Day 8, July 4: Delaware River, Part Deux?

No pictures today. It would be that kind of day.

Last night’s spaghetti did little to calm my anticipation of my first day on the St Lawrence. I was in the boat at 5:15 in the morning, wanting to take advantage of the perfect calm and quiet of the hour in order to acclimate myself to the river ahead. Trois-Rivieres was only about 40 miles downstream and while I was confident about reaching it with plenty of time to spare, I didn’t want waning daylight as an added variable along with other unknowns that I might face along the way.

The absolute quiet of the morning reminded me that I was departing on my own for the first time in over 700 miles. Matt no doubt was curled up in his featherbed in Saratoga at this very moment and I missed the easy banter, relaxed confidence, and motivational cadence of his company. 2010’s Row, Canada! adventure came to mind as well: eighteen days, 502 miles, all in Brian’s company. Pushing off on my own this morning evoked an afternoon in 1974 when Ron, my flight instructor, told me to come to a full stop on the runway after the third touch-and-go, climbed out of the plane, and shouted over his shoulder, “You’re ready. Go fly.”

Could “Go row” be any more challenging? Let’s see.

It was still dark but the combined lights from Sorel and Tracy, the well-marked channel buoys, an easily discernable shoreline, and the inevitability of morning light within the hour fed my urgency to get going right now. The boat was a bit lighter for the stuff I’d sent home with Matt and Courtney and, combined with the current, a steady 18 rpm yielded an easy 6 mph over a black mirror. My small wake described parallel silver slivers across the glass as the city lights receded behind me. It felt good to be underway again, and Trois-Rivieres seemed right around the corner: calm water, a following current, plenty of time, a lighter boat, and strong resolve seemed an unbeatable hand.

Obviously, I don’t play cards.

Two hours later, in rain but good light, I reached the large open lake that pretty much defines the passage between Sorel and Trois-Rivieres. Shallow outside of the shipping channel, eight or ten miles across at its widest point, and with no high ground on either side, this is the kind of water that can hammer a small boat when the wind comes up. In 2005, the Delaware River had taught me how wind-driven waves over the shallows can create the kind of frequency and sharp crests that quickly overwhelm a low-freeboarded boat like mine, so prudence suggested a shoreline course rather than staying in the channel and putting four or five miles of water on each side of the boat.

Sadly, I picked the wrong shore. Nature’s single card soon trumped my full hand.

Within an hour of my course along the southerly(westerly) side, a strong northeast wind kicked up (but of course!), quickly building nasty sharp-crested two-footers that compelled me to bail more than row . I was soon driven into the shallows and tall grass of shore. By 9:30 I’d covered twenty miles, already halfway to TR, but I was pinned in the tall grass by waves that would quickly overwhelm me if I ventured out again into the open water.

This was a low moment. It was raining hard. I was cold and essentially immobilized. No docks, no people, no progress, no alternatives appeared within my reach.

I called Peg. Sitting in the swamp in the rain, shivering, looking at the whitecaps hitting the grass offshore, I might even have whined a bit. She asked me how much further to TR, hun, and I said, “Maybe twenty miles.” I asked her what time it was. She said, “9:30.” Her voice helped. The moment stuck, a moment emblematic of how past experience can sometimes buoy one’s confidence and steel one’s resolve. It was 9:30 in the morning, and I was 20 miles from my destination.

Gentle Reader, I’m not a math guy but sitting in the rain in the swamp, even I could run these numbers: If I rowed until dark, roughly eleven hours from that very moment, I could make my destination (or hit spittin’ distance to TR) by sustaining an average of 1.8 mph. 1.8. 1.8. One-point-eight. Eleven hours. Eleven hours to dryness. Out of the swamp. Off of this Canadian version of the loathed Delaware River.

Considering the New Math (20/11= 1.8), I then took stock of what I knew to be true:

1.      I have rowed nonstop for eleven hours before, and I felt prepared to do it again if I had to.

2.      If I was to change my current state, I would have to.

3.      1.8 mph, about the pace of a child ambling across the family room to grab his/her favorite toy (or to get out of a cold rain), was also within my ability.

4.      I could not traverse the open water in these conditions, but I could slog through the high grass of the bordering marsh. The grass, a buffer of surface turbulence, beats down the waves even though it poses great friction and resistance to the hull and oars.

5.      Weather changes. I had eleven hours until dark. It could change for the worse, but I had the grass. If it changed for the better, I’d be in clover. Or gravy. Whatever.

6.      Sitting in the boat grousing was getting old. It was time to go.

Eric Burden and the Animals sang the classic “We’ve Got To Get Out of This Place” in the 60’s, and it became my adopted anthem on Lac St Pierre. It wasn’t pretty or easy and it hardly looked like rowing, but for the next four hours I kept 1.8 as the baseline on the GPS as I slogged through tall grasses and weeds, occasionally having to stand up in the boat to get a sightline on a course. I could hear the cresting waves of the open water over the whistling of the wind in the grass. It would be a long day unless…..unless…..

…unless the wind began to shift from north to westerly which, by mid-afternoon, became apparent as I continued my occasional prairie-dog sightings from the swamp. Could it be? That blasted crosswind was now veering around to become a blessed tailwind and, to make a long story short, by 3:00 I stuck my nose into the open water and caught a quartering tailwind and manageable waves towards Trois-Rivieres.  Clover and gravy. And I was out of that place and into the Trois-Rivieres marina by five thirty.

The marina would be happy to accept $20 for dockage for the rest of the day but would not let me camp out, but I didn’t really care. I was that tired. I told them that I was writing a blog and that their hospitality would be broadcast to the world and wouldn’t that be nice? They said no, no, don’t do that; doing so will only encourage more vagrants like yourself to visit our facility.

So, back in the boat, I hit the beach at a public campsite that I’d passed a bit upstream, ate tuna out of a drypack, and slept like a stone.

