Side trip to Ottawa and Kingston

We left the history of Montreal yesterday, Thursday June 26 to head up the Ottawa River to Ottawa. To get from downtown Montreal to the entrance of the Ottawa River we needed to take the South Shore Canal which bypasses the Lachine Rapids. This canal has two large commercial locks and commertial traffic has first use. As luck would have it, it took us 6 hours to get through those two locks. As we exited St. Catherine Lock we had to make the decision to anchor short of our intended stop for the night or run in the dark. We made pretty good progress to the only alternate anchorage, and the threat of thunderstorms had expired so we elected to run in the dark to our intended anchorage. Things went very well, the bouys were right where our GPS chartplotter said they were and our radar superimposed on the chartplotter confirmed they were there. Made the run without turning on the spotlight.

Today we ran 59 miles, traversing two locks, the second with a 65' lift, to Montebello.

Tomorrow we will have breakfast at the largest log cabin in the world, Le Chateau Montebello.

And what a fine breakfast it was. We left the marina shortly after noon, ran all afternoon in the rain, and arrived at the lower wall of the Ottawa 8 lock ladder at 5:00 PM. A lock load of boats had left 15 minutes before we arrived and the lock master informed us that there would not be time to complete the lock up of the boats already going up, turn the locks around, and lock us up before 7:30 PM, when the locks close for the day. So, we were 

in the first lock load Sunday morning.

In preperation for Canada Day on Tuesday, July 1, there were already at least 40 boats tied to the upper canal walls. Shortly after we got tied up, OUR VILLA arrived, "Loopers" from Wisconsin. The crew from MYSTIC BOND, Canadian "Loopers" who are living near Ottawa, 

joined us and hosted us for the rest of the day showing us around Ottawa. We spent Monday doing more sight seeing of the parliment building and watching the changing of the guard. Then some shopping to stock up on some fresh fruits and vegtables at the farmers market. Today, Tuesday July 1, Canada Day, we left Ottawa ahead of the hords of boats that would be leaving Wednesday morning and went 40 miles down the historic Rideau Canal to lock 17 at Burnitts Rapids.

It is now Wednesday, and we have moved another 20 miles south today, going through 12 locks, and are tied up to the canal wall in Smiths Falls. This is essentially the mid point of the Rideau Canal distance wise. The locks are small, all hand operated, many with a one lane bridge crossing them that is swung open by hand to let us through. We still have 7 more locks and 27 more miles to get to the high point at 407.5' above sea level before we start back down to Kingston and the St. Lawrence River. As we started down, the senery got more interesting. As we entered and left many of the locks we were running in narrow channels with about 7' of water depth. OUR VILLE was still traveling with us and followed us out of a lock on one of the narrow channels.

We frequently spent our nights tied up to a dock or wall at one of the locks. Here we are tied up to a dock at the Davis Lock.

We arrived in Kingston on Sunday afternoon, July 6. My original schedule developed back in March had us in Kingston on July 6, wala!

New York to Montreal

Soon after passing under the Verrazano Suspension Bridge into New York harbor, the Statue of Liberty appears along the New Jersey shoreline. We have arrived in New York and are starting up the Hudson River.

Our first stop on our historic tour was at the Croton Dam, the third largest stone structure in the world, exceeded only by the Great Wall of China and the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Our next stop was at the Rockerfeller home, Kykuit. We finished the day at Washington Irving's cottage.

After spending two days in Tarrytown, viewing the historic sights in the area, we headed out on our treck up the Hudson River. One of the majestic sights is West Point along the west bank of the river.

As the river cuts through the eastern end of the Appalachian Mountains, it forms a beautiful valley, with river depths as much as 80'. What is quite amazing, is that the river is tidal all the way to Albany.

On Saturday we got to Kingston, located on the northern banks of Rondout Creek, the eastern terminus of a canal that ran from Pennsylvania to the Hudson River. Coal was hauled on small barges to Kingston, than reloaded onto larger barges for transport to New York City or other New England cities. Kingston was also the first Capital of New York and was burned to the ground in 1777 by the British.

After attending a Lutheran church service this morning, Sunday, June 15, we motored another 40 miles up the river towards Albany. We are anchored for the night behind Houghtaling Island.

Monday we continued up river, passing Albany and the capital building. Shortly north of Albany we entered the first lock of the upper Hudson River. the Troy lock. We spent the night at the town of Waterford dock, offered free with power and water to lure boaters to spend some money in their neat town.

We spent Tuesday and Wednesday working our way up the Champlain Canal into the south end of Lake champlain. Because of the significance of this natural water route in our early history, there are many historic sites along the way.

On Tuesday we went through 10 lockes, 8 up to the top of the system at 140', and 2 down to Whitehall, where our first navy ships were built. They have a great museum there where they have assembled memorbelia from those years, with great models assembled of the town in those early years.

