​

In case you're just joining us, when last I posted here, Stinkpot was waiting out weather in Hertford, NC with M/Y Vector tied up nearby, enjoying some cruiser camaraderie and catching up. At just before 9AM, Sunday, November 24th, Stinkpot cast off from Hertford, NC and stood by while Vector did the same with minor difficulty. Recent winds had reduced the water depth under her, and she was wallowing in mud on the bottom. Some adept helmsmanship saw her off the dock just in time for our scheduled 9AM bridge opening (the bridge hours this time of year begin at 10, but Sean made arrangements the night before to secure us a slightly earlier departure).

Both vessels pushed down the Perquimans River to a reasonably calm Albemarle Sound. Once in the open water of the sound, I pointed Stinkpot to a wide open area so I could recalibrate our heading sensor in the hope of getting our autopilot functioning again. I am pleased to report that, while it took a couple tries, the operation was a success, and for the first time since we have owned the boat, the autopilot is now 100% functional.

While it did “work” before, it never worked correctly. It would not follow a course, it would only hold a heading, and the reported heading was always “off” by a variable and often-considerable margin. I surmised that might be because the heading sensor, which is essentially a magnetic compass, was too near the autopilot's hydraulic pump (and its magnetic field). I put off repairing this situation for years, but I finally repositioned the sensor away from the pump while on the dock in Hertford—and now, post-calibration, it works flawlessly.

With the process complete, we got back on course for the Alligator River, made our way through the opened Alligator River  Swing Bridge and up river, dropping the hook just off Tuckahoe Point by the entrance to the Alligator-Pungo Canal with scarce remaining daylight. Vector anchored nearby soon after, though we all stayed aboard our respective vessels for the evening. Stinkpot's crew bed down early and were up with the dawn and quickly underway to use the engines to warm the boat from the overnight chill.

The anchor was up a bit after 7:30am and we were pointed into the canal with an intended stop in Belhaven. Vector weighed too within the hour and both boats were anchored in Belhaven well before sundown—Stinkpot arriving just after noon, and Vector about an hour later.

​Sean, Louise, and I dinghied ashore for an afternoon walk around town, and, later, we all reassembled in Vector’s tender and cruised ashore for dinner. Sean and Louise treated us to a fine Mexican feast at a restaurant they’ve enjoyed before, El Mariachi, and were sure we’d appreciate—and they were right.

The morning of Tuesday, November 26th we weighed anchor just ahead of Vector and pointed for Bath, NC where we took up residence on the state dock. No sooner had we turned up Bath Creek, it began to rain lightly, and about the time I got the last dock line on Stinkpot, a little after 1pm, the sky opened up. It rained for a couple hours.

Unsure if the dock would support Vector's draft or mass, Sean and Louise opted to anchor nearby. When the weather finally dried up a bit, Sean and Louise made there way to the state dock in their tender, and we all had a walk around town culminating with dinner at the only place that was open—a place called the Quarterdeck. This is not a restaurant. It’s a take-out joint with undercover rooftop seating. Not amazing food, but also not disappointing from a place that is really little more than a convenience store. It was really about exactly what one might expect of such a place. The view of the creek from our perch was nothing short of wonderful, despite the soggy chill in the air, and it was an enjoyable meal with excellent company.

Following our dinner, we continued our trudge around historic Bath (Edward Teach, AKA Blackbeard, called Bath his home port) before we retired to Stinkpot and Sean and Louise made their way back to Vector after sounding the depth around the dock for possible future use.

The morning of “Thanksgiving Eve,” we were underway just before 9am with Vector not far behind, and we made way up the Pamlico River to Washington, NC. It’s a lovely small town where we enjoyed our third, wonderful Thanksgiving together in the six years we’ve known Vector’s crew—our first being in 2019 in New Orleans and last year in Sanford, FL was our second. Both Vector and Stinkpot stayed in Washington to endure an extended, unseasonal cold snap, finally getting underway Saturday, December 7, after trying and failing (for nearly 90 minutes) to get a blackwater (waste tank) pump-out from the city marina’s frozen hardware. Vector, too, was hoping to pump out, but, after waiting some time and the marina telling them it probably wouldn’t work, they, too got underway. The entire fleet, separated by about 3 miles, made its way to the docks at R.E. Mayo Seafood for an overnight with very limited dock power. This, being a possible/likely last evening with the band together, we gathered for a short walk and enjoyed an ice cream dessert aboard Vector before turning in. It was another chilly night, dropping in the low-to-mid 20s.

Stinkpot got underway Sunday morning at first light. Slid onto the Bay River with building wind and seas around us, and by the time we made the Neuse River, we were being thrashed by tightly-spaced 2 foot seas with the occasion 3-4 footer. It was "spicy" enough that, when we came around the Neuse River Shoal off Piney Point, I made the decision to put us into Broad Creek to anchor, as our speed and progress was being hampered by the sea state (video below). We conveyed this experience to Vector; they also deigned to get underway in the later morning. When they made the same turn they reported that a sailboat, similar in size to Stinkpot, was nearby taking spray, and sent a video. It looked slightly tamer than what we had been in. A little further on, they reported that it seemed the seas had lightened up. We gave it another few minutes, and then weighed anchor getting once again underway.

We nosed out of the creek to see a nearly flat-calm Neuse River. The delta between what it was when we bailed to roughly two hours later could not have been more stark. We had a perfect crossing to Adams Creek where we were intending to anchor for the night, and then grab fuel and a pump out first thing in the morning at Sea Gate Marina. We often try to space our fuel stops such that we can take advantage of the regional fuel deals that are often a little too far apart, and northern North Carolina has a dearth of them. We were approaching the “running on fumes” status, but no worse than other times. As we were nearing our intended anchorage, I noted that the engines were falling out of sync. I was continually readjusting the sync. Then the port engine quit. It became clear what was going on.