Oh, it was the 4^th of July, wasn’t it?

Clover and gravy, everyone. Clover and gravy.

     

 

Day 7, July 3: Cause for a Pause

Today, Day 7, is for rejuvenating , re-provisioning, and re-orienting. Courtney is on her way north from Saratoga to retrieve Matt; she’ll arrive in his truck looking as fresh as if she’d just bopped down to the corner store for the paper instead of having traveled 250 miles and through Customs before breakfast.

In the meantime, Matt and I have work to do.

Up off the dock after a night on the boards, Matt cleans his boat and packages his stuff for the trip home while I decide what to send back from my own too-heavy stores. I’ve been freighting around clothes I will not use, gear I will not get to, and gadgets I don’t even know how to deploy, and it’s time to shed a few pounds from the boat. After an hour of intense decision-making, two sea bags and the detritus of a week on the water are culled from my boat for the trip south in the truck; my boat is now lighter and marginally faster; less is more!

Clean up that room!

This morning I also covet the newer mechanicals in Matt’s boat; after all, the building St Lawrence is no place for equipment failure, right? Our boats are identical, but Matt's borrowed boat is very-low mileage while mine is showing some worrisome wear and tear. We wonder whether Bob Ashton will object to some temporary swapping-out of parts from his boat and while we debate his response, we swap out the parts: new floorboards, the rails for the sliding seat, and the sliding seat itself are purloined and installed in Old Paint while Bob’s boat takes on the old gear.   

Later that day I call Bob to ask permission. Whew. Knew he would. This is the stuff of friendship.

Courtney arrives right on schedule at 0930 and Telemachus morphs back into McGuyver, master rigger, as Matt secures Bob’s boat to the truck. Straps, ratchets, and lines knit it all together and within ten minutes they are good to go. (I make this point now only because later on it will take me, the alleged tree for this acorn, the better part of two hours to tie my boat (badly) onto my Mini. I have no such intuition about straps, ratchets, lines, and such.)

Courtney cheerfully jumps into the passenger seat for the rest of her 500 mile-day (Unsung Heroine Award #2!), Matt gives me the big bear-hug and as they pull away from the marina, I find myself welling up for a minute. Great kids, a wonderful week, the blessing of sharing….Al is a lucky man for a host of reasons that have nothing to do with rowing.

Time to get back to work; this may be a day off the water, but there are things to do.

We have rowed off the charts and I head off to find a map of the St Lawrence. Sure, I could have procured charts at any freaking time during the four freaking months that have passed since I hatched this freaking plan, but why would I do that when I could struggle at the very last minute? After walking around for a bit I find a map that covers the next leg to Quebec City but nothing for the waters beyond to the Saguenay. Quebec City is a big place, I reason. Surely I will find my next necessary charts there, right? Sounds reasonable, yes? This is the way I operate, Gentle Reader: superficially reasonable logic meeting uncooperative reality.

Anyway, when I return to the marina from my MapQuest, I spot Phil and his 42’ Beneteau at a public dock about half a mile away, a massive crane on the pier holding his 50’mast high in the air while he crouches on the deck trying to guide it all into place. His wife, sitting on a bench back at the marina, calmly suggests that I might consider joining this tableau. I note her furrowed brow.

Never having raised a mast so consequently not feeling very much like the cavalry coming to the rescue, I nevertheless quickly clamber down the steel rungs of the pier in time to “help” Phil with the placement of the foot of the mast into an impossibly tight fitting on deck. Even a child could see that there is no tolerance for error in this procedure. “I’ve never done this before, Phil,” I confess, “but I’ll do what you need me to do.” Phil advises me that this is a first for him as well…quite an admission as fifty feet of aluminum seeking a home bobs over our heads with each passing wave and wake. “But I’ve seen it done before.” Last night over cocktails on this very boat I learned of Phil’s engineering and design background, and it is the recent memory of this conversation that sustains my hope.

High above us, out of earshot but responding to our hastily contrived hand signals, the crane operator moves the mast in small increments as we try to guide this huge spear to the target. Since the boat is in the water and the deck is moving, the target is in perpetual motion. Holding this mast in place by hand is impossible; its mass is too great. All we can do is use the motion of the boat to “guide” it to a metal fitting on the cabin roof, and it takes many tries to finally get a hit. But it’s the spaghetti mix of stainless steel shrouds and stays that actually holds a mast in a vertical position, so while the crane guy holds the new line on the mast, we quickly scramble to affix the hardware. Excitement builds for me when, for some reason or other, I look over my shoulder and notice a huge freighter heading our way. It’s generating a very large cresting wake that will reach us in probably five minutes or so and if the mast is not standing independently and secure by then, who knows? The crane operator sees this unfolding drama as well and, after a surprising eye roll, smiles and shrugs. (I say “surprising” only because an eye roll is not what I‘d expect from a crane operator at a poignant moment such as this.) Phil, to his credit, misses this silent exchange and has his head down, doing the necessary work, totally focused, taking it step-by step, calmly giving me my next task which can best complement his task.

Gotta love an unflappable, sequentially-thinking engineer. I bet he has all of his charts, too.

And...hey, where is McGuyver? This is his bread and butter!

Depiction of the relative mechanical skills of McGuyver and his father 

Anyway, hours later, as we toast the apparently successful completion of this task back at the marina in the cockpit of the Beneteau, the mast towering straight and true above us, I secretly both wish and lament the fact that I’ll not be on this boat when the sail is next raised and real tension and torque is applied to this assembly.

The proof will be in the pudding, as they say….but I’ll be sitting at a different table. I hope it all works out.

Sunset in Sorel

 

Tomorrow will come early. Spaghetti in Sorel, then early to bed.     

