last night in a little bay just west of the lock. We departed Ottawa on Wednesday and after descending the eight locks into the Ottawa River anchored about 6 miles downstream at Little Duck Island. Thursday night we were in a small Marina at Montebello where we took on water for the first time in eight days (72 gallons) and did three loads of wash. On Friday we locked through Carillon Lock, the tallest lock in Canada with a 66 foot drop, then tied up for the night on their lower wall.

We will stay here for at least one night (when we look around today we'll decide whether to stay another day). When we leave here we will enter the St. Lawrence Seaway locks after about 6 miles and then be in Montreal at a marina the same day (about 35 miles total).

All is going well. We should be in Lake Champlain in another 10-12 days.

Ottawa - August 1, 2011

We departed Smith Falls at 0830 on Monday, July 25, and headed to Aylings Marina and Boatyard in Merrickville, arriving there about 1335. We were met at the Aylings by Doug who helped us secure our lines to a dock, then came aboard to talk about the problem we were having with the coolant loss. After some discussion, he went to work trying to figure out where the coolant was going. He soon eliminated the exhaust system (good news because that would have meant a leaking head or exhaust gasket and $$$ to replace), and eventually came to a leaking temperature control valve on the hot water heater. Some more checking and running the engine until it was hot confirmed that it was the valve. The installation manual indicated that a relacement valve would be required, but a call to the local dealer in Ottawa revealed that the valves were no longer being produced and were not available, so the only option would be to bypass the valve. By then it was late in the afternoon and Doug said he'd take care of it first thing in the morning. We ate dinner at a restaurant in Merrickville, and the next morning Doug came aboard to change the coolant lines around, we started the engine to get it up to operating temperature (no leak), shut down and let it cool off, and confirmed that the leak had stopped.

We filled the water tanks, Bob took a shower and we were off at 1320 heading toward Ottawa. We stopped at Burritts Lock in a beautiful setting for the night. The next day, July 27th, we departed Burritts Rapids Lock and five hours later stopped for the day at Long Island Lock - another beautiful spot. On Thursday, July 28th, we were underway at 1005 and cruised through a winding and sometimes narrow Rideau River until reaching Hartwell Lock, at which time we departed the Rideau River and entered a series of canals leading to Ottawa. The Rideau River is very much like the Erie Canal when it is following rivers past small towns, cottages, marinas and homes. Once we entered the canals we were in Ottawa proper, passing the University and other buildings following the man-made canal winding its way toward the Ottawa River. We stopped at "the wall" in Ottawa, about 400 yard short of the beginning of the eight stair-step locks that would lower us another 80 feet into the Ottawa River. The next morning many of the boats that had been on the wall when we arrived departed early, and we moved to the "head of the line" next to the tour boats that use the far west end of the newly refurbished wooden docks along the wall.

We are about 200 yards from the bridge over the street at Parliament Hill, with the National Arts Center to our port side. It's an active area, with a lot of boats tied to the wall and more boats coming and going up and down the flight of eight locks every few hours (it takes about 3 hours to pass through all the locks).

We have visited Parliament (you can take tours through the actual chambers), the Supreme Court building (tour given by a second year law student at the University), the National Art Gallery, and the Canadian Museum of Civilization, seen the sound and light show projected on the Parliament building, plus walked miles. This is a great spot to visit, with much to see and do.

We'll depart Ottawa on the 3rd (Wednesday) heading to Montreal where we anticipate arriving on the 8th or 9th.

More later!

Totals to date: 392H50M - 2435.6SM