Running low on fuel can mean that the sludge that accumulates in diesel tanks can be pulled into the fuel lines and plug up the fuel filter. This is likely what happened. With Stacey at the helm, I opened the deck plate and switched the port engine to draw off the starboard tank, and it roared to life. Sure of the situation now, I shut the engine back off, and we cruised a little further on, intending to grab the fuel first and then go to anchor, but because we were running against a tidal current, I changed my mind. I figured that, if we anchored now and got fuel in the morning, we’d have a favoring current to take us to the fuel dock, instead of risking our remaining “clean” fuel supply climbing a hill on one engine.

At about 3:30pm I pulled us out of the channel, and we set the anchor, enjoying my version of Arroz con Pollo before turning in for the night. I was awake well before first light, and put the coffee on to wait for the turn of the tide and, ultimately, the current. It was chilly aboard, but not untenable, but warming the boat would have to wait since I didn’t want to risk our diesel supply to crank up the generator. Finally at 8:46am, after we had been waked by two large sportfisher boats on plane, I decided we’d waited long enough. The current was very slowly going our way, and we were cold.

I raised the anchor without starting the engine, and, as soon as it was up I ran to the helm and got us underway with only the starboard engine. Within a matter of minutes we were making 6 knots with the current loaning us over a knot. As we approached the marina, I started the port engine and we docked on the fuel dock with both engines purring. We fueled up, eschewing pump out for want of a reasonable price. We then pulled Stinkpot onto the nearby “transient dock,” as requested by the marina staff, while I changed our fuel filters.

As soon as the filter change was complete, we got underway, running the ICW route from there to Morehead City, through Bogue Sound, and anchored at the Swansboro downtown anchorage “by the bridge,” as there was a large catamaran occupying our usual spot. We enjoyed leftovers aboard and prepared for an early morning run to get through the Onslow Beach Bridge and related construction before work for the day started at 8am.

Tuesday morning, December 10th, we awoke around 5am and weighed anchor at 6am in complete darkness, wearing our foul-weather gear and running in the intermittent rain on the flybridge as using our lower helm in the darkness is fraught—Stinkpot’s previous owner graced her windscreen with a limousine tint, which is great during the day, but very limiting in the darkness. Fortunately, the temperature was agreeable. We arrived at Onslow Beach Bridge at 7:25am and were ushered through immediately with a waiting sailboat, which we then passed after the bridge following a brief radio exchange. About four nautical miles later, we spotted Vector anchored in Mile Hammock Bay and exchanged messages for several minutes about the boats nearby and some clueless maneuvers that had been witnessed.

We were about a mile and a half ahead of them when we noted, first on AIS, then via a terse radio exchange with an almost-certainly clueless sailboater in a narrow, shallow channel, that they, too, had gotten underway. We were all Wrightsville Beach bound, but only one of our boats would end up spending the night.

When I realized that we, completely unimpeded-by-upcoming-drawbridges (Stinkpot doesn’t require either Figure-Eight Island or Wrightsville Beach Bridges to open), were going to make it to Wrightsville Beach just after noon, I started looking ahead. NOAA current and tide data revealed that, should we keep going, we would have a favoring current all the way down the ICW to Snows Cut, through the cut, and up the Cape Fear River to Wilmington (our stopping point for a while), with a likely arrival time before sunset at 5pm. The weather forecast was for BIG winds for days, so a stop in Wrightsville Beach could mean being pinned down between there or Carolina Beach until the winds let up. We discussed this information between ourselves and decided pressing on was what we should do. We messaged Vector that our proposed meetup in Wrightsville Beach would have to wait for another time since we had laid in a course for Wilmington due to the luck of the currents—and while I’m sure they would’ve enjoyed getting together as much as we, they agreed that we should take the weather/tide window while it was still open—so that’s exactly what we did. Wrightsville Beach fell behind us, as did Carolina Beach, Snows Cut, and we made our way up the Cape Fear River to the town and the very marina where we purchased Stinkpot. This “homecoming” marks the first time she’s been back here since that day, December 23, 2018, when we cast off lines the first time as her new crew.

We made contact with the Port City Marina dockmaster, Lanier, and received our slip assignment. Since we did arrive before the close of business, he was able to meet us on the dock upon our arrival, but was waylaid by a fuel dock transaction, so we were already fully tied up and connected to dock power before he met us dockside. Contracts and conveying of filthy lucre, it was agreed, would wait for the next morning, and we settled in. For dinner, we naturally returned to our favorite watering hole, The Copper Penny, and both enjoyed their BBQ cheeseburgers as well as an order of Buffalo shrimp (my new favorite way to eat shrimp). We walked a bit around town to admire how it had changed before returning to the boat, but we ultimately did and enjoyed a pleasant night’s sleep in our new, for now, home.

Wednesday morning came, and brought with it the expected (promised?) weather. Rain, wind, WIND, rain.

Texts we had exchanged with Vector of Dave and Stacey hamming it up in a warm, inviting pub over delectable fare had worked its magic, and suddenly we learned that Vector was Wilmington bound—at least for a little while. Weather that makes little Stinkpot quiver in fear is nearly nothing for the 55-tons of steel vessel that is Vector, so with a south wind blowing steady at 20 MPH and gusting to an excess of 40 MPH, Vector arrived in Wilmington at the height of the storm and was shown to the dock by the wind on her beam. Stacey and I greeted her to grab lines and follow orders, but mother nature did the heavy lifting. The reunited tribe assembled at the nearby and very good Marina Grill to hoist a glass and enjoy epicurean pursuits. Vector will be here for a likely week or so, though her ultimate departure date may well be dictated by weather. Sean and Louise are keen to get further south on an offshore run, but offshore weather windows are currently closed. If, after a week in Wilmington, there is still no window, I’m sure they will cast off and begin an ICW run south from here, but that’s fodder for their blog (which also contains a very detailed recounting of our time in Washington, NC over Thanksgiving).

