7/6/2011 - 7/15/2011   When we were in Kingston we met a fellow on the dock named Joe who said we HAD to go by his brother's house on our way past so we did.   Chris and his wife Lies live in a beautiful cottage on Hay Bay.  They are Canadians but spend winters (November through April) in Alabama.  Nice work if you can get it.  A few more days at anchor on Lake Ontario and we turned into the Trent-Severn Canal which would take us to Georgian Bay.  The canal is 240 miles long with 41 locks that will take us more than 800 feet above lake level and then back down.  We bought a season mooring pass which allowed us to tie up every night on a wall adjacent to the locks.   That gave us access to state maintained restrooms and often, towns along the way are within walking (or limping) distance.  Most of the locks are still hand operated by two guys that crank the doors open and closed and manually open the valves that control the water flow.  A week and 20 locks brought us to one of the wonders of the lock system.   The Peterborough Lift Lock puts the boat in a sort of pan and then lifts the pan hydraulically 65 feet to the next level.  Quite an experience.

7/2/11 - 7/5/11  Our first look ever at the Great Lakes was coming into Lake Ontario out of Oswego, NY harbor.  We had to put a bucket over the side and take a slurp just to believe it's fresh water.  We heard a story of a guy who was on a jet ski whose engine stopped far out in the Lake.  By the time he was rescued he was severely dehydrated.  When asked why he didn't take a drink from the lake he replied that he assumed it was salt water.  Our first stop is Whites Bay, in Henderson Bay.  It was a Saturday evening and we anchored surrounded by residences and boat traffic which means we had to endure constant boat wakes until dark.  We were compensated though because we had a ringside seat to a spectacular pre-Independence Day fireworks show on the shore line.  The next day (a Sunday) we moved on to Cedar Point State Park Marina and again more fireworks.  Monday July 4, we crossed over into Canada and cleared customs at Confederation Basin Marina.  Surprisingly it just took a phone call from a pay phone and we were in.  One night at anchor and then we checked into Portsmouth Olympic Harbor.  It is right next to a maximum security prison and museum (formerly the warden's residence) so I went to take the tour.  Also,down the street is an artillery emplacement built in the mid 1800's to protect the town of  Kingston, Ontario from attack by the U.S..  I visited it but as I was trying to get a better vantage point for a picture of the canon I missed a step and severely sprained my ankle which caused me to limp in pain for four weeks.  Such is the cruising life!

6/20/11 - 7/1/11   The town of Waterford, New York goes out of their way to accommodate cruisers so they provide free dockage, free electricity, free water, free wifi and $1 pump out.  Also they have a web cam that was pointed at the boat and our children were able to see us live, albeit in slow motion.  We stayed there 4 days and caught up on groceries, maintenance, mail and paper work.  The Erie Canal was built to facilitate shipping between New York and the Great Lakes..  By way of the locks it takes boats from the Hudson River up 405 feet and then back down to the level of Lake Erie.  Some of the lock machinery that is working today dates from the early 1900's.  They keep the machinery spit shined and I saw lock operators using rags to keep from touching the shiny brass control levers.  We very much enjoyed the scenery and the temperatures (highs in the 70's) but recent rains caused a huge amount of tree debris to be in the canal and we had to dodge logs most of the way.  We wanted to go to Lake Ontario so mid way on the Erie Canal we took a right up the Oswego Canal and entered the Lake at Oswego, NY.  We had gone through 30 locks in the past 11 days.

6/15/11 - 6/19/11   The Hudson River is very pleasant.  It is up to 100 feet deep and has steep rocky shores.  I kept thinking that some of the rocks hadn't moved since Revolutionary War soldiers traversed these waters.  The first night we anchored and just decided to stay there the whole next day and recuperate.  The next night we found a free dock (if you patronize the restaurant) at Highland Landing and had a great meal.  A night under Rip Van Winkle Bridge (Catskill NY) and a night behind Rattlesnake Island and we bid adieu to the Hudson and turned into the Erie Canal at Waterford, NY.

6/8/11 - 6/14/11   There is NO place like New York City.   It makes your senses go on overload.   The brightness and the heat of the day on one side of the street and the dim shade and the cold air conditioning coming out of the doors of stores as you pass on the other,  the smell of pizza then the smell of bus exhaust, the sounds of horns honking, cops whistles and conversations in more languages than you know.  We had people tell us "Don't look like tourists because you'll make yourself a target".   I don't believe it matters.  We saw everything from a guy in his underwear and boots playing a guitar in an intersection to a guy in a three piece suit stepping into a stretch limo.  The marina was the least expensive we could find but it was at the extreme southern end of Brooklyn at the edge of the "projects".  It took a fifteen minute hike, two buses and a subway ride each way every day to get into Manhattan.  We saw a Broadway musical "The Addams Family" (very very good), Central Park, Trump Tower, The Plaza Hotel, and went into Tiffanys and FAO Swartz on Fifth Ave.. We saw The NYC Library, Ground Zero, the outside of the NY Stock Exchange (no entry permitted since 9/11) and went to the top (almost) of the Empire State Building.  We spent one whole day at the Metropolitan Museum (absolutely overwhelming!).   We went to Coney Island and the NY Aquarium.  Lace needed a hair cut so we walked into a hair salon near Wall Street.  Lace sat down in the chair and explained briefly to the hair dresser how she wanted it cut.  The hair dresser nodded and made all the right sounds but we found out later that she mostly only spoke Russian.  The hair cut wasn't exactly what she had in mind but Lace was very gracious and we took a group photo.  On Sunday we took the requisite bus and subway rides up to the north side of Brooklyn and attended services at the local Presbyterian church (which is a school cafeteria most days) with our friend Elsa.  Later we ate lunch with her and her daughter Cassie and then visited Cassie's apartment where we met her husband John.  After a week of New York and again on the edge of exhaustion we put some groceries on the boat and shoved off past the Statue of Liberty and up the Hudson River.

