Trip Report - Big Progress South Bound
 

Trip Report - Big Progress South Bound
 

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 17:03:59 -0500, Boating All Out
wrote:

In article ,
says...


The purple/maroon lines on that chart segment are tracks from previous
runs. If you look closely you can see that we took the Dismal Swamp
route when we went north in June. Never again. We took over 20 log
hits, fortunately with no damage.

Do you have any "favorite" stretches on your trips?

===

Like anything on a boat, a lot depends on the weather. In nice warm,
sunny weather there is just nothing like running along close to a
great ocean beach like those found in Florida, the Delmarva Peninsula,
New Jersey or the south shore of Long Island. For an entirely
different experience, the coast of Maine has a lot to recommend it:
lots of rocky little islands, picturesque coves ringed with virgin
pine trees, quaint towns, and exotic marine life like seals and
whales. The most scenic part of the ICW is arguably the stretch
northward from Morehead City, North Carolina on up into the Alligator
River.

Not part of the ICW but not to be overlooked is the Hudson River north
of New York City to Albany, NY. On a nice fall day with the leaves
turning color it is absolutely spectacular.

One of our all time favorite cruises started out on the Hudson River
and was actually inspired by a series of posts in this newsgroup back
in the late 90's when we still had some serious boating content. That
cruise took us north from New York City to the New York Barge Canal
system via the Hudson River; across to Lake Ontario via the NYS Canal
System (former Erie Canal); north on the Oswego Canal through my old
home town; and on into Lake Ontario. From Lake Ontario we crossed
into Canada at Kingston and then went north on the Rideau Canal into
Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. In Ottawa the Rideau Canal ends
with a flight of 11 locks in quick succession, like a staircase, which
leads down to the Ottawa River more than 100 feet below. We then
followed the Ottawa River south east to Montreal, and then the St
Lawrence River 90 miles to the northeast to a town called Sorel. From
Sorel we followed the Richleau and Chambly Canals south into Lake
Champlain which is in the middle between New York and Vermont. At
the south end of Lake Champlain we rejoined the NYS canal system which
leads back to the Hudson River and New York City. It was a great
cruise but we could have used more time.