We did it. I'm sure that single three-word declaration has you now going to the final paragraph of my previous post to figure out exactly what we did. No? I suppose I can remind you. 

We were at anchor in beautiful Oxford, Maryland waiting for the wind to subside and give us a nice run across Chesapeake Bay to Solomons, MD. It did, and we did, and enjoyed a lovely autumnal cruise. We arrived at Southern Maryland Sailing Association's T-head berth right around 3:30pm on Monday, November 11 where we were greeted by club members Robin and Mark (Mark is also the club's dockmaster). We made fast to the dock, while we were receiving a very warm welcome, but shortly our hosts took their leave. We connected to the available 20-amp shore power connection, which is a bare minimum for us to keep warm as the weather is dipping into the 40s at night. 

After the boat was secured and powered, we put feet to the ground and made our way to the Amazon Locker at Safe Harbor Zahnizer's Marina where we had packages waiting, and then on to our dear friend, Cristin's house to enjoy conversation and dinner. Cristin had to leave for Germany on Tuesday, so this was our chance to catch up before we need to continue on our own journey south. 

After somewhere around six weeks of living in our boat on dry land, with almost no fanfare except engines roaring to life, Stinkpot was relaunched on Election Day—November 5—and gracefully made her way into slip 36 at McDaniel Yacht Basin. For the last month or so, we have been scrubbing, painting, scraping, sanding, waxing, varnishing, repairing, maintaining, and attempting to make Stinkpot look like she hasn’t in a long time.

We had intended to do that over the winter in the south, but with my illness speeding our south’ard roll by a month or more, we decided to do it sooner than later, and she looks great. Somewhere in the middle of all the boat work, we were also distracted by the Annapolis Boat Shows as well as boat shopping. I suppose I should fess up that we are looking for the next Stinkpot, and have quietly been doing so for months. I am really hoping to find a boat large enough to have my digital piano aboard. If there is anything I miss from land life, it’s sitting down at the piano. It’s something we have been considering for a couple years, and this period of land time seemed like an opportunity, so we seized upon it. A barrage of emails later had us reunited with our broker, Ryan Miller, and the search has been on.

We actually thought we found a boat. A vessel near Baltimore seemed perfect—a Carver 42, was listed by Jay Porterfield with Knot 10 Brokerage. It appeared very clean, but the mechanical survey and oil samples failed very badly, so we had to pull the plug. I expected the listing to be removed after the broker relayed the findings to his client that the boat needed more work than it was worth, but instead they re-marketed the boat with no disclosure of those findings in the listing, following an all-too-minor price adjustment. This all led me to conclude I will never again look at another Knot 10 listing. Caveat emptor….

​It was a sunny, chilly morning, so we started at the lower helm as we waited for the outside temps to rise a bit with the sun as we made our way down the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay from the North East River, finishing our cruise for the day in Rock Hall on the free bulkhead/dock there. We consumed a late lunch at Harbor Shack. The place was packed, the view was fantastic, and the food was really not good. I had the chicken fajitas while Stacey ordered a seafood-stuffed quesadilla. I’m not sure how you make fajitas taste so “meh,” but they managed to. Stacey’s comment about the quesadilla was something about how, eating out and “leaving it to the professionals,” is supposed to protect one from consuming objectively bad flavor combinations, but “not this time.”

Following our insipid repast, we took to the hoof for a spin through the tiny berg with our eye on the nearby grocery for bananas. Yes, we know there are many who maintain that bananas are bad luck on a boat, but we have been assured by experts in nautical superstition that the bad luck is specific to fishing, not boating. Since we never “wet a line” we see fit to risk it.

After a successful mission, we returned to the boat to find an official-looking gent eyeballing her suspiciously. I cleared my throat and asked if I could help him. He asked when we arrived and how long we were staying, and I told him we’d arrived in the early afternoon and would be leaving out in the morning. He seemed satisfied that we were not intending to overstay our welcome and left us alone after complaining bitterly about the boat, aptly named “Problem Child” tied up just ahead of us that had apparently been there too much, too often to the annoyance of local government officials, of which he was one.

We had a quiet evening aboard, turning in early and getting underway just before dawn. The wind was coming up, so we angled toward the Chester River, down through Kent Narrows, and down the eastern shore and into the western inlet of Knapps Narrows—our immediate objective was to refuel at Fairbank Tackle, where we took on 181.5 gallons of off-road diesel at $2.809 per gallon. From there, we continued through the ditch heading east, hoping that the building wind and waves would permit us to cross to Solomons, but it wasn’t to be. We retreated up the Choptank River, into the Tred Avon and anchored for the night in Oxford, MD, just across the channel from DiMillo’s on the Chesapeake East—owned by the DiMillos in Portland, Maine. We found ourselves wishing they had a restaurant here as well to offer us a taste of home. Oxford seemed very quaint from the water. With the wind and weather, we deigned to keep the dinghy aboard and intend to return another time for a proper exploration of the town. For now, it has been a scenic place to lay our heads for the night, and nothing more. 

As I type this in the late morning, we are still waiting for the winds to lay down as forecast to give us a reasonably (hopefully?) smooth crossing to Solomons. We can see the trailing edge of the front to the west, and when it's overhead shortly, we will be weighing anchor and getting underway. 

