Northbound on the Champlain Canal

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May 27-29, 2024: Back on a schedule, I cruise the 67 miles of the Champlain Canal in just two days.

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In my previous post, I mentioned meeting my old friends Tom and Tammy for a late lunch at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. Well, although they were headed to New Jersey for two days, they would soon be back home in Vermont where I would join them for a few days. The catch? I had to get my boat up to Whitehall, NY where there was a marina to park it. That put me on a schedule. Again.

An Unplanned Swim

My day started with a splash.

I was pulling the boat closer to the dock so my dogs could jump out when Lily decided to ignore the “wait” command. She jumped off the boat, aiming for the dock, but hit my arm and fell right into the Hudson River.

I was down on my knees on the dock when she surfaced, glad that she’d come up between the boat and the dock and not under the dock where I wouldn’t be able to reach her. I grabbed her by the collar to hold her in place, then put my hand under her belly and pulled her out. She stood on the dock looking like a drowned rat before she shook the water off and followed her sister up the ramp to land.

When they were done doing their business, I got them both back on board and toweled off Lily. Then I started prepping to leave.

Troy Lock, Single-Handed

I didn’t get off the dock until 9 AM. One boat on the way to the lock had already passed me and another left the marina between me and the lock. I pushed the throttle forward and got in sight of the lock just as the gates were closing. I made a radio call saying I was waiting to go northbound and settled down to wait.

But by some miracle, the lockmaster opened the gate back up. I hustled in behind two other boats, both of which were larger than mine. I thanked the lockmaster on the radio as he closed the gates behind me.

This was my first lock single-handing since the Chesapeake Bridge lock way down south of Norfolk, VA. That lock only lifted (lowered?) us 5 feet. This one was considerably more: 14 feet.

The most important thing when single-handing is to have all the fenders and necessary lines already set up before going into the lock.

I’d prepared the boat for locking before leaving Troy. I had four fenders on the starboard side, each lined up with the rub rail, which is the widest part of my boat. The trick is to place the fenders so the boat itself never touches the wall. The fenders take any impact or rubbing. (Pro tip: if you plan on getting new fenders, don’t get them before going through locks. Better to beat up your old ones.)

Some folks use large ball fenders to ensure that the boat doesn’t get close. I considered this but really did not want to carry two more large fenders. The fenders I have turned out to be large enough to do the job. I have four of them on each side of the boat.

Troy lock requires you to pass a line around a solid pipe in a recess in the lock wall. There are lots of recesses, each with their own pipe. My job was to pull up next to a pipe, get the boat to a stop, and then reach out my window at the helm to get the line in place.

Getting my boat into place is easy. I enter the lock slowly so my wake doesn’t follow me in. Then I move up next to the wall without actually touching it (with the fenders) and glide up until I’m nearly to the pipe (or rope, on other locks) that I want to latch onto. I’m doing most of this at idle, only going into forward idle when I need steering. Then idle reverse to slow down. And thrusters to get up against the wall to loop around the pipe (or grab the provided hanging line on other locks).

I used the forward midship line, which is cleated right under my window. It was quite a reach to the pipe, but I managed it. I then held the line, keeping the boat tight against the lock wall as we rose.

Easy peasy.

We went up. I could see how far up we were going to go by looking at the waterline above us. The lockmaster moved to the center of the gate in front of us and looked down. When the water levels on both sides of the gate were equal, he went back and opened the gate. One by one, we all released and reeled in our lines and drove slowly out of the lock.

Lock 1 of the Erie Canal was behind me. 11 more to go to Lake Champlain.

Troy Lock to Schuylerville

I followed the other two boats northbound. One boat started talking to the other about doing photos. The other boat didn’t seem very enthusiastic. I’m not sure if they did it or not.

At Waterford, one boat turned left into the Erie Canal. I followed the other boat right into the Champlain Canal.

There’s a big, green sign where the Hudson River channel breaks off to the Erie and Champlain Canals.

I didn’t follow closely. I was in no hurry and I think he was. He was in a big boat with 590 in the model number. There were six people on board, each wearing a headset when they came to a lock. The captain sat up in the command bridge and when they got to a lock, everyone hustled. It made me giggle to think about them needing six people to lock through when I was doing it alone.

