We've had two great days and are now back in God's country.
As I mentioned in my previous blog, looking and feeling like drowned rats, we arrived at Whitehall Marina around 6:30 pm on a soggy Monday evening. Nonetheless, owner, manager, chef, electrician, machinist, mechanic, maitre d', and bar tender, Lynn, gave us a warm welcome.
Once we were tied up and secured, he invited us to have dinner at his "closed", on-site restaurant with two visiting friends from away along with several locals that snuck in the back. Over drinks and dinner, the subject of our windshield wipers came up and Lynn casually mentioned that he'd be willing to take a look.
Tuesday morning, I found Lynn in his restaurant which doubles as the marina office. Before I could scratch my head, he had a cup of coffee in my hands and moments later half of the delicious bagel breakfast sandwich that he had made for himself. After discussing the rain, river flows, and a little more of Lynn's background, the windshield wiper saga came up. As the Admiral had told me we would never again travel if rain were forecast until I got that wiper repaired, it pressed a bit on my mind. I told Lynn what I thought the problem was and he said he'd come take a look. By the time I'd removed the panel that hides the wiper motor, he was there.
Rather quickly, we found that, as I suspected, the dogbone-shaped, locomotive type drive shaft had popped off the motor's drive wheel. What I didn't expect was it's cracked bushing which rendered it useless. Fortunately, I had a spare motor and was able to "borrow" one from that. However, it didn't fit on the drive wheel's nipple quite closely enough to get the c-clip fully seated. Lynn, the machinist, earned his fee for the day by carefully "polishing" the end of the dog bone until the clip would fit fully in place.
With the helm wiper fully (and we hope, lastingly) repaired, I asked if he'd take a look with me at the port side wiper which had stopped returning to its proper parked position. We took that one apart in place and found two worn parts that were on their way to full failure. Once again, my spare wiper motor offered up replacements and, once again, they needed some machining to fully meet our needs.
By three o'clock, we had three working windshield wipers, two full tanks of diesel, an empty holding tank, and hungry stomachs. We even had some occasional sun. Off we go to Vermont and Chipman Point Marina 20 miles up the lower reaches of Lake Champlain. While eating sandwiches, we enjoyed gorgeous views of the Adirondack foothills, great blue herons, bald eagles, nesting osprey, and the feeling that for the first time since leaving Michigan, we were back in our native ecosystem.
An hour later we could see a major thunderstorm brewing and weather radar showed it arriving over Chipman Point about the time we expected to get there. One of the really nice things about the Sabre 45 is that it will rather happily travel twice as fast as our normal cruising speed and I put the hammer down. We arrived, tied up, connected power and water, double checked lines, added one more, secured the hatches, shut down the engines, and the deluge began. That whar a close 'un. We celebrated having wipers that worked, beating the storm, and staying dry with a strong beverage followed by hash and eggs--a great day all told.
Today dawned bright if not completely clear. After a somewhat leisurely morning getting routine chores done, we cast off and headed north up the lake around 9:15--destination Burlington. It's hard to describe the beauty of the Adirondacks to the West and Green Mountains to the east--both garbed in a mix of spruce-fir, white pine, and northern hardwoods interspersed with craggy cliffs and outcroppings. Amazing!
Soon we encountered the "Fort Ti" Cable Ferry. We had been warned to give these ferries plenty of room as you don't want to "trip" over their cable before it has a chance to sink back to the bottom. The Fort Ti's cheery skipper assured me that it would be safe to pass two to three hundred meters behind him. Hmm--meters? We gave him a solid three football fields, held our breath, and all was good. By the way, the cables do not propel the ferry. Think of them as like rails for a railroad. They keep the vessel on course no matter what the weather or visibility.
A bit later, we passed an iconic light house but, as impressive as that was, we were even
more impressed by the depth of the lake at that point. We gasped as the depth sounder hit 300 feet and dropped our jaws as it finally bottomed out at 424 feet. The glacier did some serious scouring through this part of the world.
By 1:00 pm, we'd slipped behind the Burlington breakwater and tied up at the city-run Boathouse Marina--a great spot with a restaurant just across the dock. But way better than the restaurant (which was fine) are the views of the Adirondacks to the west. No
Ansel Adams, my pictures just don't do them justice.
After lunch, we broke out the folding bicycles and headed north on the eight mile long Burlington Greenway. What a spectacular ride on a very well built and maintained rail to trail facility. We enjoyed the Burlington Waterfront and then frequent views of the lake as we pedaled along a largely undeveloped stretch of lakeshore.
Back on the boat, I put the bikes away and turned to this blog. The Admiral napped.