With the recent posting of our Lake Champlain adventures, there is a bit of missing cruisology between our stop in Plattsburg, NY and my health concerns that routed us to Florida for a couple weeks. Suffice it to say, there's not much to blog about. We left Plattsburgh on August 14th, went north to Rouses Point, where we fueled at the Safe Harbor Marina there and took a short walk around town to toss a couple last-minute items in the US Mail before crossing an international border, cleared into Canada at the Customs Dock with no issue, and began the north'ard trek up the Richelieu River. We spent one night at anchor in the Fort Lennox Channel where we enjoyed one of the most crazy summer showers that included a real hail storm—a Stinkpot first! It wasn't particularly windy or rough. It's was just a wild, memorable moment. 

The morning of the 15th, we voyaged the rest of the way to St. Jean, Quebec. The river was unspeakably beautiful, and in looking back over our photos from that time, it looks like we were taking it in, not taking pictures of it. We had a wonderful first night in St. Jean, even meeting up for dinner with looper friends, Renée and Pierre, whom we met along our Great Loop trip five years ago. They even drove us for a quick reprovisioning at a local market. 

The dinner was so good that we decided to take another day to eat our way around town. We started with brunch at Restaurant Bonnes Soeurs, which was AMAZING. Later in the day we trundled into a local sandwich joint called PARMA to enjoy a muffuletta, which we split (not New Orleans, but still good), followed later in the early evening by poutine that was delectable at La Plank. 

It was while at La Plank that I started feeling strange. The next morning, still not feeling well, I suggested that we probably should make St. Jean the end of our Canadian trip, turn around, and start making our way toward the US healthcare system. Over the course of the next week or two, we followed a hasty south'ard course that ultimately had us docked in Croton-on-Hudson so we could make our way to Florida. The details of that time are etched in my memory in not-altogether pleasant ways, and I will eschew preserving them here. All I can say is, were it not for dockmaster extraordinaire, Steve, at Half Moon Bay Marina, things would have been a lot more stressful during that time. 

The rest of the story, you know. What you don't know is the excitement that lies ahead for us, and that, dear reader, will be shared in another blog after all the details come together….

While orbiting the popular vacation planet of Risa, I tried to start compiling this blog post. Actually, I started thinking that I should blog about our Lake Champlain cruising about two months ago when it would have been "fresh," but so much has happened, and been happening, I somehow have not found the time until now. I wrote most of this in August, and I'm only now hitting "post." For reasons that we'll eventually share, there will be more updates about our recent adventures, but I have simply not had the bandwidth to record them in prose. I'm editing/posting this in mid-October. All that follows this paragraph was written in late August. Set the Wayback Machine to August 29th, 2024 and entertain yourself with the words of my past self.

We are currently docked at Mooney Bay Marina in Plattsburgh, NY, where we've been for about 24 hours now. It's where we had parked our car before we cast off lines in Maryland, so, now ashore, we have wheels. Of course, tomorrow, we'll be using them to drive to Maine for my brief Vacationland tour. 

Last time I wrote here, we were docked in Fort Edward, NY, enjoying a free wall and shore power, a combination we find attractive. As I suspected, we got underway on the morning of the 18th and made our way to just before Lock 12, the final lock on the Champlain Canal, where we tied up on the town bulkhead in Whitehall, NY, where we also enjoyed shore power. While there we saw the skeletal remains of the USS Ticonderoga, which was a schooner and early steamship that was part of the US Navy and was sunk during the War of 1812's Battle of Plattsburgh—a pivotal British defeat. I'm told, were it not for that decisive victory, we'd all be speaking English. 

We also walked over to the lock to chat with the lockmaster, of whom we asked for a restaurant recommendation. Whitehall is cute, even picturesque, but it has more dusty, forlorn, locked up, and forgotten storefronts than we've seen on a Main Street in quite some time. We told her we were willing to walk a bit, so she suggested a place about a mile away called The Railyard Taproom & Restaurant, which was worth the walk it took to get there. The next morning, we did drop lines and lock down to Lake Champlain-level, where we boated to the end of the Champlain Canal and began our Lake Champlain adventure! 

​Our first stop was for a black-water pump out at Chipman Point Marina, on the Vermont side of the lake, which has two of the oldest buildings you might find anywhere in New England. We did go ashore to take them in, but were underway very soon to ultimately anchor beside Fort Ticonderoga. It was a lovely spot to drink in the views of the historic fort and hear cannon fire. We liked it so well, and the weather was so lovely that we stayed two nights there. On the morning of Saturday, July 20, we dropped our dinghy in the drink and started motoring up the nearby, but well hidden La Chute River to the town of Ticonderoga. 

It was a beautiful upstream passage. La Chute is a river that starts on Lake George and then travels “downhill” to Lake Champlain. The water is very clear. You can see bottom nearly everywhere. We traveled around fallen trees, under “tunnels” formed by overhanging branches, and two bridges. It was an intoxicating ride. When we were nearly there, we spotted a covered bridge, which was to be our cue that we should be looking for a place to tie up. We went under the covered bridge and took a spin in front of the waterfalls, but ultimately backtracked and tied up to a disused bulkhead that probably hadn’t had a barge or other commercial vessel tied up to it in many decades.

Normally, in a situation like this in an unknown area, we would lock the boat to an immoveable object somehow, but there was nothing to run our lock cable through. We were a little concerned that we were leaving our only connection to Stinkpot in a public area, on the fringe of a public park, unlocked and vulnerable. A quick step away from the water’s edge revealed that the boat “disappeared” behind the berm quickly, so a would-be miscreant would have to know there was a boat tied up there, or stumble upon it. We threw caution to the wind, tied the boat bow and stern to hold the bow into the current, and walked away through the park.

Our first stop was at a nearby luncheonette. The real deal—counter service with a smile. The food was, for better and worse, exactly like you would expect. Nothing ostentatious, solid “diner” fare, and service with just enough attitude to make you smile, but not so much that you might gripe about it.

