Kurt

All done tomorrow.  Sydney and I are in Haverstraw NY tonight, after a 100 mile run down the Hudson from Troy.  Not a nice day - cloudy, and a little rain.  Lots of bad stuff in the river in places.  Lucky to not have hit anything  troublesome.  We've 110 miles to cover tomorrow to get to Beach Haven.

I had the lock count all wrong.  62 locks all in.  I said 48, but had not counted the Champlain Canal and Chambly Canal locks correctly.

Nice trip.  Already trying to figure out next summer's adventure.

The photos are of ships/barges in the Hudson today.  Saw another eagle, too.  A huge one flying.

Bob

Back on board, with Sydney and the dogs.  We came today from Mallet Bay on Lake Champlain, just north of Burlington VT, to the first lock in the Champlain Canal which will take us to the Hudson River at Waterford NY, just above Albany.  Lovely trip down the lake, with little breeze to fight.  The lake just gets narrower on the way south, and winds up as a river at the Lock 12, here in Whitehall NY.  We go up two more locks, then down to the Hudson River in the Canal.

Sorry not to have any photos.  Took all I had to stay in the channel - well marked, but needed attention to stay out of harm's way.  Nice ride.  Through Lock 12, and we have 10 more to go tomorrow.  There's no Lock 10, but they never changed the numbers from the original plans.

Some excitement with the rental car coming back to Burlington.  The left front wheel fell off while I was taking it back to the rental office.  Fell off!!!  Quite exciting, with a very long skid mark to show its demise.  Nobody hurt, thankfully.  Sure would have been a mess falling off on the Interstate, where we were for the two days with the car, from Burlington to Beach Haven and back.

Three more days to the end.  We will be in Beach Haven on Saturday.  So, there will be no more blogging.  Sure has been a fine trip for me.  Tony, Kurt, Dawn, Dina, and now Sydney.  Could not have been better.

1700 miles in all when I'm finished - about three weeks on the water.  48 locks in all.  And, so far, about 1500 gallons of diesel.  More to be put in to get us home.

Bob

The first photo is of Catherine Mary Stewart, and actress, and the woman the Customs Agent here at Rouses Point thought Dina was when Dina threw her a line at the Customs dock.  Nice miss!!

The second is a cable ferry that takes cars from one side of the Richeleau River in Canada to the other.  We passed several of them, and you have to be careful to not pass to quickly after they cross because the cable has to drop to the bottom of the river for us to pass.  We had no trouble.

The third photo is of Sorel, where we stayed last night.  It is about 40 miles downstream from Montreal on the St Lawrence River, and an industrial town busy with ocean going freighters.

The container ship is what we saw a lot of along the way.

And, finally, the sunrise is Tadoussac as we left two days ago.

That's it for today!

Bob

No internet last night at Sorel, a St Lawrence River town, fourth oldest in Canada, where they load freighters with potash, I think.  Three of them in the little harbor.  Trip  yesterday back upstream to Sorel from Quebec City was a push almost all the way against the tide current.  Lots of wind, too, in some places sort of uncomfortable, where there was a long fetch to the wind.  Started out in the fog and rain, and things got better as the day progressed.  Dinner in Sorel was to be forgotten.

Up early to try to get to the States today - and we were successful.  Cloudy and rainy most of the day though.  Cool, too.  I think summer's over up here.  The Richeleau River from Sorel to Lake Champlain is a nice trip, with about 12 miles of it in the Chambly Canal.  The rest of the way is in the river.  Nine locks and lots of bridges that need to be raised.  Hand operated locks, built in the 1840s.  Narrow canal, sort of like what exists in Europe, I'm told.  The Canadian Park Service works the canal, and has a bunch of delightful lock tenders doing their thing for us.  Only one of the nine locks had a motor closing the lock doors.  We came up about 90 feet in all, to Lake Champlain level, where we now are.

Customs was a delight, with very helpful Customs Officers, one of whom thought that Dina was an actress.  They helped get us into a marina next door to their offices, which was closed.  Arrived after six.  But nice to be in the States again.  Short ride tomorrow to Burlington, and then we will take the rental car to Beach Haven.  Dina's missing Baily, and will be glad to get back with a day to spend with him (Sunday).

So, a fine adventure, with a total, so far, of 46 locks.  Twelve more from Lake Champlain to the Hudson River with Sydney once we return to Burlington next week.

Yesterday and todays pictures will follow later.

Bob

Here's what it looked like at about 0540 this morning when we left Tadoussac docks.  Best part of the day, though.  We ran back up the St Lawrence River to Quebec City, and pushed against an outgoing tide about the whole way.  We did see lots of whales this morning, some even about 20 miles upstream from Tadoussac, where there were still 500 feet of water in the river.  Cold too.

Took only seven hours though, and we put in some fuel and went back to the same dock we stayed at three days ago.  Not at all nice, though - just lots of rain.

We passed a freighter early this morning, and the captain called the "American yacht" in the river.  We had a good talk on Channel 6 about how to best run the river against the outgoing tide, and the coming rain.  Nice of him to bother with me.  He really was helpful.  Told me to stay about a mile from the northern shore, which cut the force of the tidal flow quite a bit.  And about how to manage the southern route closer to Quebec City, which had less tide flow.

So, we're boat bound for dinner

tonight, and will leave tomorrow morning for Sorel, about 40 miles downstream from Montreal, where we'll spend the night and then go halfway from there to Burlington VT on Friday.  Supposed to get better tomorrow, though later in the day.  We'll see.

Bob