  

        

Day 6, July 2: A Fast Ride to the Big Waters

Last night’s big storms never materialized and we awakened at our lovely campsite to a quiet river and the prospect of reaching the St Lawrence by the end of the day. I knew that this would be my last day of rowing with Matt, as he would have to depart tomorrow from wherever we landed because of work. I was especially mindful of how much I would miss his company during the rest of this journey. Some people just make traveling like this seem easier, more joyful, more naturally liberating and refreshing, and they accept the occasional hardships as necessary and welcomed seasonings to the main course. When you travel in the company of people like this, you are lucky. I am lucky beyond description to call one of this company my son. We haven’t climbed onto the boats for our last day yet, Matt, but let me tell you now that I love ya, man.

A quick round of Starbuck’s Vias and Nature Valley Oat Bars and we are off and flying; a south wind builds along with the beneficent current, and we are soon clocking up to 7 mph over the ground this morning. A few hours later we reluctantly slam on the brakes to visit Handfield’s, an oasis of refinement (and the purveyors of a truly proper breakfast) and sure enough, as we climb back in the boats an hour or so later, the wind shifts from the west and then blows from the northwest, becoming an impediment for the first time in six days. We’ve been lucky.

But the current is still with us and it is easy to seek the shelter of shoreline trees on a river. The end of the Richelieu is in sight.

We traverse the final lock with about fifteen miles to go and as we bob through, we meet Phil and Helen from Vermont. They have departed Lake Champlain on their beautiful Beneteau sailboat, mast on the deck to get under the low spaces, and they are also headed to the Saguenay fjord. We exchange pleasantries and good wishes as they motor off ahead of us. If I wasn’t so enjoying rowing with Matt, I would be envious of their diesel….and their on-board coffee maker.

Two hours later, Matt and I sense the urbanization of the Richelieu as we approach the city of Sorel on the St Lawrence. The white noise of the internal combustion engine rises in the distance and suddenly, in turning a corner, we are there.

 

After four days of rowing in confined waters, emerging onto the St Lawrence presents the spectacle of oceangoing ships moored along the shore or moving up and down the river at impressive speeds. We immediately realize that situational awareness is the new top priority. The residential and rural intimacy of Champlain and the Richelieu has been supplanted by industrial activity; we row past a freighter along the shore that is taking on some sort of granular cargo, and we are immediately coated with some sort of fine dust...almost a powder. Is it grain? A mineral? Do we want to know? Lick it, Matt, and tell me what you think. Keep rowing, dad…just keep rowing.

Since the confluence of the Richelieu and the St Lawrence rivers promised to present confused waters, Matt and I had already decided that we would hug the west (south) shore of the St Lawrence and pull into the first protected jetty we found to take stock of conditions and determine our next steps. We soon come across a bulwark of stone- an artificial harbor, of sorts- and pull in before we are swept past in the current. I am met by a distant call of, “Hey! New York! Over here!” and see Phil and Helen at a berth not far away. They are amazed that we have made such good time from the lock and offer us a bit of wine. We, by now knowing the importance of hospitality, graciously accept.



Vermont's Finest

Maybe it’s the wine but as we take stock of our surroundings, I realize that this might be a good spot at which to take a day off. First, Courtney will be driving up from Saratoga to collect Matt and his boat tomorrow morning; this marina will be easy to find and offers a nice ramp for lugging stuff up from the water. I’d like to stay until he leaves and even though Courtney is an early bird, theirs could be a later departure than a time at which I’d like to head out for my first day on the St Laurence.

Second, Phil will be stepping the mast on his sailboat tomorrow and has contracted with a local crane operator to help him with the task. A second set of hands might be useful and helping out might be a way of returning their hospitality. Also, truth be told, I have always wondered how one goes about putting up a mast on a large sailboat, so this could be a part of my own Continuing Ed.

Finally, with the Big Waters ahead, I could stand a bit of R&R. I’ll be on my own from here on out, and a day to get my head in the game (and to find necessary charts) would be a day well spent.

Matt and I found dinner at a cheesy Chicken Shack in Sorel and later joined Phil and Helen for more wine as well as to share the excitement of the arrival of Sorel’s Quick Response Team on an adjoining dock. We later learned that a crewman on a freighter had fallen into its cargo hold and had been killed, so the Response Team included medical, police, and maritime authorities…quite a show on the dock right next door. I couldn’t help but hope that the perils of the coming days….the mast-raising, the river, and unfamiliar cuisine…would not require their return.

 

Matt tidied up his boat one last time before bed and chose to sleep on the dock under the stars while I, in the spirit of the Flomax Moment®, set up my tent ashore. It rained a bit that night and Matt slept through it all like a seal on a rock….final seasoning for the main course.    

Intermission, Part Deux

I know, I know, you want to get back on the row, and so do I, but these next few strokes are simply to document our (Peg, Timmy, and me) present (7/27) return from Quebec with Old Paint on board.

Mini with a Mohawk

 We collected the boat and my gear at Baie St Paul this week and then spent four days gooning around the Charlevoix/Saguenay area, and what a beautiful part of the world it is! While a mid-January visit might assault our opinions of “habitability,” the grandeur of this area as a summer destination is breathtaking. We dipped our toes in the frigid waters, climbed into a Zodiac for a whale watch at the mouth of the Saguenay River, and enjoyed the cuisine and hospitality of the area; I saw my first Beluga and Humpback whales (way cool), ate my first Canadian Chinese food (at a pizza shack…not as rewarding as seeing the whales), and of course asked myself each day if I could have/should have continued from Baie St Paul to Saguenay. The short of it is that I think I made the right call.

 So….this travelogue of our return will now give way to the resumption of the row, but not without the encouragement to any and all of you to visit our Neighbors to the North. Quebec is not far away but if you are pressed for time or money, a visit there can act as a reasonable surrogate for a trip across the Big Pond, I think, with the added benefit that French Canadians are still engaged with disco in ways that Americans (or the French) are not. For a child of the 60’s, the car radio in Quebec is a jukebox.

