Arctic Songbird Adventures

We departed Ft Edward after a late start this morning and decided to stay in Whitehall. We walked a couple miles in the burning heat and the only thing we could find that was open was the ice cream shop! It was disappointing and the town is basically dying like so many historic towns in these parts. At 4:30p we decided to go through the last lock on the Champlain Canal. Of course once we departed the wall the lockmaster informed us the lock was broken. Finally at 5:40p she got it working and off we went to find Lake Champlain before dark. We made it to Pt. Chipman Marina, which had dates on the buildings of 1810 and 1824! We met some nice folks from Vermont that own acres of farmland from many generations passed on. This is beautiful country and we are looking forward to cooler weather and more adventure around the lake this week.

We are back in some beautiful rural scenery in upstate NY as we cruise the Champlain Canal. We passed the Saratoga Battlefields and many historic sites but it has just been too hot to explore with temperatures in the mid 90's. Today is the peak of the heat wave with a forecast of 96F and tomorrow cooling into the 80's. I sure hope the forecasters are correct for once! We got off to a late start yesterday after church and reprovisioning. There were several slow spots in the canal and we had to wait for a barge on two of the four locks we transited. The locals were out in force due to the warm weekend day and the jet skiers were enjoying the wake we made. We are finding more and more bugs growing larger and larger as we venture onward, and at this rate, I am expecting to see spiders the size of my hand soon! We continue to find ticks in the boat so there are now multiple tick checks daily of the dogs. Today is our 24th anniversary! We need to get going and hopefully I will have e...

After a late night visiting I still managed to get everyone moving by 8am. Allison and I took the dogs for their morning walk and admired the sights once more. We departed at 9:20a and took a side trip back to the Statue of Liberty so Allison could get some pictures. We finally got moving in the right direction at 10:00a and about the time we got to the north end of Manhattan, the Coast Guard stopped us, boarded the boat, and gave us a surprise inspection, which we passed. Then it was seven hard hours at 28 knots dodging thousands of sticks and logs northbound up the Hudson.  We pushed the time limit and had 7 minutes until the last lock closed prior to Mechanicville. Whew....that was a close one. I was afraid as we pulled into the city dock wall we would find it packed full of boats at 5:00p on a hot Saturday afternoon. I was totally surprised to find it empty! We had the entire place to ourselves with free electricity! We walked a couple miles into town for cold drinks and pizza....

I could not enter a blog yesterday due to no cell service on the boat. Some days it works, some days it doesn't! We rode the ferry one more time to Manhattan on Thursday and visited the Freedom tower observation floor on level 102. They said it was 1250 feet above the ground and some planes were flying lower than us. The view was amazing and we could see tens of thousands of buildings for miles in all directions. The ride up and down is between 1200-1500 feet per minute, I estimated, so it did a number on our ears. We also visited the WTC Memorial again. The sunset was spectacular and we got some great pictures. Our boat neighbors Eric and Robin get the credit for taking a great picture of our boat. Today we worked on getting the boat ready for the next leg. We went shopping and literally brought back 120 pounds of food in the doggy trailer. After unpacking, we took the dogs back to Jersey City (we needed some sweets), and then to Liberty Park. We ended up riding about 14 miles to...

Our French neighbors Ed and Sabine left the marina early this morning to try and beat the ebb tide plus Hudson current. I managed to get their attention and wave goodbye in the dark and then it was back to bed for a bit longer. I promised the family I would sleep in today and they were hoping for 8am. Nope....couldnt do it and I was at the marina shower by 7:30a. After we were up and full of breakfast, back on the ferry and over to Manhattan we went....this time armed with bicycles! It wasn't bad going north on 8th Ave in the bike lane, except for the millions of people trying to run over us. We made it to Central Park and went around the entire perimeter loop, stopping for pictures and to let the dogs run and play. When it was time to go south toward the marina, there were no bike lanes. The local police did not even know of any. So.....we peddled like crazy people from Alaska down the middle of 7th Ave (another one way), dodging people, taxis, and buses, and made it back. The si...