After lunch, we walked the sun-beaten streets a bit, but the allure of the air conditioned museum nearby was quickly more than we could bear, and so we entered the Star Trek Original Series Museum and Set Tour. This is an exact replica of the sets used to film the original series, built from the original blue prints that were willed to the museum’s founder, and recreated with exacting detail, including enduring modifications made for specific episodes. There are many collected artifacts that were used in the filming as well. For fans of the series, like us, it’s a feast for the eyes, and nearly nothing more. They have a strict, “look but don’t touch” policy in every space except Enterprise’s bridge where everyone in the tour is invited to sit in Kirk’s famous chair to strike a captainly pose. Interestingly, William Shatner comes to the museum a few times every year for events and has been photographed in the same chair many times. Word is, he claims it feels very familiar.

We finished the tour, and, on our way back to Li’l Stinker, stopped at a very small museum exhibit in a former mill building, dedicated to the industrial past of Ticonderoga—to wit, paper and pulp production and, naturally, graphite products, including the eponymous pencil. Before long, we were once again in the dinghy and underway back to Stinkpot with a sizable following current for most of the voyage. After a peaceful night aboard, we continued north up the lake.

Our next stop was in Arnold Bay, named for the traitor himself. We spent one beautiful night here, took our first swim in the lake. I rowed the dinghy ashore for a sunset stroll and to read the historic marker (pictured) that detailed the story of how Ferris Bay became known as Arnold Bay.

Monday, July 22, we weighed anchor and made our way up Otter Creek to the town of Vergennes, VT. Otter Creek was a very cool little diversion. Like Ticonderoga, it’s a town built around a scenic waterfall with a connected industrial past. Again, we were pleased to tie up to a free dock with shore power. The park where the dock was located was a War of 1812 shipyard that, under the command of Lieutenant Thomas Macdonough, built the US Navy fleet that won the battle of Plattsburgh in 1814—a fleet that included the USS Ticonderoga, to bring our “Champlain as battlefield” historic education full circle.

While in Vergennes, we did walk about a bit. Enjoyed more than our share of local ice cream, dined at the nearby pizza joint (which was the only restaurant in town that was open while we were there), and took in the local wind band which played a concert on the town green one of our two evenings there.

While we were out on one of our walks on Monday afternoon, something happened aboard with electricity, and when we returned to the boat an alarm was going off and every warning light on our AC breaker panel was angrily greeting us—not to mention, the voltage gauge that should read 110-120 volts was pegged at 150 volts, and the acrid smell of electronics death was wafting through the air. Not good. I shut off the main breakers and disconnected us from shore power. I tested the voltage on the shore power with my multi-meter, and it was normal. I started the generator and started turning on breakers one at a time until the culprit, which once again spiked the gauge to 150 volts, was found. Our main battery charger had failed, and because the voltage spiked the breaker didn’t kick (I’ll not wax philosophical here about Ohm’s Law). Fortunately, it seems the battery charger was the only casualty. Everything else seems functional. Parts are ordered and will greet us in Maine next week. My spare “automotive” battery charger has been temporarily installed to keep things working, though at 15 amps, it’s a slow charge for a big bank of batteries.

On Tuesday morning, my dear friend and former colleague, Johanna, joined us for breakfast aboard Stinkpot. She came toting a bakery bag of muffins, a croissant, and a scone, which was dispatched with caffeinated beverages in short order. Like all such visits, this one happened fast and ended too soon, but it was great to see her.

After Johanna’s departure, we, once again, took to hoofing it around the town. We walked to the “other” waterfront park, across the creek from Stinkpot to grab a couple “baby photos” and then back to town for a "maple creemee" (Creemee is apparently what they call soft serve in Vermont). It was decadent. On our way back to the boat, we realized some of the other dock space in the park was suddenly occupied by a fleet of small, recreational steamboats—the real deal. The air was thick with woodsmoke, which I have to admit smells better than diesel exhaust. They didn’t stay long, but they were quite a sight to behold, and one or two of them gave us a hearty “toot” on their steam whistles on the way by.

After one more peaceful night within earshot of the white noise of the falls, we spun Stinkpot on her heel and back out the creek to Lake Champlain. We ran up as far as Converse Bay where we anchored on the leeward side of Cedar Island for a peaceful night. Following a morning swim, we got underway Thursday for Willsboro Bay, which we were told was a “must see” place on the New York side of the lake. It didn’t disappoint, with mountains and foothills rimming the bay, it reminded us a bit of the fjords of Norway.

We anchored at the southern end of the bay where we would be protected from most of the wave action from the evening’s predicted winds. With really no place to go ashore other than a nearby marina and no real reason to go ashore, we settled in, took in the sunset and had a peaceful night aboard—until our anchor alarm went off around 5AM, just before dawn. (…continued below gallery)

We began the scramble to assess the situation. We were dragging, it was slow, but not slow enough to ignore. The wind was blowing, and not in the predicted direction and at a far greater strength. I surmised that the mountains and hills probably funnel the wind in odd ways, making it difficult to predict. We threw on some clothes, raised and cleaned the anchor, which came up loaded with plant life and clay (which is why we dragged when the wind came up). With the engines making slow turns, we watched the sunrise as we made our way out of the bay. Once on the lake proper, the winds came around to the forecasted direction and settled down to the expected, gentle breeze.