Now…back to the row!

There we were, pushing off for our second day on the Richelieu, yet another early south wind building behind us….

Intermission for a Mission

From a writer’s perspective, a blog can present time-management issues. It is presently Wednesday, 7/23, and by my established routine I would normally be writing about Day Six of the row (7/2) except that yesterday, 7/22, Peg and I headed out on a mission. 7/2 will have to wait until 7/24, when I get back on track.   

Yesterday (7/22) Peg and I refurbished our travel bags, fluffed up the sock drawer, and embarked on yet another journey to Quebec in order to retrieve the Guideboat. We covered 482 miles in an already-stuffed Mini that will have to perform the miracle of also accommodating the gear I left behind at Baie St Paul. The drive up I-91 to the border was a breeze. We stopped in St Johnsbury and enjoyed lunch at the old post office (now a dog-friendly bistro), and Timmy scored a plate of turkey and a tummy-scratch from the waitress.

Does that come with freis?

Against Timmy’s protestations we pressed on, the lovely rolling countryside of northern Vermont soon giving way to the expansive plains of Quebec. At the border, Customs was more interested in Timmy’ status in our company than in any motive we had for visiting Canada....but only marginally so. Unlike the Customs crossing at Rouses Point in New York, Magog seems very uncommercial and much more oriented towards processing tourists and locals…so the heat was light and even cheerful.

We hit Quebec City at rush hour and pulled into Baie St Paul at around six, only to find that our reservation did not include permission for “le chien.” Timmy was out and with no good alternative at the Inn, we took the advice of “Robert” at our old inn and chanced to find a terrific spot right in town. Michael, the amiable owner of La Maison Otis, is not only a dog nut but also a Mini devotee who owns one of only two specially-hopped-up John Cooker Works Super-Minis in North America. He calls her “Alice” (ah, but of course) and has only danced with her (him, actually) for 8000 kilometers since 2009. The Mini, the dog-friendliness, the room with a view…it was all a package deal sealed with pasta on a deck and a nice walk through town.

Alice Cooper with Michael

 I’ll get back to the row tomorrow, Gentle Reader, I promise. But the poignancy of being back in Baie St Paul to get the boat after a couple of weeks has been cause for pause. Driving east from Quebec on such a beautiful afternoon, through spectacular mountains bathed in golden light, a gentle whisper of air-conditioning on my legs and the best of company by my side seemed a stark contrast to my last transit of this shore: in the rain, strong winds, building waves, and approaching darkness along an inaccessible shore.

But more of that tomorrow.

BlogTeam One

Day 5, July 1. Locking Down to Mayhem

 Waking up on a wet dock in St Jean sur Richelieu did nothing to inhibit our typical get-going-itis, but this morning our start would be reliant upon the opening of the first lock at 8 AM. We packed the boats, tidied up in the marina’s men’s room, and prowled into town for breakfast. This town sleeps well after a street festival, and it took some time and the obvious gesticulating with an amiable street sweeper to locate a breakfast nook.

Some Fast Facts about St Jean while we wait for the lock to open?

·       5,750 of its inhabitants commute to Montreal , while only 745 Montrealers work in St Jean. None seemed in evidence this morning. If you like St Jean sur Richelieu and hate traffic, live in Montreal.

·       Hockey legend Bernard (Boom Boom) Geoffrion and 1993 World Champion figure skater Isabelle Brasseur both call it home. We walked past an impressive gymnastics training center but saw no ice until our water arrived in the diner. The locks and canal, as it turns out, are popular skating venues in the winter.

·       The Chambly Canal’s ten swing bridges and nine locks (all “down” as we head north) are designated as a National Historical Site of Canada and many of them, including all of the locks, are hand-operated.

·       If I were a college kid or an aging teacher, operating a lock would be just about the coolest summer job ever. The lockkeepers wear these great uniforms with cute little beavers on the pockets.

Breakfast done, I arrived at the first lock on foot because we had to purchase passes for the system ahead. The lockkeeper had no extra uniforms (hey, no harm in asking, right?) but did say that after we passed his lock, he’d be the first of eight lockkeepers to call ahead to his colleagues after we’d passed; we could expect an easy, delay-free passage today. Cool.

The locking-through process is a snap. After the lock doors open and a green light is issued, you power into the concrete and stone chamber to either wall and grab a rope. The doors close, you remain along the wall by hanging on to the rope, and the still water of the lock gently descends to the next level as the valves behind you are opened. The doors at the other end then open and- voila!- out you go, rowing out onto the canal and the next lock.

 

The eight-mile transit of the Chambly Canal is advertised as taking from three to five hours, but the very light traffic and total attentiveness of the lockkeepers enabled us to proceed more quickly even though we didn’t want to rush this pleasant row. Flanked by charming houses, a bike path, and lovely fields, the canal’s narrow width also provides a rower with a sense of speed. As the day grew hot, the tree-lined shores provided some shade but no breeze, a stark contrast from the wide waters of Lake Champlain.  

Heading north, the canal terminates in Chambly at a flight of three locks in succession in a dramatic descent to the Chambly Basin. We paused for lunch at the top of the flight, leaving the boats at a park and enjoying an expansive view of the Basin below. We commented on the strong building wind and the density of the boat traffic. Then I was distracted by a plate of spaghetti. Just for the carbs. Need the carbs.

Back in the boats after lunch, we entered the “flight” and immediately began to chat it up with the gathering crowd. We were “it” on a busy day, Canada Day, and our journey seemed to fascinate the gathered vacationers. One very kind family offered their house for our next overnight (“we’re about 20 kilometers miles upstream…two red chairs on the lawn...you can’t miss it…”).

We pushed out of the third and final lock at about two o’clock, rowing into Chambly Basin, a circle of aquatic mayhem or, more precisely, 

The Evacuation of Dunkirk as Reenacted at Skippy’s Water Park during Hurricane Andrew on Canada Day, When There Are No Rules…and No Limits.

