Day 114...Whitehall, NY to Mechanicville, New York

SATURDAY, JULY 21, 2012

     Since we locked through Lock 12 we have been in the Champlain Canal.  This canal is called the “History Canal”.  The 60 mile long canal was completed in 1822 to connect Whitehall and Waterford.  The guidebook says, “Before our country’s independence, this waterway played an important role in our history.  The British, French and Americans all traveled north and south along this stretch of country.  Battles were fought, men died and were laid to rest along this path.”.

     We left at 6:45 a.m.  The weather seemed to be all right until we got a little further down the Champlain Canal.  We had that dreaded F-O-G word again.  For a while it was very hard to see.

     Remember yesterday, “What has brown and white spots and eats grass?”  Well, today it’s a cow, not a deer.

     As the fog thinned out, we saw a houseboat and a trawler in front of us.  We slowly caught and passed the houseboat.  A fast boat passed us and entered Lock 11(up 12 feet, rope and pipe) just before we did.  Gary said from now on we might as well catch the ropes so both of us would be working instead of just him. 

     As usual I was on the stern of TRAVELLER, doing my holding on duties.  The lockmaster waited on the houseboat since it wasn’t too far behind.  While we were waiting, Gary was talking to the guy on the trawler to the left in front of us.  More about them later.  When the houseboat entered the lock, the first thing they did was run into the lock wall with the front of the houseboat.  The old lady in front grabbed her line but the older guy in the back couldn’t grab his so the back drifted away from the wall and turned sideways in the lock. After gunning the outboard several times, she let go and they tried to grab lines closer up toward our boat.  I did not have my camera or there would be pictures to go along with the story.  All the while I was saying in my head, “Please don’t hit my boat!” over and over in my head.  After 20 minutes and 8 or 10 tries, they finally had both lines.  I heard them tell the lock lady that this was their first lock.  We don’t want to be in their second lock with them.

     Needless to say we maxed out our speed to try to leave them in the dust.  We did pretty good and ended up traveling right behind the trawler named GRACE.  They seemed to match our speed pretty well.  We could gauge the heights of the bridges easily with them in front of us. 

    There was no Lock 10 so next we locked through Locks 9(up 16 feet, rope and pipe) and Lock 8(down 11 feet, rope) with them.  We had to wait for a tug and barge to clear Lock 8 before we could go in.  There’s that commercial traffic rule again.  It’s also the rule about them being much bigger than us.

    In the Skipper Bob guides there is a contributor named Fred Wehner and his boat Tug 44.  Well, here it is.  We just happened to see it as we were cruising by.  As we’ve said before, faster boats never see everything that slow boats do.

     After Lock 7(down 10 feet, rope and pipe), the Hudson River Dredging Project is working to remove PCBs from the river.  For several miles we had to be very careful to avoid all of the tug and barge traffic related to the cleanup.  There were at least 10-12 cranes, 10 tugs and 20 barges working in the area.

     So far we have been traveling on the 23-mile long man-made canal.  After Fort Edward we will enter the navigable Hudson River for the remaining 37 miles. Fort Edward was not on the canal but up the Hudson River before it intersected the canal.

     Lock 6(down 16 feet, rope and pipe) came next. There was a red barn that someone seemed to be restoring very close to the lock.  I did take pictures of inside the lock just this time. 

     GRACE proceeded us through the river passing a paddle wheeler called CALDWELL BELLE.  Everyone waved to us.  They seemed to be having a very good time.

    The dam just before Lock 5 is what they call an invisible dam.  If the big orange balls with the gulls on them weren’t there, it would be hard to see the dam.  It reminds me of an infinity pool.

     Lock 5(down 19 feet, rope and cable) was going to be our last lock with Bill and Linda on GRACE since they were going to spend the night at Schuylerville.  They said that they lived near Waterford and would drop by to see us at the dock when we were there.  It was nice to travel with them although Gary talked to them much more than I did since I’m at the back of the boat.

     We didn’t see as much boat traffic on the canal today.  We did see a family enjoying the water just hanging around in their inner tubes.  I think it would be fun to do on a hot Saturday.