At about 7:30AM, our voyage for the day was over, and we anchored behind Rock Point in a clearly enviable spot about a mile north of Burlington. We napped a bit. Shrugged off our morning, and then dropped the dinghy and ran the mile or so to the town dinghy dock by the Burlington Community Boathouse Marina. From there we hoofed around town, had lunch at Church Street Tavern, and then meandered over to the local, impressive food co-op to pick up some fresh produce before finding our way back to the dinghy. As cool as Burlington is, and it is, we just couldn’t manufacture a reason to remain. It’s the sort of place that has so much going on that, if you don’t intend to spend a week ducking in and out of cool watering holes, museums, and historical spots, it’s hardly worth the trouble. We trudged back to the dinghy with our booty, and made way back to Stinkpot.

Saturday, after a leisurely morning, we weighed anchor around noon and made for Malletts Bay, which we semi-circumnavigated, cruising the northern shore along Niquette Bay State Park, down the eastern shore, and across the southern shore nearly to Moorings Marina, where we ultimately had the hook down a bit after 4PM. We did row ashore to the Bayside Park dinghy dock for a short walk before sunset, but the mosquitoes aggressively drove us back to the safety of our screened vessel within about a half hour. It’s a pretty area, but there is no real commerce—not even an ice cream stand within walking distance.

Sunday morning, we again took our time, ultimately getting underway around noon, and made way to Pelots Bay, anchoring in the northwestern part of the bay. We did dinghy ashore for dinner at Drifter’s Boathouse at the nearby marina. The place was packed; the food was OK. The service was decent. The management was non-existent. Our server made a $4 mistake and had no way to void the error because the manager was “off.” We asked him to just give us $4 in cash, and he said he couldn’t do that, and implied we should just pay the $4. Ultimately, another server who had been there longer “helped” and we walked out with $4 cash in our pocket. I’m not sure who needs to hear this, but if you own or manage a restaurant, never leave it without at least one employee who can void transactions in your absence.

We returned to Stinkpot for the balmy evening which gave way to cool, comfortable sleeping weather. Monday, we weighed anchor and “completed” a circumnavigation of North Hero Island which had us within about 5 miles of the Canadian border before turning south again, ultimately anchoring in Middle Bay in Pointe Au Roche State Park in Plattsburgh, NY. We did dinghy ashore for a very pleasant walk in the park and had a refreshing swim off the boat, as the weather was quite warm. I tied up the dinghy “on the hip” since I expected we’d probably stroll again in the morning.

The NOAA wind forecast was for gentle westerlies, so it should’ve been a very pleasant night. It wasn’t. At about 11PM, the breeze started coming in, which was refreshing at first, and then it got stronger…and stronger. We ended up taking a thrashing from the south with 2-3 foot waves. I got up around midnight and re-stowed the dinghy (not easy since both Stinkpot and her tender were pitching on the waves, and then put out storm scope on our anchor rode. Returning to bed, neither of us expected to sleep well, but my eyes did close around 1AM, and the next thing I knew it was light out. The wind had let up a bit, but we were still in an uncomfortable place. I suggested we get underway and cruise south to the leeward side of Treadwell Bay, which we did. After we had the anchor down, a sailboat that was in a better place vacated, and we re-anchored in his spot. The wind was still going, but we were out of the waves, and that was all that mattered.

I then set about to doing laundry so we would have less to worry about it came time to pack for our trip to Maine. We needed to charge our batteries anyway. I started the generator and got to work. After an hour or two, I realized the generator exhaust sounded louder than it should. I know that sound. It happens when the seawater flow that cools the engine isn’t “flowing.” I immediately checked the generator’s temperature, and it was clearly overheating. I shut it down immediately.

Stressed by the morning, the lack of sleep, and now the generator, I suggested to Stacey that we should just give up and go into Mooney Bay Marina a day early, if they’d have us. She agreed, I made the call, and they agreed. We got underway, and were tied up in a slip at the marina around 2PM yesterday (Tuesday).

Once we were settled in, I continued working on our laundry, and being in a marina meant we could use the dryer in the bath house instead of line-drying everything. While I was out there working the washing machine, a large, late-model, Quebec-registered Sea-Ray backed into a slip near us. No sooner had they made their lines fast to the dock, I heard a man start yelling hysterically in French on the next dock over. His words were too fast and too emotional for my high school French to kick in, but our new neighbors understood and ran while I was still twisting foreign words in my head, and I saw people from all over the marina start running as well. I thought perhaps someone fell in, and decided with the rush of people who ran over, I would be nothing but in the way. Our neighbors’ teen-age daughter came off the boat and, in perfect English, filled in any blanks we still had. A man had just been found floating and unconscious in the water on the next dock. They were just dragging him onto the dock and beginning CPR and kept it up until the EMS showed up. From our vantage point, we saw the defibrillator get used to no good effect. Then the crowd broke up as people began dejectedly walking away from the scene as the heavens opened up and a deluge poured down for about 20 minutes, the likes of which I have rarely seen. When we emerged from the boat after the shower, the body was still on the dock, covered with a towel, awaiting the coroner.

Exhausted by our own ordeal of the last 24 hours and emotionally drained and a bit shellshocked from what we’d just witnessed, we walked up the dock to the restaurant very near its end. It was good. The bartender, Kim, was very nice, and clearly sensed we’d benefit from some friendly chatting. We had a good time and a good meal. We returned to Stinkpot and slept.

And so, here we still are, at the marina, and preparing to leave in our own car to Maine for my gigs early tomorrow. We’re still working out our return path, and that will be part of another blog.

​I’m still a bit at a loss for words over what we saw yesterday. I don’t know if I will ever find them. Life’s short. Hold your loved ones close.