The Chambly Basin, a small lake of perhaps two miles in diameter, feeds the narrow band of river to the north where we were headed. The winds had piped up very dramatically, creating stiff, nasty cresting waves which competed for dominance against the confusion of the boat wakes…and there were boats, scores and scores of boats, all being driven either at that particular speed before planning which guarantees the largest possible wake…. or at 70 miles per hour. Nothing in between. Add to this mayhem the whine of jet-skis (some carrying riders), windsurfers and kite-surfers riding and sometimes flying the breeze at easily 30 knots, and even a figure along the shore wearing a jet pack which enabled him to rise above it all on two marbled pillars of water. Biblical, really.
The strong wind, confused and dangerous waves, and cacophony of internal combustion precluded any conversation; eye contact and frantic gestures confirmed that we simply had to row for our lives through it all, which we somehow did, arriving at the narrow continuation of the Richelieu River in relief, amazement…and in hysterics. The Canadians put a lot of livin’ into Canada Day even if living to the next day takes some concentration and effort.

The rest of the day seemed almost anti-climactic; we again enjoyed the current north and a tailwind, enabling Matt to move to SailPlan Revision 3.0 and for us to make great time along waters that bedeviled me three years ago. I recalled a particular point during Row, Canada! that presented Brian and me a particular “all-or-nothing” challenge in the dead of night…a narrow channel under a railroad bridge that required us to row at maximum effort until we could pass, and my memory of the painfully glacial progress we made against the current until we could reach shore prompted me to glance at the Mach Meter as we passed under: 8.1 mph. Give 5 to Matt and me and the rest to the river. Brian, today was a good day to go downstream.

At dusk we pulled into a campground on the eastern shore….two red chairs faced us from the yard across the river, but we saw no sign of anyone….and were given the OK to pitch our tents anywhere and use the facilities just as the mosquitoes began stir for the evening. Two tuna pouches and some Starbucks Mochas saw us to bed on a verdant lawn with the boats bobbing gently in front and threats of “tornado” issuing from the radio.

After the Chambly Basin, we laughed. “Tornado.” What fun.

A View from a Tent......

 

                    

Day 4, June 30: Oh, Canada at Last!

While Matt and I slumber at Mooney Bay on the morning of June 30^th, might we nip to now and examine this writer’s present moment…just for a moment?

It’s just before seven as I sit at Brian’s dining room table at Lake George. It’s perfectly calm, the quiet broken only by birds and the gentle murmurs of Mr. Coffee in the next room. As the sun crests Pilot’s Knob, 32 miles of pristine water cradled in the Adirondacks glisten outside, water ultimately and inevitably destined for a ride over La Chute, a trip up Champlain, a course along the Richelieu, and an eventual procession through the St Laurence, past the Saguenay River to the sea.

In a cup at Pitch Pine Point or bordered by the Adirondacks, tumbling over La Chute or scaring the crap out of an oarsman forty-two miles east of Quebec City, was this water once all of one? Water, like people, is labeled for its boundaries and borders, identified not for what it is but for where it lives or for what holds, controls, or shapes it. Water can be seen in a molecule or a drop but takes on its identity in a cup, a lake, a river, or an ocean. Has that happy droplet lapping the gently sloping shore of Brian’s bay right now once rubbed elbows with the droplets contributing to my extreme discomfort off of Baie St Paul? What’s the history of this water in my cup? Where is confluence in the Ukraine, and when did the individual who launched that missile last tuck a child into bed?

Were my boat here and not in Quebec I’d be rowing, not writing. And if I had the next Great American Novel in me, here is where I’d write it. But for now I’ll let this Kosmic Moment pass, perhaps take one more cup out to the point, and get back to writing about the row. After all, Matt and I have a border to cross and a loathed river to revisit!

Better get back to writing....

Back in the boats for our third day on Lake Champlain, Matt and I were pretty sure that we’d make the Canadian border but less certain about our state upon arrival; dark cumulus clouds more typical of a late summer afternoon storm were already well developed by seven in the morning, and soon out of Mooney Bay we were wrapped in heavy, penetrating rain. The wind came up from the south again so we were able to deploy our running gear, but keeping a sightline on shore was not so easy as visibility began to deteriorate. Think “buckets” of rain…the kind of leaden rain that makes water dance and hat brims thunder…and you’ll have it.

Happily, and perhaps in no small measure due to the controlling beneficence of our present Administration, the rain abated as we approached the Canadian border at Rouses Point. Matt and I used the Customs Dock and the advice of a most pleasant officer to walk into town for a late breakfast at The Squirrel’s Nest. Wouldn’t you? A plate of eggs, another cup ‘o joe, and a spot ‘o corned beef hash later, the sun met us for our walk back to the boat and an easy crossing to Canada.   

The delightfully casual Canadian countenance that greeted Brian and me three years ago on our way home from Ontario has been beefed up considerably. Two stern, armed, Kevlar-jacketed gentlemen asked for our IDs and our intentions, might have cocked an eyebrow or two behind the aviator glasses in hearing “Saguenay,” but then passed us on to the suction of the upper Richelieu.

I carry a small GPS unit in the boat not so much for navigation purposes as for monitoring boat speed and, in doing so, in trying to assess the current. On flat water at cruising speed, Matt and I sustain about 4.5 to 4.7 mph. Up to now the wind had been the only variable on this progress, mostly for the better. With a tailwind and maybe a bit of sail to augment our rowing, I’d seen episodic registers of “5.5” or even “6.0” on the Mach meter and, of course, numbers as low as “2.8” or “3.2” when nature pushed back. But now, in water flowing north from Champlain into the Richelieu River at an increasing rate, the very current that bedeviled Brian and me back in 2011 again exerted her grip (see “Row, Canada!”…ibid, Brian, “goddamned Richelieu!” and “I’ll be glad never to see this place again.”). Our flat-water pace now generated 5.0, 5.1…5.2 as the lake narrowed and we entered the top of the river. When the south winds built later in the day, the new standard would be six. Oh, what a difference a compass heading makes!