So I’d let them get ahead of me — out of sight sometimes — before catching up with them when we reached a lock. (I didn’t want to have to wait for the lock to cycle.) Although many of the locks had a pipe or cable in a recess in the lock wall, they all had ropes hanging from the top of the lock. Rather than use your own line to connect to the pipe or cable, you could grab a line and hold onto that. I’m still not sure whether that’s easier or harder to do. I know they’re easier to grab.

For some reason, the boat I was following decided to park and do a little field trip at Lock 1 while waiting for the lock to open for us. They offered to help me dock behind them, but my boat was prepped for a starboard tie and I didn’t mind drifting while I waited.

This is the boat we waited for at Lock 1. The bridges are so low along the Champlain Canal — sometimes as low as 15 feet — that sailboats can only pass through with their masts stepped down.

The canal was narrow and winding — it was the actual path of the Hudson River, with dams and locks to navigate around rapids and waterfalls. There was a mix of homes on either side and, more often than not, nothing but forest or swamp or farmland. Very pleasant for cruising because there wasn’t much current and the water was smooth.

More than once, the boat up ahead of me warned me about hazards he approached. Once it was a floating log I never actually saw. Twice it was a stiff current going into a lock. I don’t know if he was telling me about these things because he thought I was a novice or a woman. I felt like getting on the radio to assure him that this wasn’t my first rodeo and that at least I didn’t need five people to help me.

We made our way up the canal, passing together through one lock after another. I remember the captain being very annoyed when a lockmaster warned him that the next lock was a starboard tie. (He’d been locking through on the port side and I’d been on the starboard side.) After passing through the lock, his team moved all the fenders from one side to the other before getting to the next lock. And then, after that, they moved everything back. (I have my boat set up with four fenders on both sides so I could switch to a port tie by simply pushing my fenders off the gunwales and reaching out the port side window.)

I passed my friends Mike and Ginger in their boat Ginny at Mechanicsville. We’d met at Atlantic City and had been playing leapfrog ever since.

Along the way, I heated up leftover brisket and pulled pork and ate it for lunch. I think that’s the best part of eating at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que: taking home leftovers.

After Lock 5, when he pulled away, I steered slowly to a tiny dock just past the lock. I got up next to it, came to a stop, and stepped out with a line to tie up. I had to fiddle with the fenders to drop them enough to protect the side of the boat, although the dock edge was padded. Within minutes we were securely tied.

We’d reached our destination for the night: a free dock adjacent to Hudson Crossing Park. I went back inside and shut down the engine. It was just 2:30 PM and I felt done for the day.

Do It Now parked at Lock 5’s free dock. There wasn’t much room behind me for another boat.

At Lock 5

The free dock at Lock 5 was exactly the kind of place I look for when I want a place to tie up the boat at night. The dock was long enough for maybe two boats the size of mine; it was unlikely that anyone else would want to tie up there for the night with me so I’d have the place to myself. The dock was in good condition: very sturdy with enough cleats to tie securely. Right off the dock was a park without any car parking nearby. That meant I could let my pups off the boat for a run and not worry about them getting hit by a car.

Hudson Crossing Park is special. Unlike most parks, it is neither publicly or privately owned. Instead, it’s managed by a not-for-profit organization that develops and maintains it with contributions. It has a wide range of features including hiking trails, historic markers, river and canal view points, playgrounds, and kayak launch sites. The boat dock was one of the publicly accessible amenities and I felt lucky to have access to it.

The first order of business was, of course, to walk my pups. I let them run off leash to do some business, then put them on their leashes to walk to the lock and have a look in the empty chamber. I chatted with the lockmaster for a while. Then I went back to the boat for a rest — this has become a regular thing with me. Is it age or just the physical and mental strain of a day full of driving a boat and dealing with locks? Or both?

I’d left the radio on so I could hear boats coming and, sure enough, one was northbound. I grabbed my phone and walked back to the lock alone. I shot a video of the boat locking through.

After feeding my pups, I took them for a walk on the long path that went north along the canal to where the Hudson River splits off at a dam. We didn’t run into anyone on the way out, but there were people, some with dogs, on the way back. I leashed them up every time we saw another dog. Everyone was friendly, everyone seemed happy. It was a pleasant walk.

