Lower Lake Champlain

After an exellent dinner at Finch & Chubb, the restaurant at Lock 12 Marina, and a good night's rest, we sailed into Lake Champlain. The Lake is narrow in the lower region and broadens until it reaches its widest point near Burlington, VT. We planned to anchor off of Fort Ticonderoga for the evening and tour the fort but Mother Nature had other ideas. Serious storms were headed in so we sought safe harbor at Westport, NY. We'll have to catch the fort some other time. Weather cleared and the lake beckoned so we were off again, crossing the lake to catch a mooring at Basin Harbor Club near Vergennes, VT. Basin Harbor Club is beautiful. It is an old-fashioned vacation retreat (think "Dirty Dancing" or for the Donohue family, Capon Springs, WV), with a landing strip, golf course, all water sports, etc. It is considered the home of the Adirondack Chair. We tendered up Otter Creek, past beaver dams and marshy areas that reminded us of the Carolinas, to the town of Vergennes, the oldest town in Vermont. Though Otter Creek seemed remote, it actually had good cell service, something Basin Harbor did not.

Back at Basin Harbor, it was time for Tom Coker to fly home. We tendered him to the taxi in the pouring rain, released the mooring and continued north on the Lake. It is reported that the deepest points of Lake Champlain are in this region. So far, we have sounded depths exceeding 350 ft. Very strange phenonenon for those of us used to the shallow lakes of Florida. Next stop, Essex Marina in Essex, NY.