Today has been a day of extremes. We left our idyllic hideaway on Valcour Island this morning and made it to Rouses Point, NY where we secured the boat for our trip home. We got a ride to the train station at 3:00 for our 4:00 schedule. The station was a real surprise. It was a deserted single room locked wooden building by the side of the train track. We waited with our luggage hoping the train would come and that it would actually stop. At 4:30 we called a 1-800 number on a poster there and was reassured that the train would be about 40 minutes late. Sure enough, the train came and it stopped!

Going through customs was not a problem at all. They stopped the train in the middle of a corn field, and a customs agent came through and checked our passports.

Tonight we are at the Fairmont Hotel in the old city of Montreal. We had crepes for supper at an open air café and could hear strains of jazz from a trumpet in the air. The city was beautiful from the Quoi Jacques Cartier and the picture is of the city library.

June 18: Smugglers Cove, Valcour Island, NY

On our way here from Burlington, we sited the Bluff Point Lighthouse high on the clifts of Valcour Island. Placed in service in 1874, the Bluff Point Light was one of the last lighthouses to be manned on the lake. Its fifth-order Fresnel lens guided ships through the narrow passageway between the island and the New York shore for almost 60 years.

Valcour Island is where Benedict Arnold’s fleet engaged the British war ships coming down Lake Champlain in 1776.

We are anchored in a secluded cove, Smuggler’s Cove, on Valcour Island. We trekked today around the state park that can only be reached by boat, and relished the quiet natural beauty of the island.

Tom broke the frond of a spruce tree

and let me smell the sweet scent of Christmas tree. We walked the soft trail lined with pine needles over the mossy tree roots along the way. Where the path was marshy, ranges had constructed rough hewn planks to raise the trail off the ground for easier passage way.

June 17, 2008: Burlington, VT

On our cruise back down Otter Creek, we came by a small side creek as an alternate route to Lake Champlain. The cut was hand dug in 1812 by patriots to help guarantee that the British could not blockade the end of Otter Creek and keep the Navy ships from reaching the Lake. The cut is still there and shows up on the navigation charts. We also saw the Four Brothers islands, which are home to an enormous and varied bird population including gulls, black crowned heron, egrets and cormorants. The islands are owned and protected by the University of Vermont and are an important research area.

We arrived at Burlington, VT in early afternoon and discovered that the city is very bike friendly. In spite of low hung gray clouds and mist in the air, we took a ride on the Burlington Bikeway for 7 miles along the waterfront. It was wonderful. The trail was created by pulling up the train tracks, now called Tracks for Trails. The paving began at the Community Boathouse where we are docked. The ride took us on the high rises above Lake Champlain with beautiful views across the water to the Adirondack Mountains. We rode through forest glades where the trees touched above us making a natural cathedral over us and you could hear the birds singing in celebration of Spring. We crossed a pedestrian suspension bridge over the wide mouth of the Winooski River. There was even a board walk with iron lattice railings that let us travel over an area of marsh and swamp that rivaled the beauty of some in Eastern NC. We rode through the alleyways behind houses, where fences were covered by cascading pink roses and through the side streets of a well cared for residential area. We even rode under a railroad trestle. Of course about 7 miles out, the rain began to come down seriously so it was a pretty wet ride back. It will really be a happy memory of our trip.
For dinner we walked into downtown Burlington where they have a pedestrian mall full of restaurants and sidewalk cafes. We walked by the University of Vermont Science center, but did not get far enough to see the campus. There is also a Coast Guard station here. IBM has a campus here as well, but I never realized how beautiful the city is.

June 16, 2008: Otter Creek / Vergennes, VT

We have been cruising the Champlain

narrows this morning and found diesel fuel at Point Bay Marina for $4.60 a gallon. It was funny that their pump price registered $2.30 but they figured it per half gallon... The reason for all this math is that the pump did not allow the price to go over $5.00 a gallon and they were getting ready for

the next price bump. The sweet blonde kid running the pumps knew about the fishing derby going on in the Narrows because the marina was the weigh station and he said it had been crazy with fishermen. Apparently they tagged a single salmon and let it go. Anyone who caught that specific fish won the grand prize. He actually pumped the fuel for us

– this is the first time that has ever happened since we bought the boat!