You can see the ruins of several bridges across the Hudson from paths in Hudson Crossing Park.

The Hudson River splits at the northernmost point in the park. The river goes southeast over the Northumberland Dam shown here and the canal goes southwest to the lock. They rejoin south of the lock.

Back at the boat, near sunset, I flew my drone and got some good photos of the area.

One of my drone shots of the area. It was a really pleasant stop.

I spent the evening editing the boat locking video. I wanted to add a narration to it, but there was a ton of noise coming from a high school sporting event in a stadium about a half a mile away and I definitely did not want that on the recording. So I used captions. I managed to get it onto YouTube and embedded it in a blog post.

By the time I was done it was dark and I was exhausted. I went to bed.

In the morning, I was off to a slow start. No rush; I only had another 35 or so miles to go. I had breakfast, fed my pups, and took them for a walk along the shore of the Hudson River. Along the way, I stopped to dump my trash at the dumpster at the lock; the lockmaster had told me I could. (Trash can accumulate quickly on a boat if there’s no place to dump it.) There was no one else on the trails and that made it more pleasant.

We got a few nice views of the Hudson River side of the island on our morning walk.

Finally, by 9 AM, I was ready to go.

Schuylerville to Whitehall, NY

My timing for the locks was not good. I was behind a sailboat and never quite close enough to make it through the locks together. That meant the sailboat went through before I got to the lock and the lock had to be reset before I could enter. I waited at every single lock.

How did I know it was a sailboat? Easy. I would occasionally pick up its AIS signal on my chartplotter. That told me it was a sailing vessel.

The canal left the Hudson River at Fort Edward and became more — well, canal-like. It was narrow and straight in many places. There was very little on either side. There were still lots of bridges — maybe more? — and they all seemed crazy low. I wanted to duck under every single one of them. At one point I passed a pasture full of cows.

A look from my seat up the canal. It got very narrow after it left the Hudson River.

The landscape was rural, complete with cows.

Most of the locks had me locking up, climbing little by little into the mountains. But that changed at Lock 9, Smith Basin. That was the first of three locks that took me down to the level of Lake Champlain.

After waiting at Lock 11, I was determined to catch up with the sailboat so we could go through Lock 12 together. So I poured on the power. I could see the AIS target on my chartplotter; it was doing about 7 knots. I did about 10 knots. Little by little, I was catching up to it. I finally caught sight of it just as we came into the town of Whitehall where the last lock is.

But then he turned to port to dock at the free dock wall before the lock. So I still went through the lock alone — although I didn’t have to wait for it to be reset.

Arriving at New Whitehall Marina

I saw the marina that was my destination as the lock gate opened and immediately tried to hail it on Channel 16.

“New Whitehall Marina, this is the motor vessel Do It Now.”

There was no answer. I cut power before I could motor past it and tried again. Still no answer.

I reached for my phone and dialed the number I’d called the day before to make sure they had room for me. As it was ringing, a woman’s voice came on the radio.

“Are you trying to call Whitehall Marina?”

“Yes,” I replied, hanging up the phone.

“Well, that’s not what you said.”

“What did I say?” I asked, wondering if my afternoon tiredness had made me say something stupid.

“I don’t know, but it wasn’t that,” she said.

I had video running and could check it later. (I did check it and I did call “New Whitehall Marina.” I have no idea what she heard.) “Okay,” I said. “I have reservations for tonight. Motor vessel Do It Now.”

“We’re in [Redacted],” the woman said. [Redacted] was a Ranger Tug parked at the dock. “You should call them on the phone. That’s what they told us to do.”

By this point, I’d drifted past the marina. This woman didn’t work at the marina. Why the hell was she butting in?

“That’s what I was doing when I answered you,” I said flatly. I put down the radio’s microphone, now kind of pissed off.

I picked up the phone and redialed. This time, the owner, Lynn, answered. I turned the boat around as he told me he was on his way out.

A while later, I was parked at a dock parallel to the canal — which was actually the far southern end of Lake Champlain. Lynn was helping me tie off and plug in and do the other things that needed to be done.

