First Nights Out

We finally left the Marina in Lacolle Wednesday just after noon. We reached the border less than an hour later and docked at the US Coast Guard station, where we filled out a form and showed our passports. It was a pretty painless process.

We then headed about 10 minutes further south to Rouse's Point. A word to the wise: this town can be missed if you are touring northern New York. We did manage to grab a nice sandwich at what was likely the town's only cafe. We were quite disappointed that the "grocery store" we went to was more like a dollar store. Especially since we had consumed all our produce to cross the border. That night, our dinner was a pretty pitiful pantry casserole. Thanks, Rouse's Point.

We headed to Deep Bay, just north of Plattsburgh, NY. We arrived just as the sun was going down, and had time to row to shore in our dinghy to go for a quick hike before dinner. We had a lovely dinner as the sun went down, and had a nice quiet night.

Here are a few pictures from Deep Bay:

The next morning, the couple in the boat next to us from Mont St. Hilaire swam over to say hi, and we picked their brains about where to go on Lake Champlain. They kept their boat in Monty Bay, just north of where we were. They and their two teenage boys were headed to Malletts Bay that night, which as it turned out, was where we had just decided to go.

We set out just after noon and had an uneventful sail, but saw storms brewing in the distance. 

Of course, one of these storms crashed down on us just as we were getting into Colchester, VT. It made for a bit of a hairy docking, but only lasted about 10 minutes. We were able to find delicious produce ashort  walk away from the marina, and then got back in the boat to sail to the north side of Malletts Bay, where we would be protected from the northerly winds.

It was a gorgeous place and we found our friends from Deep Bay from that morning, who invited us over to their boat for a bottle of wine (or two) after dinner. This is the advantage of having a small boat: People tend to take pity on you and invite you to their bigger, better stocked boat instead. No complaints here! Thanks Sophie and Jean!

Here is the sun going down in Malletts Bay, just a couple of hours after the storm:

Next stop: Burlington.