On Wednesday we went through the last lock, down to the elevation of Lake Champlain of 96'. The south end of Champlain is basically a wide river for the first 30-40 miles. In this stretch Lake George drains into Champlain, and at that point Fort Ticondaoga was built on the high hill along the west shore. From that fort you can see up to the north a good 10 miles and to the south 5-6 miles. We anchored ODYSSEE and dingied in to visit the fort. There was significant weed growth in the shallow water, and we thought we had anchored outside of that weed growth. After a two hour tour of the fort, we came back to the shore to find that ODYSSEE had moved about 1/4 mile to the north, pushed by the south wind, well into the weed growth. The weeds wrapped around the rode and anchor were so heavy we couldn't pull the anchor up, so I would pull it up as much as I could, Claria would move the boat forward, forcing the weeds down the rode, and allowing me to pull up another foot of rode. When we got down to the last 10', the anchor was blocking any further stripping action of the water. At this point I took the boat hook, extended to it's maximum length, and used it to hook into the weeds and slowly stripped the weeds from the rode and anchor. Finally I could raise the anchor and we could move out into deeper water. Several cycles of reverse and forward and we had the weeds off the props and we were off again. Definitely another ODYSSEE odyssey! We spent a very pleasant night anchored in Bulwagga bay.

On Thursday, June 19, we finished our trip to Burlington, VT where we are spending a couple days. We have developed a leak at the shaft of our port engine fresh water pump. Have parts on the way and plan to change out that pump while we are in Burlington as well.

Waterpump replaced, we left Burlington on Saturday afternoon, June 21 and moved 30 miles up Lake champlain and anchored for the night.

On Sunday, we woke up to a drizzel and heavy clouds. We had 14 miles to go to get to the Canadian border, and then another 63 miles up the Richelieu River and Chambly Canal to Saint-Antoni sur Richelieu, our planned stop for the night at their town wall. The Chambly Canal has 9 locks, all small, 120' long by 22' wide, beginning at Saint-Jean-de-Richelieu, where several boats lined the town wall, including KAOS, our "Looper" friends 

from Texas. Locks 1 through 8 are manually operated. The canal itself is narrow with a                       

6 MPH speed limit. Actually we couldn't go any faster, with the canal only 50' wide and 8' deep in some places, our boat was pushing a lot of water. It takes 1 1/2 hours to travel the 9 miles of the canal and pass through the 9 locks.

Monday was again an overecast day with on and off showers. We arrived at Sorel and the St. Lawerance river about noon with many large ships waiting to greet us. We turned left to the SW for a 37 mile up river trek to Montreal.

As late afternoon arrived, so did the skyline of Montreal. We are planning on spending 3 nights here, leaving on Thursday, June 26 to start up the Ottawa River towards Ottawa.

Classic ODYSSEE among mostly new "bubble" boats at Yacht Club Montreal.

Up the Del-Mar coast to NYC

We left Norfolk on Thursday, June 5, went across the entrance to the Chesapeak, inside the Bay Bridge Tunnel to Cape Charles, a fine place! Entered the Virginia Inside Passage (VIP) at low water, -0.5' with a rising tide behind us. About 3 miles in ran into some 3.5' water, anchored the boat, relaxed for two hours waiting for water to rise, lifted anchor and proceeded to Anchorage for the night.

Yesterday, Friday June 6, continued up VIP through a rising tide. Found many DANGER signs indicating very skinny water. Locals also planted sticks in the bottom to help us strangers get through. Got near Wachapreague Inlet the water was falling and under +2', so we elected to go outside up to Chincoteaque where we have tied up to the town dock. On the way in to Chincoteaque passed this permanent day marker which had been distroyed and now marked with a temporary marker.








Chincoteaque has completed nice transient docks with power and water, available for 24 hours for $1.00 per foot. One of the local police officers comes down from the police station to collect your money and welcome you to town. After getting checked in, we took the Pony Express trolley for a ride around town for a fare of $.25 each. We went past the park they use to auction off the wild horses from Assateaque Island once each year. The proceeds from the sale go to the Chincoteaque police who actually own the horses.

On Saturday we went 34 miles through the shallow Chincoteaque Bay, leading a rising tide all the way through by 1 1/2 hours. Even so we passed through some skinny water of only 4 1/2'. Near the north end of the lake we crossed an abondoned crab trap and picked it up and wrapped around out starboard prop. After spending 3 hours under the boat with a wire cutter the crab trap now litters the bottom just south of the Ocean City inlet. We were anchored behind the north end of Assateaque Island where several wild horses were grazing.

Sunday June 8 we traveled another 44 miles to Lewes, Delaware, the first settlement in Delaware, where we were able to get off the boat to walk to the town Museum and down the main street.

Monday, June 9 took us accross the Delaware River to Cape May, NJ. Tomorrow my sister Mary and her husband Jack Wolfe arrive on their trawler BAOWOLFE, from St. Michael's, MD. We will travel together for the next few days up to New York City.

We left on Wednesday morning, heading north on the outside towards Manasasquan, a midway harbor between Cape May and New York City, a trip of 100 miles. Today, Thursday June 12, we motored through New York city and up the Hudson River to Tarrytown, where we will spend two nights, doing some historic sightseeing on Friday.