As many know, I have had some health challenges of late. It started months ago when we were going north, but seemed to subside until dropping like a ton of bricks while we were in Canada. It was concerning enough that we did an about-face in St. Jean, Quebec and started running south. My health insurance is an HMO, so in order to get care on anything considered chronic (as opposed to emergent), I'd have to go to Florida, where our health insurance is based. To wit, I visited an Emergency Room in Albany, NY, and they checked me for a cardiac situation (none found), and told me to get to Florida. We managed to get as far south as Croton-on-Hudson, NY, where we left the boat at Half Moon Bay Marina (great spot!) and flew to Florida where we stayed for about two weeks with our dear friends, Gary and Liz, while I had several visits with doctors and convalesced. I have since received a diagnosis of "erosive gastritis of the antrum," which was fully responsible for all the odd symptoms I was experiencing, since it was irritating the vagus nerve. It was very uncomfortable and very scary, but we are cautiously optimistic that I'm on the mend with the suggested dietary changes and acid-reducing drugs. 

On Monday, September 9th, Stacey and I returned to Stinkpot, and we got underway on the ebb the Tuesday morning. Our aim is to get closer to our car and vast support system in the Chesapeake Bay region. We had good weather and favoring tidal currents and took full advantage of it, running all the way to Manasquan Inlet and anchoring near the southern end of the Point Pleasant Canal in New Jersey. Wednesday, we went back out the inlet and ran all the way to Cape May where we anchored in front of the Coast Guard Training Center. Thursday, we cruised all the way up Delaware Bay, through the C&D Canal, and onto the northern end of Chesapeake Bay, dropping anchor on the Bohemia River. Friday we cruised down to the Sassafras River where we spent two nights at anchor. We were pleased to be whisked away for a much-needed grocery expedition on Saturday morning by some considerate and wonderful new friends, Phil and Christyne. 

This past Sunday, we got underway again and made our way back up the Northeast River, anchoring just outside the familiar McDaniel's Yacht Basin—the very same marina where we spent much of May and all of June. We are now there in the very same slip in the marina that we occupied then. We were going to wait until winter to give Stinkpot some TLC, but this seems like a good time to hit pause and knock some overdue boat work off the list. 

In the meantime, I have a lot of missing blog posts to get up here—adventures we enjoyed over the last couple months, but that have not yet made it to this page. I will get caught up, I promise. There are so many stories to tell, and I will be trickling it all out as my currently limited spare time allows.

Today we crossed the border into Canada—my ancestral land.

Here we have very limited internet data allocation, and this blog will go mostly silent while we are here, as will our Facebook page. I have a great blog post to share about our last weeks on Lake Champlain. That will wait too.

We may be making limited posts to our Facebook page from free hotspots and such, but pictures, stories, and even our "Where's Stinkpot" page will mostly go on hiatus for the duration of our Canadian cruising in an attempt to not use all of our allotted data that Stacey needs for puppy videos.

As soon as we arrive back in US waters, we will begin to trickle out all that you've missed while we've been busy and/or gorging on poutine. There will be lots of stories to tell. Stay tuned….

It never gets old. Really. Sometimes it seems like it should, but it still doesn't.

Here we are docked in the cool, little berg known as Fort Edward, NY, where there indeed was a British, French and Indian War fortification, named for a royal—Edward Augustus, the Duke of York and Albany, grandson of King George II and the younger brother of King George III. They called it a fort, and it was located on a bend in the river, but we are well above the fall line in Troy, NY, so the river would have been essentially unnavigable by anything larger than a canoe before locks were constructed here for the Champlain Canal. As such, it truly wouldn't have been a fort so much as a barracks or garrison. 

How we find ourselves here is relatively interesting, since the last week has had us traverse the stunning Hudson River from Croton-on-Hudson, NY to here, with some very nice, notable stops along the way. We weighed anchor off Croton Point on the morning of Wednesday, July 10—just a week ago—and began working our way north on the river. Once you get much north of there and cross the salt/fresh line, the river opens up to some beauty reminiscent of the fjords we recently saw on our cruise in Norway. 

Our first stop on this leg of the voyage was in Kingston, NY on the free (with meal purchase) dock at Ole Savannah Southern Table and Bar, a wonderful restaurant that we enjoyed very much. Once docked, we sidled up to the bar and asked the bartender if the two-hour dockage limit indicated on the signs applied to those skippers who intended to eat well and get thoroughly soused. He was so excited to have us there that he cut me off mid-sentence, as if to fully understand the question before it was asked, and informed us that we could, indeed, stay the night on the dock. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, Stacey immediately set to ordering nearly every dish off of the happy hour bar menu (not to be confused with the restaurant menu which had many of the same items for considerably more money) while I enjoyed a lovely, local lager. 

After our meal, which came out on a large tray and resembling an order for at least four diners, we then took an evening stroll around Kingston to enjoy this historic waterfront town/deep(ish)-water port. Such a cool stop—oozing with undeniable maritime history and cool architecture.

The next morning, in an effort to wait out the ebb, we delayed our departure as long as we could, but could wait no more when the restaurant opened. We didn't want to be taking up their precious dock space during business hours, so we cast off just after 11AM, making slow turns toward Coxsackie, NY. I didn't bring the throttle up to our usual cruising speed of  7.4 knots STW (Speed ThroughWater) until we encountered slack-to-flood current in the mid-afternoon, carrying us onto Coxsackie's relatively new, free (though flimsy aluminum with nylon cleats) town dock at Riverside Park at just after 4PM. 

We settled in and prepared to meet our friends, Roger and Patsy (of m/y Gypsy Star, currently tied up at Atlantic Yacht Basin in Great Bridge, VA) who live in nearby Albany, at Patrick Henry's Waterfront Tavern. It was good to see them, and we all enjoyed a wonderful meal. I had an excellent fried chicken sandwich while the rest of the gathered masses enjoyed the gourmet pizzas (which were also very good—I did try a slice). The beer selection was also quite nice, satisfying our varied tastes quite well. 