5/31/11 - 6/7/11   Our next aim is New York City and Lace is not feeling well at all so we wasted little time heading north.  The temperature approached the high nineties for the final day in the Chesapeake so we headed for Worton Creek Marina where we could plug the boat into shore power and get all three a/c's working.  A short transit of the C+D Canal (connects Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay) and we stopped in Delaware City Marina to wait for weather and tides for the trip down the length of Delaware Bay.   This transit proved to be a tough one.   The start was very rough and slow going but eventually the tide changed and we ended up making almost 10mph with a following wind when we turned the corner into Cape May New Jersey.  We anchored out for four more days as we made our way up the east coast of New Jersey (marshy and unremarkable) and we pulled into Marine Basin Marina in Brooklyn, New York.  The odometer now read 3238 miles since we left Seabrook, TX.

5/24/11 - 5/30/11  We always wanted to see Washington D.C. so it was exciting to arrive.   Gangplank Marina was not much.  It was more geared for "live-aboards" working in D.C..   It was, however, very convenient for us because the subway and grocery store were within walking distance.   Over the next four days we visited the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum (awesome!), The Sackler Arthur Gallery (okay), The African Art Museum (very good), The Hershorn Museum (okay), The U.S. Capital Building (private tour by our representative's aide was worth the trouble to arrange because we avoided huge crowds), The Library of Congress (worth the visit), Museum of Natural History (not so much), American History Museum (very good), and several art galleries.   We walked and gawked and snapped pictures in ninety degree heat until we couldn't walk anymore.   Lace picked up a bronchial problem that left her coughing and weak so after some last minute provisioning we shoved off for the three day trip back down the Potomac and back into Chesapeake Bay.  I don't believe we could have survived another day.

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5/20/11 -  5/23/11  There is so much to say about the Chesapeake Bay that it is hard to start.   After reading Michener's novel "Chesapeake" it was actually sort of a disap- pointment to begin motoring up the shore line and not see indian teepees with camp fires smoking in front of them.  It is, after all, only a body of water with thousands of expensive houses built to absorb it's beauty and fertile fishing.   Our aim was Washington D.C. so we didn't dawdle making our way to the mouth of the Potomac River.   The first evening in the river we made anchor in the middle of a small inlet called "The Glebe".   It is only a couple of hundred yards across surrounded with modest homes.   As we sat on the back deck for after-supper cocktails a lady came out of one of the houses carrying her french horn and sat down at her dock.   After some scales she gave us a 30 minute concert of popular song fragments ending in a full length rendition of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow".   She even responded when we yelled "More!".  After one more song she curtsied as we applauded.   Unforgettable!   A couple more days and we made our way into Gangplank Marina in Washington.

5/4/11- 5/19/11  The Dismal Swamp is a very narrow waterway with tall cypress trees on both sides that leech tannin into the water making it the color of mahogany.  It is also pretty shallow so one is well advised to pay attention to the depth sounder.  After that we entered the Elizabeth River and the huge Navy seaport of  Norfolk / Portsmouth, Virginia.  Suddenly we felt dwarfed by the commercial ship traffic and the even larger naval vessels and dry docks that line the shore.  The America's Great Loop Cruisers Association "Rendezvous" was to be held in Norfolk but wasn't for ten more days so after one night at Fort Monroe we settled in to Scott's Creek Marina in Portsmouth to rest, catch up on engine maintenance, see the sights and socialize with our Louisiana friends Larry and Jane on the Bavarian Cream.  A good time was had by all and on the 14th we moved the boat over to Waterside Marina at the Sheraton Hotel.  We had three straight days of class lectures on what to expect on the waters ahead and in the afternoons we opened the boat up for interested people to board and discuss the finer points of  looping. Back to Scott's Creek for final provisioning and we were off again and into famous Chesapeake Bay.

4/29/11 - 5/3/11   The next day was a long one.  Usually after noon we start looking for an anchorage but that day we couldn't seem to find one that wasn't exposed to waves. Evening came and we found ourselves on the Alligator River which is wide with a relatively straight shoreline.  I anchored on the lee shore but the wind came up and shifted in the night and we woke up on a roller coaster.  The wind was forecast to stay strong so we picked up the anchor and ran ten miles in the chop to a pretty good spot to spend the day.  Another day's run got us to Elizabeth City, NC.  This is a favorite stop for cruisers because there is a free city dock for 48 hours and a tradition of local hospitality including a wine and cheese party at the dock and a rose for the first mate.  We met Larry and Jane on the Bavarian Cream.  They are from Louisiana and they know how to party.  We visited the local museum and had lunch with them at the fish restaurant where the "locals" eat.  Our 48 hours at the city dock ended all too soon but they have no amenities so the plan was to move to Pelican Marina in the same city, do laundry, pump out the holding tanks and recharge the batteries.  Unfortunately after we got there we were informed that the pump-out dock was blocked and the washing machine was broken.  That was unacceptable so we left and started up the Dismal Swamp Canal (actually not so dismal) and found a great anchorage at Goat Island.