Our departure from the marina at about
10:00 AM was in a light wind so getting underway was a lot more relaxed than
our arrival yesterday. We had a lovely view of Port Henry (photo at right) as
we headed north toward an anchorage about 19.6 miles away. The marina was just
out of view to the left, and the center of town is that cluster of buildings in
the middle. That is the hill that we walked up for dinner yesterday only to
find that the Chinese restaurant was closed.
The photo at the left shows some of the
shoreline on the west side of Lake Champlain. It was always heavily treed and
occasionally with rocky wave cut cliffs. Lake Champlain is elongate in a
north-south direction with the prevailing south and N-NW winds. These winds run
parallel to the lake and make the lake seem like a wind tunnel.
We saw few signs of civilization, but
there were isolated cabins, including this lovely big house (photo at right).
As you can see in the picture there is very little wind on the water here as we
did go into several sheltered bays to see more of the scenery during our rather
short trip today.
Lake Champlain was formed by the
continental ice sheet that moved south out of Hudson’s Bay. The lake is often
two to three hundred feet deep, but there are a number of islands some of which
are quite small (photo at left). The islands in the photo are small and
difficult to see, but they are well marked on charts and with navigation aids.
These two islands are surrounded by deep water so they must have been a
different rock type that was more resistant to erosion by the glaciers.
As we approached our anchorage, we passed
this potential anchorage at an island (photo at right) that provides a lot of
protection from northerly winds, but it is totally exposed to south winds. We
opted for a small bay that provided protection from both southerly and
northerly winds. We knew that the bay was shallow, and one local rule that we
have learned is that water depths of less than 20 feet will have weeds on the
bottom.
We have met a number of people that were
suffering from pollen allergies. In our chosen anchorage we could see this
heavy coating of pollen on the water (photo at left). Evidence that Spring has
not been here all that long… One disadvantage of our travel plans this year is
that we have experienced heavy pollen in Texas, Ohio, central New York and now
here on Lake Champlain – oh joy…
We arrived at our anchorage around 1 pm and attempted to
anchor in about 10 feet of water that was close to a boat Launch ramp. The
advantage of this particular spot is that the ramp would be an ideal place to
land a kayak when we take Lucky to shore to do her business. We ate lunch
while keeping an eye on how much we were dragging. After lunch, it was
clear that the anchor was not holding so we hoisted the anchor, cleaned off a
big clump of weeds and tried again nearby. Again, we could not get the
anchor to set so we decided that we might have to move on. However, we
liked the area since the views were very nice (photo at right). So, we moved
into a little deeper water away from the weeds and tried again. Turns out
there is some truth to the adage, the third time is the charm.
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