Sat July 2: St Jean to Deep Bay mooring, Lake Champlain

At the civilized hour of 9am the lock master of #9 came by to see if we were ready to go, and then had the big bridge open so we could head out. We said Bon Journee to the loopers in front of us, headed north, and cast off.

It was a long day of winding waterways, but at least we were back on the Richelieu River and it wasn't the narrow confines of a canal. Plus we were entertained by the various way people were using the river.  Used to being the only boat around, we were suddenly surrounded by vessels of all shapes and sizes. 

Sail canoe.

Trimaran

Canadian good ol boy, fishing?

Standing up fishing, with all the cool gear.

This poor guy (he's in the water) had a PASSEL of kids watching him try to free the anchor from weeds, while the current dragged them down the river.

Where the river meets upper Lake Champlain, the grand Canadian customs house came into view, and then the US version.  Which is a FEMA trailer.

As we moved past the white border bouy/marker, the bow of the boat was in the US and the aft was in Canada!

Rick puts up the yellow 'quarantine' flag, which signals that we have not yet been checked into the US.  He has had this flag since 2019, in anticipation!

We waited on the dock for the hot customs guys to check us in (they weren't good looking - just wearing black uniforms in 90 degree weather, get your mind out of the gutter).  See our impressive US customs house up there on the bank ?  It's the one that looks like a cheap RV! Rick had all of our immigration online paperwork ready (I think it was probably ready when Obama was president), but there was a little moment of panic when there was no cell signal in order to turn it in.  That's the drawback of modern tech.  Finally we were cleared into the US.

Hi Lake Champlain-did you miss us?!  We headed to our favorite mooring ball field, sure it would be full on a holiday weekend.  But most of the moorings were empty.  We couldn't believe our luck.  Hold the phone, though....  The moorings were mostly empty because the parks dept is short-staffed and didn't have enough people to put the mooring balls out.  Normally there would be a giant mooring ball tethered to this metal piece, and it would have a line on it that is easy to grab with a boat hook.  Hard as we tried, we just couldn't get a hold of TINY metal cylinder.  It was only because another boater jumped in his dingy and drove over to tie us up that we were able to spend the night there.  God bless the boating community.

Rick got pretty worried about this wimpy little line holding us - the bigger lines wouldn't fit through the holes. But there was little wind forecast and what the heck, we have insurance...

It's such a peaceful place, and fun to see boating back in full swing after the pandemic.  These border states really missed the Canadian tourism.

We had a grand time taking a bath in the lake, and washing various parts of the boat.  There is nothing like cold water to make you feel refreshed. At dusk the tiny moon made an appearance.  Good to be back in Deep Bay.