All that excitement and we still managed to do some sightseeing, soul enriching, shopping, movie watching, and laundry. This is a very boater friendly town. They have a free shuttle to the trendy restaurant, shopping area which is near the movie theater and near most of the AA meetings. We were able to take the regular bus system to West Marine and to Walgreens for some necessary shopping. We went to an AA meeting the first night we arrived. On our way home we ate dinner at a cute Chinese restaurant. The next day we took the bus to West Marine, then watched the movie Norman, with Richard Gere. It was interesting, a bit too serious and a touch sad. Then we headed to Walgreens before checking on the boat. The wind had started to increase a little and my digestive system had started to misbehave so John took off to catch another meeting. It was at a treatment system and they were so grateful he came. A group of locals took him to dinner afterwards. A nice surprise. Our last full day included sleeping in after a very fitful night with many trips outside adjusting and adding fenders. We finally headed out to catch another movie, this time we saw The Book of Henry. Another interesting, serious and sad movie. Both movies have interesting and somewhat amazing ways of dealing with problems. Later that night after eating out at a Filipino/Mexican restaurant we watched Caddy Shack to lighten the mood.
The phot at the right is the view as we backed past our former mooring location on the dock. The building behind the floating dock is the restaurant that has been under renovation. The initial plan was to head to Plattsburgh, NY back on the Adirondack Park side of Lake Champlain. The route was only 20.3 miles, but I opted to take a more scenic route that probably added about 5 miles to the trip. We didn't yet have a reservation, and it turned out that Plattsburgh didn't have a spot for us. Our options included going to another anchorage, but then we settled on going to our next planned destination which is Rouses Point. Ever make a decision and suddenly have this big feeling of relief come over you? This is how both of us felt. It seems that all of the excitement about the boat and the weather had taken its mental toll on us…
Out on the lake we had a gently “tail wind” (south wind behind us) as you can see by the small ripples on the water (photo at right). The low hills are on the west side of the lake, but it was hazy enough that we could not see the Adirondack Mountains in the far distance.
The were some homes along the west side (photo at right), but the view of the shore was mainly trees and occasional rocky areas. In general, the trip was very serene and helped to increase our feeling of relief of finally getting off the lake.
The lake is long and narrow, and rather than have an abrupt end, it seemed to me that is just kept getting narrower until we were in the Richelieu River that flows north to the St. Lawrence River. The photo at the right shows the east side of the lake as we are nearly off the lake. At the far right you can see that the lake was much wider back to the south.
The photo at the right was taken immediately after the one above and shows the view out the left or west side. Taken together, the last two pictures show how narrow the lake had become, and at some (unspecified) point ahead we were “officially” off the lake and into the Richelieu River.
Very shortly we reached Rouses Point, NY, which is our jumping off point for the Canadian portion of this summer’s trip. When we leave Rouses Point, our next stop will be to clear the Canadian Customs a little over one mile to the north (down river). We will probably stay in Rouses Point for 4 nights in order to let the next weather system pass through the area. We are looking forward to a few days in a quieter setting, hopefully protected from the wind better than the past few days. Of course, we need to get started on making repairs to our recent damage and of course there is some routine maintenance like changing the oil in the three diesel engines (i.e. the two main engines and the generator. So, as usual, our extended stay will not be all rest, relaxation and fun…
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