Southward Bound

Porter Bay, Vermont
44 13.82 N 073 20.60 W

Yesterday we got the news that the Champlain Canal was reopnened. Today we got the news that Federal Lock in Troy will be open by Friday. We checked with the marinas to help us take the mast down and up; they're ready for us. That clears a path for us all the way to the sea. Off we go!

What a crazy summer this has been.  It started and ended with epic floods.  In June we held back from passage to Champlain because of the severe flooding in the lake caused by spring rains.  Then last week tropical storm Irene struck with amazing impact in Vermont and New York.  For a while, we thought we would be blocked entirely.  In the meanwhile our dinghy was stolen and recovered.  Whew!

Still, although many others suffered mightily, everything worked out fine for us.   We were motivated to travel the Erie Canal all the way to Buffalo and back.  That turned out to be a delightful trip and we're very glad we did it.  Then, we arrived on Lake Champlain after the floods receded and we had outstanding weeks here.   We got to visit all of our children, most of our grandchildren, and many friends old and new.  Libby even got to work her green thumb urges to exhaustion working with Jenny and working in Jenny's yard.  Gardening is one thing Libby misses most in our cruising life. This provided a good fix.

The summer season was capped with dinner with Terry and Julia on Shelburne Point last night.  Those were people we only knew slightly before.  Now we know them very well and discovered that we had much more in common that we expected.   Thanks for a great evening.

There is even a (slight) chance that we could make it to the Westsail Rendezvous 9/16 near Annapolis.

The path and the high seas of Hurricane Katia will apparently be past before we reach the sea.  The next two hurricanes are too far away to be a factor yet. #14.  Green light to go.  All we need is some favorable winds as we approach New York City.

My, how quickly things can turn around.  We're getting out of here while the getting is good and before something else happens.

FLASH NEWS UPDATE
6 minutes after I posted the above, we got notice that the Champlain Canal is closed again.  At least part of it.  The culprit is the rain we had yesterday from Tropical Storm Lee.   We can still start on the canal and get part way down.  Hopefully it won't stay closed long.