Almost forty miles into the day brought us to St. Jean sur Richelieu and the top of the first lock of the Chambly Canal, a great place to stop if not to camp. Peter, allegedly the marina owner, allowed us to pitch our tents on the dock next to the boats…not the most comfortable ground, but convenient. Peter’s restaurant roasted a steer for me and we hit the hay amid the festivities of a pre-Canada Day festival. Late at night it began to rain and since my rain tarp was now a part of Matt’s sailing kit, he graciously allowed me entrance to his capacious tent during the downpour. This prince of mine….he’d been living like a king, I learned. But I sure appreciated his hospitality.

Objects on the plate may appear closer than they are...but not larger.

Today we crossed the border, remained thoroughly soaked for much of the day, felt the embrace of favorable currents, and ate well.

Tomorrow we’ll hit our first locks… and then barely survive Skippy’s Charnel House of Aquatic Mayhem, eh? 

Day 3, June 29th: Telemachus Morphs to McGuyver….Wins Adyrondaque Kup!

The third day of a long row is too soon to be able to say that you’ve established a routine or rhythm but as we broke camp at Essex on Saturday morning, patterns were emerging.

First, neither of us was going to be breakfast guys; a breakfast bar and a cup ‘o joe from the burner seemed to be enough to get us into the boats and going without longing or complaint.

Second, there’d be no dawdling; mornings are typically calm, and Matt and I felt a shared urgency to get on it…especially on this particular morning at Essex where Champlain widens and where a headwind or crosswind on the wide waters could make for very tough going. Senator Patrick Leahy would say that we had a great lake in front of us and he’d be right even if he was overruled for Great Lakes funding. (Senator, put any of your colleagues into a 15 foot Adirondack Guideboat and push him/her out onto Champlain and I bet you’ll win a vote.)

Finally, by Day Three, stuff begins to find its home. Once one is in the seat, the arrangement of items in the boat becomes paramount to safety, comfort, and convenience, and it takes a couple of days for a pecking order for the relative importance to emerge. Beverages and ice must be easily accessible while underway but they weigh a lot so the boat’s center of gravity must be considered, along with convenience. Rain gear, sun goop, batteries, a flare, and a whistle must be close at hand along with a life jacket when you’re not wearing it, along with the little transistor radios we carried. All of these little bits called for attention and careful placement. The tent, sleeping bag, air mattress, and warm clothes on a hot day could safely be stored out of the way in the bow or stern without affecting performance or comfort. They don’t weigh much individually but they’re bulky. Keeping the deflated air mattress closer at hand soon made sense since it could be used as a bolster during infrequent rest stops. I carried the edible stores as well, a weighty sea bag holding the burner and vital Via packs, dry-pack tuna, beef jerky, five dehydrated meals “just in case,” a large can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew (a key victual later in this story), granola and breakfast bars, dried fruits, and of course, Raisinettes ®. Lots of Raisinettes ®, but never enough. 

We pushed off early and were immediately rewarded by a nice southerly breeze and building waves from astern, just the kind of weather that can make a one hundred mile lake seem manageable. Morphing from Telemachus into McGuyver, Matt soon pulled up on a sandy delta at the mouth of the Bouquet River and went to work with what he’d collected along the way: some nylon twine, the length of PVC pipe from Crown Point, a broom handle, and the rain tarp from my tent. Larry Ellison’s money and technical genius may have changed the America’s Cup forever, and Matt can lay claim to having turned this leg of our journey into a kind of Addyrondaque’ Kup. His rig wouldn’t win a Concourse de’ Elegance, but it caught a lot of wind and moved his boat smartly. I lofted my own pusher rig kept handy for rare following breezes, and we spent much of the day efficiently “motorsailing” north behind a kind wind from the south.

Are we the last great superpower, or what??

We stopped at Willsboro Bay for lunch; we may not have been breakfast guys, but we’d hunt ruthlessly for mid-day game. While ashore, Matt collected more bits for SailPlan Iteration 2.0® which added a salty looking “Master and Commander” spar across the top of the broom handle.  When Matt launched from the dock after lunch, a guy in a big cruiser asked me, “Hey, pal, where do you get a rig like that?” I could honestly reply, “From the dumpsters between here and Ticonderoga.”

Recycle, re-use….relax.

The day’s row went well until the wind shifted from southerly to westerly. Say what you will about our cobbled-together sailing rigs, but don’t say that they allow for a beam reach. Our boats are not keelboats. We spent the last several hours pulling for Mooney Bay through a pretty tough crosswind, so we angled to the shore and caught the protection of the New York side as we arrived at dusk after 38.2 miles.

At the Mooney Bay Marina, hospitality takes the curious if effective form of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Our hostess (lovely lady, great restaurant, brilliant green drink, fabulous Chicken Parm….need the carbs!!) said that we might find a spot out back for our tents, and we might find the men’s room over there available to us…and we might meet an Authority Figure along the way and if we did, we all might forget that we ever had this conversation, right?

This kind of hospitality got us on land for the night, fattened with C-Parm and pasta and placing Canada within easy reach tomorrow.

"Finish your greens, dad"

Day 2, June 28: Rejected, Accepted

The bass fishermen and the daunting automotive and marine infrastructure that supports them had faded into the dawn as we clawed out of our tents at the boat ramp on the morning of Day 2. Fishing boats and animated anglers had serenaded us all night with their comings and goings- there were lots of goings, I can tell you- and my nocturnal survey also suggests that 76.8% of fishermen rip the stock exhaust systems out of their trucks and install straight pipes. And did I really see four guys on a scaffold above their scow, fishing with compound bows and arrows under spotlights last night? And would lil’ Rufus emerge from the trauma I might have instilled in suggesting the relative sizes of record-breaking carp and story-telling towheads? And could I find the min-burner and my Starbuck’s Via packs in the cold light of dawn? 

