posted September 23, 2005 12:09 PM               

There are many islands on this part of Champlain, several with fantastic vacation homes, and we tried to make it up to a very popular spot, Burton Island, but the northerly winds made Burton dead upwind. I was definitely game to beat up there, but the admiral wanted to be back at port earlier than me, so you know who prevailed. We sighted Burton and the other neighboring islands but had to postpone further exploration.

It was our first time staying at a marina, albeit a rather low-key one: $1/foot, but no shore power or water. More importantly, the admiral was not thrilled about the hike to the restrooms! There was only a porta-potti at the marina; the main restrooms/showers were across the street at the campground associated with the marina (that's actually the other way around: marina associated with the campground). I had worked furiously to get the shore power up & running, but using it will have to wait for another time. Nevertheless, it was a great maiden voyage for this kind of adventure & we're looking forward to more.

A few pictures:

Breakfast time on Sunday morning. We broke out the boom tent I designed and constructed out of PVC. It is way more involved than Darlene & Stan's elegant shade. I used threaded connections to allow disassembly & stowage. The pieces breakdown to about 3' largest. The covering is a blue tarp, which I plan to replace once I test out the design a bit more. The structure is a bit large & I still have concerns whether or not it's too large to be really stable; the long pieces running fore/aft certainly bow more than I like. I made liberal use of bungies to secure the tarp, but have since replaced them with cordage, including sewing in some ties for the center & edge fore/aft supports, so hopefully that will add some tautness. I also put in some corner grommets, which should help a lot. (I don't know for sure; it's a bit too large to practice onshore, so I only test it out when the mast is up!) My original concept included sewn pockets for the edges, but I saw a picture of a custom tarp in the Defender catalog & adopted the idea of keeping the "flaps" to be able to get shade/side protection. The flaps can tuck up into the frame when not needed, as you can see on the port side. I don't think I'll hike up the aft end of the boom as much next time. The admiral liked having the shade & head room very much, so on balance it was well worth the effort to design & build it. On the inside of the coaming to the right of the camp stove you can see the new shore power inlet. You can also glimpse the new port curtains, sort of, another last minute project before our first marina stay.

The marina was a very sheltered spot. Here's a shot of looking out east to the lake.

The winds were out of the north & east while we were there, which is uncommon, so we had more dock action than normal. Our first night we were on the section of dock extending from the foreground & it was quite a rock & roll starting around 3am. The next morning we tucked into the spot you see us at here that really isn't a normal slip, but our shallow draft allowed us to use a more convenient spot to get to the truck or across the street to the campground, as needed. It was also tons more stable.

It was a quiet enough spot, though right next to US Rte 2, the main thoroughfare through the Hero Islands. Yet another last minute project was the screen for the foreward hatch. We pulled the rudder, seen on the dock in front of us, because it was quite shallow aft of us.

Here are the kids enjoying our beat up north on Sunday. You can see a new toy, the tiller tamer (well, the cleat on the transom anyway) which was a very nice improvement for being at the helm. You can also see my favorite toy, the GPS, in my hand.

Champlain would be a great candidate for a rendezvous at some future point, though maybe more for an "eastern members" get-together, as it certainly isn't as centrally located as the Great Lakes. We plan to stay/sail there much more next season. With any luck, we'll steal one more weekend before the weather turns.

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Kevin
Shortstay III, #901