We have crossed the state line into Vermont and wandered 7 miles up narrow Otter Creek to

Vergennes. We are tied up at the City Dock next to a brick private home in a restored armory and a beautiful green little park. Vergennes was named after the French foreign minister who was instrumental in gaining the support of France for the American Revolution. The town was founded in 1788 at this location to take advantage of the broad waterfalls on the creek, access to Lake Champlain and the crossroads. During the War of 1812, there were war ships built at the foot of the falls, where sawmills that produced the lumber for the ships were run by water power.

We took a bike ride through the quaint little town and around to the top of the magnificent falls. The water was really raging though the falls following a 3 inch rain storm from the night before. It was also silty looking from the run off. The building built in the middle of the Vergennes Falls was constructed as a grist mill where the water was used to turn huge stones to produce flour, feed and plaster. The red brick mill was built in 1878 to replace the mill that was there before and on the far side of the falls is a hydroelectric power plant. The falls were also beautiful from where we are docked at night.

June 15 (Sunday): Whitehall, NY

Yesterday afternoon, we took a tour through town and sadly found the museum was closed. However, we saw the hull of a ship from the war of 1812, the Ticonderoga. We also found a grocery store. We also watched some boys fishing from the bridge over the lock and watched them snag a 3 foot fresh water drum caught with a line and then hauled in with a basket. They said it was fun to catch but not to eat.
Last night we had dinner at Finch and Chubb, fine dining just above the marina and the location of the lumber mill that cut the timber for our first Navy boats. The restaurant had wonderful dark hardwood floors and dark tables with the windows overlooking the water framed in antique lace. We had a great dinner and watched the rain dancing on the water with lightening in the distance as the storm rolled through. Actually rain in the evening makes for great sleeping!


This morning Tom celebrated Fathers Day with sweet cards and gifts from his daughters stashed away from when the girls visited. After breakfast, we took our bikes into town to the Grace Baptist Church which was a small white wooden church started in 1985 and affiliated with the SBC. We got there early and discovered their adult Sunday School class meeting in the Sanctuary so we joined in for their study from Proverbs 23. As the worship service started, their young pastor named Daniel, from Arkansas, played his guitar for the praise hymn singing. In his message, he made an interesting comment. He said he saw a lot of turtles in the congregation. To explain, he said if you come along and you find a turtle on a fence post, you know he didn’t get there by himself. God has put you where you are and you need to figure out what you can do for Him there. The people were friendly and very surprised at our visit on our bikes from our boat in the marina.

After church we set off into the Champlain Narrows. This area, at the southwestern end of Lake Champlain, was flooded so that you could see water over the bank into the woods. Or perhaps it is a year round swamp with trees growing in a few inches of water and acres of marsh grass snuggling up to the rocky cliffs near the banks. Someone at church told Tom that there was a fishing tournament today, and there were certainly fishermen everywhere on the water this afternoon – hot shot young men on shiny fast bass boats as well as families with little children on pontoon boats, all fishing. We passed Fort Ticonderoga where we took the dinghy ashore. Our visit was short since , unfortunately, there was no path from the shore to the visitor center – only serious brambles. We came to a bush that I think was the crown of thorns and it marked the turning point of our trek inland.



It is about 30 miles to the main lake, and we anchored about half way at Crown Pointe for the night. It was warm enough that we took a swim in the lake before starting dinner. We were moored right under the 101 foot lighthouse built in honor of Samuel Champlain (discoverer of the lake), by a bronze statue by famous sculptor Auguste Rodin, and next to a concrete pier where local folks spent their evening fishing. On the other side was the expansive high Crown Pointe bridge.