We were about to row for 9:40 to Essex, New York, 33 miles north into Lake Champlain.

This can all be in the boat in three minutes

Matt breaks camp like he knows what he’s doing. After a quick look at the map to get his bearings and to size up the scope and scale of the day, a practiced fold of the tent and packing of the boat for balance and comfort and a quick app of sunscreen, he’s good to go. I, on the other hand (as brutally if accurately documented in Row, Canada!) wrestle with too many sea bags, too many loose bits, all the product of too much “Hey! Maybe I’ll need this!” decision-making at yesterday’s launch. In six days I’ll send 80 pounds of unused and unneeded garoosh home with Matt and Courtney but, for now, it all takes a free ride to Essex, courtesy of Al.A couple of Vias and Nature Valley Oatmeal Bars and we’re in the boats and off early, gliding past Fort Ticonderoga on the New York side as we hug Vermont. Yesterday’s north headwind has blessedly subsided; the water is glassy but carries the Yoo-Hoo-esque patina typical of a current moving through silt. The day is warming but we’re feeling good, making good time in our rhythm. Matt is really one with his boat now; it’s a joy to watch him row, even though he is usually out ahead.

Fort Ticonderoga

Fifteen miles later, fully warmed up and getting hungry, we reach the new Crown Point Bridge, the old one having been razed (spectacularly blown up) a few years ago in a co-mingling of infrastructure-improvement-meets-Hollywood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fVgLuTV2kU

We find a marina just north of the bridge, tie up, and walk about a mile to a diner which can meet our substantial needs. We fill our water jugs before we head off, Matt scores a three-foot length of PVC pipe at the dock (significant later), and we’re off to face the heat of the day as Champlain begins to widen from tributary to an aspiring Great Lake.

Gentle Reader, I’m tempted at this moment to take a Zen-like detour into the nature of hospitality. Graduates of Mr. Frei’s English class will of course recall that in The Odyssey, Odysseus is received first as a traveler, unconditionally welcomed and sated by his hosts before any revelation of identity or motive is solicited. Hospitality was a sacred expectation then, an overt obligation of the host, bestowed generously and even gratefully by those with the power and means to provide relief. “Hospitality” takes other forms, of course; there’s the formal granting of succor that carries no sincerity but is offered for show or to avoid harsh judgment. There’s conditional hospitality as well, the meat and potatoes of the “hospitality industry” (now there’s an unfortunate confluence of words)…and then there’s what happened to us at Camp Dudley in the high heat of a July afternoon.

I know people who love Camp Dudley. They are wonderful people in leadership positions who have in the past assured me that if I were to arrive on its shores on the west side of Lake Champlain in the baking sun of mid-day looking only for a place to take a quick, refreshing swim in the now-clarifying waters of Lake Champlain, I would be welcomed. These people- good, caring people, well-intentioned and dedicated to the culture of Camp Dudley and the good work that it does- went on to say that I might even be able to pitch a tent there in a pinch and enjoy a meal with the campers and staff if I had a seafaring story to tell. All of this I shared over the gunwale with Matt as Camp Dudley hove into view. “This is a great place, Matt; my friend (unnamed) told us we should stop here and say hi; all we need is a quick swim of their beach, right?”
“Right, dad,” replied Telemachus.

No campers were in evidence as we approached, but the pier was packed with what appeared to be counselors preening and sunning themselves.  As we headed towards their beach, one stood up like that one alert sea lion on Animal Plant, spoke into a walkie-talkie (like Starsky, or Hutch), and we were met on the shore by a Leader who politely but firmly said that no, we’d not be roasting any cattle in tribute to Odysseus or Matt or Al today; two guys rowing to Canada in Guideboats could not be permitted to take a quick dip in the water off the very beach upon which they now stood. There were rules. I’ll take your names, thank you, and pass them along to your friend, but no, no there’s swimming for you today. Not here.

“They love you here, dad, I can tell,” I could hear Matt/Telemachus thinking as we climbed back into our boats. “What nonsense you let slip between your teeth,” I telepathed back. “This is what happens when mindless, heartless bureaucratic rule-following overrules good judgment, consideration, and hospitality.”  

We pressed on, finding a delightful swimming site at Barn Rock Harbor a few miles up, and we ended the day at Essex on the New York side. The marina owner, perhaps a former camper at Camp Dudley, perhaps not, allowed us to pitch our tents on a nice spit of his lawn and we enjoyed a fabulous pasta dinner (replenish the carbs!) at the restaurant.

Day Two was a test of sorts…a long day of flat water on very big water, the kind of expanse that tests your resolve to keep rowing because progress on the wide-screen horizon is measured in millimeters, not feet, and certainly not miles. But the Green Mountains were a beautiful tableau nonetheless, Sugarbush and Mansfield adorning the eastern horizon and giving Matt and me much cause for happy memories. The callouses are forming as we knew they would but, so far, mind is trumping body, the body just got a nice infusion of pasta, and the going is good.

The First of the Many

And I can authoritatively report that the campers of Camp Dudley are certainly safe under the watchful eye of their well-tanned guardians, but I guess they’ll hear no sea stories from the likes of us. “What price security?” is a question for our times, of course, and the answer, at Camp Dudley at least, is clear.  

Day 1 - Beginning

Matt and I climbed into our boats on Friday, June 27^th, fueled by coffee (Dark Magic K-Cups), Freihofer’s Corn Toasties (getting very hard to come by, former colleagues!), and the heartfelt if sleepy exhortations of those congregated at my mom’s dock for the 7: 00 AM sendoff.

Join us, please, for Day 1? You can climb out anytime, but I hope you won’t.