     See if you can see the tiny brown sign in the first picture that says this is the Saratoga National Historical Park. I blew it up for you in the second one.  They say that if you want to take the 4-mile walking tour of the battlefield and see the museum, you just have to walk 2.5 miles (mostly uphill) to the Visitor’s Center.  You know me well enough to know that I passed on this tour.

     After Lock 4(down 16 feet, rope and cable), we watched some kids jumping off Bridge C5.  We were only going to have 6 inches clearance.  Boy, was I glad we made it under without breaking our light again.

     Lock 3(down 20 feet, rope and pipe) was our last lock of the day.  A little less than a mile later, we pulled in to the free dock at Mechanicville, New York.  We had traveled 52 miles in 8 hours and 18 minutes.  Our total mileage was now 2274.

    

Day 113...Valcour Island to Whitehall, New York

FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012

     OK, so you can almost set your watch by us.  We left at 6:30 a.m.  The Adirondacks were smothered in fluffy white, low-lying clouds.  They were a beautiful sight to start the day. 

     As we were leaving, I tried to take a picture of all the boats in the anchorage, but there was just no way to get them all in. I got as many of the boats as I could in the picture.

     Here are a few more pictures of the Vermont and New York mountains.  There were sailboats out all over the lake.

     We had read that the fuel prices were cheaper in Vermont so we stopped at Point Bay Marina to buy our usual 30-35 gallons of diesel.  It was an easy in and easy out fuel dock.  Those are the kind we like.

     After we passed under the Lake Champlain Bridge, we entered the “river” portion of the lake near the restored Fort Crown Point.  The first fort in the area, Fort St. Frederick, was built by the French starting in 1759. The fort was captured by the British in1759 and renamed Fort Crown Point. 

     Then we passed the cable ferry at Ticonderoga Light.  We know what to do by now so we waited until after it crossed the lake.

     Next we saw Fort Ticonderoga.  The French built it on a high bluff overlooking the lake in 1758. In 1759 the British took the fort. In 1775 Benedict Arnold and the Green Mountain Boys surprised the British and took the fort providing the Americans with their first important victory in the Revolutionary War.

     In 1777 the British put cannons on top of Mount Defiance (See the tiny little stick on top of the mountain.  That's the flagpole in the second picture.) overlooking the fort and the American General St. Clair ordered the fort abandoned.  The fort remained in British hands until the end of the Revolutionary War.

     This is a picture of what some people believe Champ, the Lake Champlain sea monster, looks like.  Supposedly there have been many sightings of the monster and each one seems to describe him differently.

     In this stretch of the lake, the markers are on very sturdy concrete and steel towers.  I’m sure glad Gary is being careful not to hit any.  He is always careful.  I just like to kid him sometimes about getting too close to things.

     Most of the anchorages in this area were choked with tons of weeds and water hyacinths so we had to keep going.  We came across some machines that were harvesting the hyacinths on the edge of the lake.  Gary thinks they might be going to make fertilizer out of them.

     We came across what must have been a flock of at least 60 to 70 ducks just sitting by the side of the lake.  Gary said they must be lost.  Just like the anchored boats, there were so many I couldn’t get them all in the picture.

     There were only a few hills left before we almost reached the end of the lake.  We were doodling along and saw a family of deer eating the weeds very close to the water’s edge.  They didn’t seem startled by the sound of our engine at all.  They just kept right on eating.

     We finally came to Whitehall and Lock 12 (up 15 feet).  We are now going to lock through the Champlain Canal Locks.  We finished the ones in Canada several days ago, but now we have several more to do in the US.  

     We tied up for the night at the free with our pass wall just past the lock.  We traveled almost 82 miles in a little less than 13 hours.  Our total is now 2223 miles.

     I was exhausted, but you know Gary.  He likes to walk around so I sent him with the camera to take some pictures of Whitehall. Most of the storefronts in the downtown are dressed to appear open, but they were really closed because of the economy.  There was a concert in the park.  They sounded like a high school band.  Near the park are the other free docks.

  

     As the sign says Whitehall is the birthplace of the US Navy.  In 1776 a small navy of 12 vessels later used by Benedict Arnold was constructed here.

     The hull of the USS Ticonderoga was there also.  I’ll let the plaque tell you about it.

      We went to bed after supper since we had such a long day.  We’ll probably be up early tomorrow as usual.