Departures along our journey have been delayed because of fog, and wind, and rain, and boats, and breakfast, and dogs, and other things. Today was a new one. A triathlon. Perhaps surprisingly—or mostly not—neither of us was participating. But we still had to wait out the swimming leg before getting out of the basin. In our world, swimming is what you do when the boat sinks. No thanks.
Plus we have reason to believe the last iceberg on Lake Champlain only melted a few short days ago, which makes it quite likely the water is less than 80°. Which isn’t necessarily the only reason we aren’t doing a triathlon up here, but it’s a good one.
The plan was to enjoy a nice easy cruise up to Burlington. Burlington is Vermont’s largest city by population, coming in at a whopping 42,000. For perspective that our Arizona friends will understand, that’s smaller than Sierra Vista. ASU’s student body is half again larger. But it’s the home of Ben & Jerry, so we were happy to see the waterfront approaching well in advance of the predicted storm.
Fuel at the marina was a bit overpriced but we topped off anyway. None of that green-colored Canadian diesel for us. Then we discovered that Dockwa had price gouged us. And the restaurant wasn’t up and running yet. And the other infrastructure advertised on the website was missing or lacking as well.
Fortunately Bob the Dockmaster understood our concerns and pulled strings to get us a spot next door at the Burlington Community Boathouse. Unfortunately the rain and wind came before we could get over there, so we sat at the fuel dock and waited.
After relocating to “Mr. O’Neal’s spot,” we headed up to Church Street.
Even in the spotty rain, we could tell that there’s more to Burlington than just depressing coat factory outlet stores near semi-abandoned malls on the bad side of town. It turns out that Burlington actually is kind of hip, although that spotty rain makes it hard to tell from a photo.
When we got back to the boat after dinner, the other boaters were abuzz about the sunset over the Adirondacks across the lake. We missed it, so a photo of the sunset cruisers returning to the dock is the best we can do.
We’re going to be here a few days so hopefully will catch a good sunset over the mountains before we leave. Magic supposedly is steaming up this way to cruise with us for awhile.
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* Okay it’s a dumb Ben & Jerry title, although we think Cherry Garcia would approve.