June 14, 2008: Whitehall, NY

Whitehall, NY
We spent last night tied up at the Fort Edward Lock after clearing it around 7:30 pm. It is so nice that it is light so late. We are really in the country now. Last night we could hear the chirping of crickets and the twitter of little birds, sounds very different than the call of seagulls. The still water is green with the reflection of the lush overhanging trees. This morning, as we set off north of Lock C7 we are checking at every bridge for height to make sure we can pass under. This means I drive and Tom stands in the back looking over the canopy to make sure we won’t hit the bridge as we creep under it. There are fifteen low fixed bridges in our path today. When we came to Lock C9 it was the first lock that we have come to that steps down; so you drive into it full and ride down. This means that we have passed their “continental divide”, and now all raindrops that fall flow north instead of south.
We passed a new commercial dock with huge bummers and cleats being built where the river converged with the railroad. The lock master told us that it is for barges and dredging vessels being brought in to clean up the river. Apparently, during the 1970s companies in the area regularly dumped PCB’s in the river. This is an oil chemical compound now known to cause cancer. They will dredge the river and come back to these docks to off load the sludge onto train cars to carry off. I hope they are careful about where they carry that stuff off to.
As we approach Whitehall, we are noticing that the forest is changing. There are more, hemlock, cedar, short and long leaf pines. Also, the hardwoods are different with varieties with tiny leaves. We are also passing pastures and a couple of exciting spotting of cows by the river. Some cows were enclosed by the water on a pasture on a peninsula and only closed at the tiny land link. Others were actually cooling it in the water with only woods behind them.
Our destination today is Whitehall. Whitehall lies on the southeast bay of Lake Champlain at the mouth of the Hudson River and is the place that claims to be the birthplace of the US Navy. This seems like a pretty weird claim for a place 200 miles inland on a narrow river maybe 100 feet wide. The story starts in the summer of 1776 just as the Continental Congress who had just named a general for her Army, had any thoughts of a Navy. Benedict Arnold (who had the potential to be a great hero of the Revolution) went into Canada as a General of the American Army and captured two British schooners (two-masted sailing vessels) and a British sloop (a single-masted vessel) and brought them back to Lake Champlain. At Whitehall, he had 8 vessels (the size to be rowed by 45 men) built to increase his flotilla and to be prepared to protect Albany from an attack from the north. When he engaged in battle in Oct, 1776, he was defeated. However, he is credited from discouraging the British from coming south until the following year when the US forces at Saratoga had grown and been trained leading to the American victory there. I did check around on the internet so see if this was actually acknowledged by the Navy. Apparently there are lots of cities who claim this honor. The Navy, however, points out that the act authorizing an official U.S. Navy was approved in Philadelphia on October 13, 1775 and that the first four ships commissioned under that act were outfitted in Philadelphia. In its official history, it notes October 13 as its birthday but diplomatically declines to designate any particular town or city as its birthplace, noting merely that many communities contributed to U.S. naval tradition and deserve recognition for their efforts – befitting Whitehall’s glory as the place where ships were first built to defend our country.

We are docked at the Lock12 Marina where the price of diesel fuel is $6.19 a gallon. We decided to wait to purchase until we get to Lake Champlain hoping it might be cheaper there. We have gotten some wonderful email from home so it is very nice to catch up with friends from a distance. We are praying for the needs we hear from Tom’s Sunday School class and the choir prayer lists. It is also great to get our pastor’s first thoughts on his sermon for Sunday to keep us connected.

This was another beautiful day on the Hudson River and we stair stepped up in five locks. It is beautiful to see the waterfalls that usually run along side the lock. We even went under a railroad trestle today with a train crossing over us. We shared the ride up in one lock with a couple of engineers who worked for the power company who maintains the various hydroelectric plants we have seen. They talked about how the locks manage the amount of water in the river and they were measuring the clearances under the bridges. When a tall boat comes through, they can literally lower the river between two locks if it is necessary for the boat to get under bridges between the locks. We dropped our hinged GPS system today to clear some bridges ourselves. Our navigation equipment did not like it very much because it is directional, and I think it thought we were going to the moon, since it was pointed straight up.

Today Tom and I did something new – we took our bikes to shore in the dinghy and made another flash back into history. Anchored out across from the Saratoga Battleground National Park, we decided to take a ride through the meadows and forests of the park. The visitor center was very interesting with a huge 3 dimensional layout of the battlefields where with audio and lights, they described the two week period in 1777 during which this important battle in the American Revolution was won. It was a long ride, about 10 miles, and we saw several deer. Tom even saw a tiny fawn, which I missed while walking my bike up the hill. We had delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that Tom brought in a knapsack at the park for lunch overlooking the fields. There were certainly many hardships suffered by the people who lived out this part of our history.