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.

FLASH NEWS

At 1000 today, I got the following notice by email.

UPDATE: CHAMPLAIN CANAL HAS REOPENED TO ALL VESSELS. THE ERIE CANAL LOCK E2 TO E19 WILL REMAIN CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

Hooray!  Also, Katina is bendind eastward.  

Last item. I ordered a new pair of oars over the weekend. If I can divert the ship-to address to somewhere on the Hudson, we can leave this week!

Flood Damage, Stranded?

Shelburne Bay, Vermont
44 25.61 N 073 14.94 W

Last week we visited Schenectady and Rotterdam Junction.  We saw some of the flood devastation.  It was so sad to see mountains of people's spoiled possessions piled by the roads.  However, nothing we saw first hand compares to the pictures I found later.  The destruction is hard to imagine.

Erie Lock 8, (Source The Columbia Missorian)
The lock is under water between the house and the dam.

One spot we spent a lot of time at is Erie Lock 11 in Amsterdam.   We were especially fond of the Walter P Elwood  museum housed in Guy Park Manor at the lock.  The museum had lost its previous home. The museum is a jewel, more fun to visit than some of the Smithsonian Museums in D.C.   I blogged about it here.   Guy Park Manor is a wonderful mansion which has survived at that site since 1773, 3 years before the American revolution.   Here is a  NY Times article  about the destruction.  The Amsterdam Recorder also said that the water was even 5 feet deep in  Russos Restaurant across the RR tracks and highway from the museum.  The currents must have been very swift and powerful. Pictures below.

Lock 11 and Guy Park Manor,
(Source, Amterdam Recorder)

Closeup of Guy Park Manor,
(Source, NY Times)

Amsterdam, NY, Lock 11? or Lock 10?
(Source Albany Times Union)

That big thing that looks like a bridge is actually a dam.  It has steel gates that are lifted in winter to let the ice through.  Those gates appear to have been destroyed.  

Now, after the flood waters are gone, the river/canal has almost become a dry wash.  That is because of damaged gates at the downstream dams.  They lost the ability to control water levels in the River.  The NY Canal corporation's first priority must be to repair the dams before next spring's thaw and flood.  If they don't the ice and spring flood will damage and destroy still more.  I would not be surprised if it takes more than one year to reopen the canal for boat traffic.

As a reminder of the importance of those dams, look at the picture below.  It shows a flood gauge on the wall of a city building near the river in the Stockade section of Schenectady, NY.   Marks on the gauge show the crests of various spring floods in past years.  This flood in 2011 is almost of the top of the scale.  However, smaller signs on the wall show the floods of 1913 and 1914 which happened before completion of the modern canal and dams in 1918.

Landlocked?

Shelburne Bay, Vermont
44 25.61 N 073 14.94 W

We may be stranded here on Lake Champlain for the winter.   The Champlain and Erie Canals are closed.  Officially there is no word on when they might reopen.  Unofficially, we hope that the Champlain Canal might open in another week.   That would put us behind schedule on starting southward migration but not badly so.

The Erie Canal is much more severely damaged by Irene.  I'll post some pictures soon.  It won't reopen this year for sure.  I think even next year is in doubt.

What alternatives do we have?  We could go up to the Saint Lawrence River and head for Nova Scotia.   That is a much long trip than you might suspect.  Doing so would also put us in the Atlantic in the Perfect Storm neighborhood in the Perfect Storm month.   We are not up to that.  Tarwathie could do it but not her crew.  

We could also try for the Great Look route to get out but that might get us frozen into Lake Michigan in December.

No, we would have to find a place to put Tarwathie up on the hard for the winter, and then impose on Jenny for a place to live.   That might work but we (and I'm sure Jenny) sure don't want it.

So, for now we enjoy our extra weeks in paradise and enjoy it while keeping our fingers crossed.

OMG The Dinghy is GONE!

South Burlington, Vermont

Boy oh boy do we have lots of things to blog about.  I'll have to spread it over several days.
First, the headline news.  We have been away from Tarwathie for two days.  When we went to return to the boat this morning, we went to the dinghy dock.  When I looked, I said, "Oh My God, the dinghy is gone!"  After a few minutes searching the vicinity of the Perkins Pier dinghy dock I really began to panic.  I asked the Perkins Pier attendant.  He knew nothing.  Then I called the Burlington Boat House who is in charge of Perkins Pier.

The man on the phone gave me good news.  He said, "We have your dinghy.  It was found by the security man last night as it was being vandalized."    I hurried down there.  The Burlington Boat House is about 1/4 mile away.   When I got there, I heard the full story.  It seems that the security man spotted three men doing something bad.  He rushed in.  The three men ran away but he found my dinghy floating upside down near one of the docks.   He rescued the dinghy, turned it right side up, and tied it to the dock.

Vandalism?  The painter had been cut and one of our oars was broken in two.

My theory?  It sounds likely that the three men were drunks who wanted to joy ride.  Our dinghy was the only one at the Perkins Pier dock in the water at night.  Other dinghies were stored upside down on top of the dock.  Why did they cut the painter when they only needed to untie it?  Why or how did they break the oar?  Drunkenness is my theory.

The Burlington Boathouse people were very nice.  They used the harbormaster boat to tow me in the dinghy back to Tarwathie.   Otherwise, it would have been hard.  A rowboat with one oar is worse then one with no oars at all.  Also, Tarwathie was upwind against a stiff breeze.  No way I could have paddled there with my hands.

Once on Tarwathie, I was able to mount the outboard motor as an alternative means of dinghy propulsion.  We haven't used the motor since leaving Florida last April.

We owe a hearty thank you to the staff of the Burlington Boat House.  They rescued us from what could have been a much worse incident.

In other news today, more dark clouds (see below)