.....
Don Boyd (your correspondant)
Joni Crosby and Mik (as far as Chambly
Don Cudmore (Scurvy Dog #1 and head chart changer)
Miles travelled - 350 (aprox)
Engine hours - 62
Sailing hours - 0
Money spent: Food / beer / ice / snacks on board - $130.00
Diesel / gas / marina fees / lock fees - $ 165.00
Charts / guides / port fees - $ 30.00
Eating out / drinking out / touring - $30.00
Aprox. total this leg -
It seems that I can always associate a major moment in my life with something else BIG! This time it was that our departure was the same day that Lady Diana was killed in Paris. We heard about it after going through the Seaway locks and stopping at the old Expo Marina gas barge, which is closed now, and in a terrible state of disrepair. There was a telephone on the barge and Don Cudmore, volunteered to serve as crew as far as New York, decided to pick it up and it still worked!!!! He called his mom to say hello and she told him of the car crash.
But did this sad and historic event delay out historic trip? No! because we had get Destiny Calls south, and it was time to do it! Rather than dwell on the sad event of the Lady Di car crash I decided to think back on a happier memory and the movie "Paddle to the Sea" which followed the progress of a Indian Boy's toy canoe as it drifted from the interior, along the lakes and rivers to the sea. After all, this was the first leg to realise my boy hood dream of sailing to the Caribbean and I could not let a tragedy, half a world away spoil it for myself or those on board.
To keep in a festive mood, I had decided that we'd celebrate our progress south every time we switched to a new chart! Don Cudmore, serving as Scurvy Dog #1, was given instructions to "Beer Me" by cracking open a cold beer, whenever we switched charts. (In fact, there may have been some confusion with my instructions because Don often mistakenly thought that we'd switched charts along the way when in fact we had not...we drank these as well)
Thus it was "Beer me to the sea" all the way to New York!!!
We'd actually managed to leave on Saturday, August 30th, at the bright and early call of 10:00, which was pretty good considering that neither one of us had slept. Lets, face it, we're all little kids inside and it was hard to get to sleep because Joni and I were excited about the trip. To be honest, I'd worked up to the day of our departure and was as tired as I think I've ever been!
The route from PCYC and Montreal to New York is means that we actually have to head the wrong way for fifty miles and go north to Sorel so that we can enter the Richelieu River,
turn south again and on day three, be just fifteen miles due east of where we started! My wife Joni and our pug dog Mik at least could come along for the first few days and easily get off in Chambly, getting picked up by our friend Gail McTagart (it took only 45 minutes for her to drive to us!)
The Richelieu is an old lock and barge canal system now operated by parks Canada. It's route takes you past both pastoral farm land, and cottage homes, and is really a very scenic trip. It is interesting to note that the chart has actually got two strips on it, effectively making a chart change without actually changing the chart!
The happy sounds of the Captain yelling "Beer Me"! brought many a confused stare from the locals.
The town of Chambly, at the north end of the Chambly Canal, has a bike path which follows the 12 mile canal almost it's entire route, and on the day we went through, the path was swarming with cyclists and roller bladers; either of whom glided past us as if we were standing still (at least no joggers managed to leave Destiny Calls in their dust!)
After Joni was gone, the boat felt oddly deserted, and Don and I sat below decks at St Jean (at the south end of the Chambly Canal) practising chart changes and pondering this first historic leg. Would the weather hold? Would Howard Stern last more than a month on Montreal Radio. Would we run out of chart changes!
Crossing into the USA September 2nd., was uneventful, and the Plattsburg Yacht Basin and the Naked Turtle Bar became our home base of exploration for local eateries and chart-change practice houses. The following night, we dropped the hook at a pleasant anchorage midway down the lake, off Beaver Brook. It had gone from 80 degrees day to just 50 degree as we motored towards the anchorage, and we were bundled up like we were going skiing. Chart changes were helping fight the cold however and by lunch the following day, September 4th, we were at Whitehall New York and the start of the Champlain Barge Canal!
The Champlain Barge Canal, connects Lake Champlain to the Hudson River and Albany New York about 65 mile to the south. We found it particularly interesting because:
1) It only cost $ 15.00 to go through 2) We were literally the only boat we saw the whole way through
3) It consists of 11 locks numbered 1 thru 12.
It's true, they numbered the locks through twelve in the planning stage but as they actually built the locks they realised that they didn't need a lock 10!
Opps!! Sounds like a Transport Quebec job to me, eh!
(Even to this day, the sound of the name "WhiteHall" sends shivers down my back, as memories of "the fry pan incident" come to mind.)
Now most people would just renumber locks eleven and twelve, but the problem was that the mayors of Whitehall had all the invitations for the opening ceremonies mailed well in advance. Mrs Mayor had even begun baking her famous Possum Cakes in anticipation of a big blew-out to take place at right in downtown Whitehall and Lock 12. The Mayor and many of his close friends and cronies feared that if they renumbered the locks, all the people looking for the party would become lost, and possibly drown looking for the now missing Lock 12, which they reasoned most would assume to be beyond town, located possibly in the middle of Lake Champlain.
When "Scurvy Dog Number 1" learned of this mess-up he became very agitated.
"We paid for a lock 10, we should get a bloody lock number bloody 10!" and with that he grabbed the flare gun and loaded it with a couple of expired 12 gauge shells. as Destiny Calls glided past the place were the missing lock would have been located he blasted a warning shot into the air! I too was now pissed-off over this travesty of lock justice, and as the chart changes had become very frequent, found myself also lobbing a round into the sky.
Unfortunately we had failed to notice that instead of a lock, the government of New York State instead build the Maximum security prison at Comstock, and all the ruckus set-off some sort of alarm with the local constabulary. Sirens and squad cars were heard as we quickly calmed down, washed the gun-powder
residue off our hand, cleaned the flare gun, and safely stored it away.
There were no arrests or injuries to report.
We arrived at our last lock, lock #1, at North Troy just after lunch, on our seventh travel day from Montreal. It's here where we'll find a place to re-step the mast and continue to New York City, were every ones friendly and everything tastes nice.
Till the next instalment, this is Don Boyd wishing everyone a full dance card and all the free peanuts you can eat!
