Lake Champlain - September 2007
After heading back into the US (on Labor Day) - we spent the night anchored in Pelots Bay on Lake Champlain. Not sure if crossing the border at the start of a holiday weekend was the smartest thing we've ever done. It was incredibly crowded with loads of French Canadians coming down for the weekend. We had a hard time finding somewhere to tie up for the check in. We tried to anchor and dink in, but we were told that we had to tie up at the marina. Fortunately there was a very helpful guy at the marina in Rouses Point who found us a good spot - a bit out of the way of most of the other boat traffic. It ended up taking about and hour and a half by the time we got through the line and checked in.
Anyway, after we got checked in, we found this great little protected anchorage in Pelots Bay at the northern end of Lake Champlain. The sunset was beautiful, especially the way the clouds reflected on the water. Nice end to a bit of a hectic day.
The downside to the anchorage on the lake was the vast amounts of grass on the bottom. Our anchor dug in OK - after a couple of tries - but when we saw this guy next to us cleaning off the amazing clump of grass off of his anchor the next morning, we knew we were going to be in for a similar job when it came time for us to leave.
The picture to the right was taken after leaving Pelots Bay and heading south on the Lake.
One of our favorite stops in Lake Champlain is at the southern end in the town of Whitehall. It's the start of the Champlain canal and the town has a wonderful free town dock complete with electric. I snapped this picture of Tardis in the morning tied up at the town dock.
We headed a bit farther south and tied up at Fort Edward (also a free town dock with electric). We went on a long walk in the afternoon (about 3 miles each way) to see the old locks that were part of a feeder canal that used to run up to some mills in the area. The canal was very narrow - maybe 15' wide We found this wonderful flight of 5 locks along the way. We also found this wonderful 'bathtub Madonna' in someone's yard along the way.
Updated May 4, 2008