Neither Matt nor I had spent much time in the boats “training” for this trip. Matt, to be honest, had yet to touch an oar this season, but five minutes in I could tell that (you pick: a. the exuberance of youth, b. boyish enthusiasm, c. an extraordinary propensity to learn and adapt, d. all of the above) would trump any paucity of preparation on his part. After a quarter mile or so he fiddled with the geometry of the sliding seat, realigned the foot-brace a few millimeters fore or aft, and by the time we reached Elizabeth Island one mile up the lake, Matt had settled into a strong, fluid stroke that suggested- no, it screamed- that Daddykins ® would be the limiting factor on this sojourn. 

If you travel far, invite this man to join you.

Over time and through the wise coaching of cousins Bob and Bean Tarrant (Saratoga Rowing), I’ve learned that speed and efficiency on the water have much to do with just letting the boat run after a power stroke rather than in recoiling quickly and putting more power into the water. This reality is counter-intuitive to the newbie as it would seem that more power applied more often would be the key to speed- and I suppose that it is, in a sprint. But augmenting speed with the endurance required to sustain a 4-5 mph pace for up to nine hours each day calls for a curious combination of competing sensibilities: tight concentration on the moment and one’s technique while suspending the moment’s fatigue or emerging discomfiture….. patience with slow going but sustaining a kind of urgency in maintaining forward motion….maintaining an efficient heading by sighting off of an object behind (remember, we’re facing backwards) while keeping situational awareness of what is ahead. It’s a mixed and sometimes conflicting bag, this rowing is.

Finally, and most importantly, for distances, one must find unqualified joy in the moment. Boat packed and plans set, the euphoric excitement of starting a row of several hundreds of miles soon wears thin as the first blisters emerge or the lower back starts to unionize with the hamstrings and parts in between. Sustaining the excitement of the macro with an appreciation for the little things- the feather of the wake, the crystalline transparency of water receiving cherry oars, the silhouette of the fishing loon or the promising dark ruffles of a breeze building behind- these sights, sounds, and sensations feed and fuel the happy rower or are totally lost on the miserable fellow who is only counting the miles. To my delight but not at all to my surprise, Matt dialed in right away, finding his groove in technique and spirit before we hit Fourteen Mile Island. The gentle quiet between us as we rowed through our first days counts among the richest conversations we have ever had.
Gentle Reader, all l ‘m sayin’ here is that I sure was happy to have Matt as a wingman: MacGuyver in a pinch, the proverbial (and literal) calm man in a storm, a wonderful conversationalist, the keenest of observers and a faultless navigator, I missed him terribly when he had to head home from work two hundred and five miles later…

But hey, it’s no time for lamenting now, right? It’s Day One! Let’s get back in the boat!

So up the lake we headed. The glassy calm of morning morphed into a considerable headwind with twenty miles to go as we labored up the east side of the lake, Matt taking a refreshing dip across from Roger’s Rock while dad ran the calculus of the energy necessary to get in and out of the boat and decided to sit tight for now. We gnawed tentatively on the egg salad sandwiches that mom had put together perhaps three days before, while Matt continued to coach me about the long-term benefits of water over Gatorade (he’s right!).

At about 3 PM we found Peg and Tiny Tim waiting at the Ticonderoga gate where the northern headwaters of Lake George flow into Le Chute and then into Lake Chaplain. We scrambled up and down a rough hill to unload the contents of our boats into the Mini (here’s the math: 1 Minicooper Clubman= 2 Adirondack Guideboats, rounding up), the plan being that Peg would meet us at a downstream park after we had portaged our boats through town on nifty little carts.

Peg is an adored and treasured member of my family in part because her plans make sense and usually work out and this one did, too. After a portage that sparked curiosity and greetings, we put in at the base of La Chute where clear, perfect Lake George water tumbles from a series of rock ledges falls into a large pool perhaps forty feet below, then flows through a stream and a swamp to Champlain, hence to the Richelieu, hence to the St Lawrence….and then past Saguenay? This forty feet or so of vertical separation contributes a great deal to Lake George’s claim as “The Queen of American Lakes.”  The separation of waters (and hence flora and fauna) between LG and the Champlain/Hudson valley is essential to maintaining LG’s unique and fragile ecology; the connecting waters here at La Chute represents the front line of this separation….and protection. Champlain is lovely and the Hudson is extraordinary…but these water systems and environments are unique and must remain so.     

Anyway, we loaded the boats again with our stuff, Timmy showing no interest whatsoever in jointing us as Scupper® or Scout or Comfort Dog, but at least he reassuringly sanctioned the safety of mom’s egg salad sandwiches.

"Go ahead and row, Al; I'll catch up to you later." 

After a final embrace of lovely, heroic Peg, we rowed off from our home waters towards Champlain and beyond. It was by now touching 5 PM. We’d rowed 28 miles, mostly upwind, and it was time to think about our first night ashore.Five miles later, Matt and I came across the very dock that had been the scene of Brian’s “Hasselhoff Moment” three years earlier as he and I had labored home from Ontario. Exhausted after fourteen hours and over fifty miles at the oars and too tired to stand after crawling out of his boat, Brian ate a cheeseburger from a plate placed on the dock in front of him while on all fours. He was too tired to wag his tail…as were we all. (See Row, Canada! for the full story).  

The sun was setting and this site seemed a good launching point for our second day, so Matt and I set up camp on a knoll overlooking the dock adjacent to a parking lot which served a boat-launch ramp. We soon learned that we had established our new home at the site and moment of a fishing tournament, and trucks and trailers circled us all night long. A family told us that a state record for carp- 45 pounds- had been set just a day or so earlier off of that dock, and I asked Rufus, their son, how much he weighed. “Forty one pounds,” replied Rufus, making the connection, I think, but not liking it.

We slept well that night. We’d faced our first headwinds, completed our only portage, and heard a big fish story from a little kid. We were on our way.