I got my pups off the boat just in time to see a large dog come over toward us. I put my pups on leashes as a woman came out of [Redacted] and called the big dog. It totally ignored her and seemed very interested in my girls.

Lynn stepped in. He took the dog by its collar and walked it back to the woman at the other Ranger Tug. She obviously had no control over the dog. I hurried off the docks to take my girls for a walk.

New Whitehall Marina — or maybe just Whitehall Marina? — is a weird kind of place. Lynn, a wooden boat builder from the New York Metro area, owns and operates both the marina and the tavern on the premises. The tavern opens at 4 PM and after that, Lynn has his mind on the tavern a lot more than the marina. I told him about a propane leak issue I had and did get him to come over and take a look. He’d look again and actually find the problem in the morning. He was also helping some boaters in a big twin engine cruiser who were having fuel issues. They were moving the boat to the Chesapeake Delaware Canal and were worried about the Atlantic Ocean part of the cruise.

Quest for Dinner

I walked the pups into town, looking for food. There was supposed to be a BBQ place, but I couldn’t find it. I asked a local guy for directions and he said it didn’t exist. He said the only place in town to get food was a Chinese restaurant up by the Sunoco station. I looked it up on Google Maps and set off with my dogs.

We eventually found it. I went in and placed an order, then waited outside with my pups at a beat-up picnic table, then went back in a while later to get it. We walked back on another route that took us through a very depressed neighborhood on a main road loud with truck traffic. I arrived back at the boat hot, sweaty, and in a foul mood after walking about two miles in suboptimal conditions to get dinner.

Of course, the big dog was loose again. It was blocking our way back to the dock. I had to keep my pups close to me while holding a bag full of Chinese takeout and pushing the big dog away. We eventually got past him and back onto the boat.

I was setting out my dinner on the table on the back deck of my boat when a man walked over with the big dog straining on a leash. Of course, that got my pups barking. You think he would have turned around and brought the dog back to his boat, but no. He came right up to my boat and started asking me questions. It took effort to calm my girls down as I tried to answer him. When he learned that I was alone, he grilled me about how I managed to do the locks by myself. He didn’t seem to believe that I could. He was annoying and all I wanted was to sit down with a cold drink and my dinner, which I knew was probably already cold.

What the hell is it with people? How can they be so freaking clueless?

Finally, I think my short answers and general rudeness drove him off. I settled down to my cold dinner, too tired to reheat it in the microwave.

Although I couldn’t see the sunset, the light on the clouds and their reflections in the water put on a good show.

I went to bed early that night. I was exhausted and I’m sure my long walk in the heat had a lot to do with that. There was a weird sound in my sleeping cabin, though. A sort of humming sound like a pump nearby. I didn’t hear it in the main cabin or outside. Very weird.

I asked Lynn about it the next day. He told me he could be the turbine in the power plant by the dam near the lock.

Waiting for a Ride

I spent much of the next day cleaning the boat. It needed to be vacuumed and I needed to get all of my laundry into bags for washing at Tom and Tammy’s house. I had dishes to wash and things to put away. And things to get out from storage under my bed — something I can only do when the bed is stripped. By 2 PM, the boat was in great shape and I was packed and ready to go.

Lynn came by and found the propane leak. It was a crack in the hose between the propane locker, which is on the swim platform, and hull. He came up with a plan to fix it. I told him the boat would be there for the next three days so he had plenty of time to get to it.

Tom was originally supposed to come get me at 2:30. Around 3 he texted to say it would be 4:30. Later, he said 6:30. Apparently something serious had happened at work — he manages the computer systems of a big company — and they were trying to figure out why it had happened. Bad actors were a possibility. He was in conference calls all day long.

Finally, at around 7 PM, Tammy showed up to get me. I’d been spending a few hours in the tavern while my pups wandered around inside and out. Fortunately, [Redacted] and their naughty dog had left the marina earlier in the day so my dogs were safe. In fact, they were hanging around with another small dog who belonged to one of the folks who worked at the marina.

We ordered sushi take out to pick up along the way, loaded my laundry and pups into the truck, and left. I’d be spending the next two days in Vermont.

But that’s another story.