After our meal, we parted company, allowing Stacey and me to enjoy a trudge around the village to see what it was all about. All told, it's a town that is clearly in the process of reinventing itself. It likely had its "boom" years in the late 19th to mid 20th century, followed by an extended period of "bust" years. There are now businesses starting to rehabilitate and repurpose dilapidated buildings, and I can see a time in a few years when Coxsackie Village will be an exceedingly charming stop. It's already a worthy stop with limited choices. 

The next morning saw us underway at 6AM enjoying the flood until we stopped at Donovan's Shady Harbor Marina in New Baltimore, NY for fuel, water, and a black water pump out. We arrived about 90 minutes before they opened, so we filled our potable water and showered while we waited. Fully serviced, we cast off before the flood was exhausted and we coasted as far as we could with it, pushing through Albany around slack, and pushing through the beginning of the ebb around the time we were entering the Federal Lock in Troy. 

This is where things got weird. We were following a Kadey-Krogen—about a 50' pilothouse trawler—into the lock. The skipper was running her VERY slow and was making very unpredictable moves. He pulled to starboard as though he thought he was in the chamber while still in the wider vestibule. He corrected his mistake and then started making way into the chamber, but pulled to starboard alongside the miter gate, as though he was intending to make fast to it. I picked up the VHF and encouraged him to proceed INTO the lock chamber. Ultimately he made his way in and made fast to the wall, we did the same, and a third boat tied up in the chamber on the wall opposite us. We all locked up, and transited out of the lock, the Krogen continuing to make odd moves, running slowly and erratically. We gave him a wide berth until he slowed to an almost crawl before some bridges where overtaking him would've been unwise. I again radioed him and informed him he was not in a "no-wake" zone, and implied I would overtake him if he wanted to remain at that speed. He informed me he would speed up, which he did. 

We finally arrived in Waterford, NY where we were intending to moor at the Erie Canal Visitor Center for the night. The Krogen, clearly intending to continue on, called the wrong lock (E-3) instead of the lock he was approaching (E-2). He caught his own mistake quickly and corrected himself. He then informed the lockmaster of his intention to lock up, which was acknowledged. He then proceeded to take up the entire fairway in front of the lock and the Visitor Center docks. I again called him to let him know we were intended to dock just forward of his position, and he offered to move out of the way, which he did. While we were docking, I heard him again call the lock to ask to lock through, and this time was told it would be 15-20 minutes before the lock would be ready. 

We docked and began to settle in. We paid our $10 in the office for shore power, and returned to the boat. A little while later, a fisherman walked by on the wall, saw me and asked, "Did you see that last boat that locked through?" I said that I had, and then was regaled with what happened with Captain Krogen after we stopped paying attention to his antics. In his excitement to get into the lock chamber, he piloted his vessel up close to the lock's miter gates. When the gates opened, he was SHOCKED(!) to be looking at a lock full of vessels wanting to get out of the lock. He panicked, and in his haste to get out of the way, he sideswiped a docked, steel trawler. Later, I learned from the Canadian owner of the steel trawler that Captain Crunch opened his wallet and offered $5,000 for the damages to keep the insurance companies out of it. The Canadian thought this gesture too generous and offered to take $4,000. Money changed hands, then the Krogen proceeded into the lock and disappeared from our sphere.

​The thing is, what we witnessed, I'm told, was not inexperience. That vessel and her master have completed the Great Loop at least once, and I'm told he talks a good game and has been boating for decades. Word is that his skills are almost certainly leaving him with his advancing years, and like grandma has to give up her car keys after a point, someone is really going to need to take this gent's yacht from him at some point, which is almost certainly why he didn't want to involve his insurance company. ​

In our time on the Waterford dock, we enjoyed a couple great meals at nearby McGreivey's Irish Pub, walked the bridge across the Hudson to the nearby Hannaford's for groceries and Walgreens for drugs for my still-persistent cough. I enjoyed "docktails" with the loopers on the dock on the second night. It was a good stop, but after two nights there it was time to move along. 

Sunday, July 14, we dropped lines and made our way back onto the Hudson River and pointed north to Lock C-1 of the Champlain Canal. It was a hot day and we are not in a hurry so we stopped after two locks and pulled onto the free wall in Mechanicville, NY. This wall also has free shore power and potable water. The entire wall was dusty and dirty, but everything worked. We got settled and went ashore to walk to the nearby hardware store where we bought knurled knobs for my helm chair and got keys made for our salon door's padlock. Upon returning to the boat, the keys didn't work, so I hoofed it back alone, lock in hand, to have them recut.

Later, we walked the 0.8 miles each way to a local watering hole that got 4.5 stars out of 5 called Devito's (clearly no relation to Danny, despite what it may say on Google Maps). It was the quintessential neighborhood joint that probably hasn't seen a coat of paint since 1968, and most of the patrons have had the same buzz going since the Clinton administration. The room still smelled like an ashtray from decades of second-hand smoke, even though smoking in such places has been banned for years. The jukebox was blaring the obligatory oldies, and we ordered a pizza from the bartender who claimed to make the best pie in the county.

The entire experience was forgettable, though, I'm pretty sure neither of us ever will. While we were waiting for our meal, a woman who was playing pool across the room suddenly started yelling, throwing billiard equipment around (not the balls, thankfully), and opening and slamming doors. The bartender allowed it to go on for a moment before interceding and showing the woman out the back door. The bartender came back and apologized to us for "all that," explaining that she had been drinking Jack and Cokes for most of the afternoon. He left and soon returned with our pizza, which did not live up to the hype. We ate what we could and returned to the boat with leftovers. 

The next morning, we topped up the potable water tank and got underway, and found ourselves almost immediately in Lock C-3. While we were locking up, the lockmaster stopped by and asked what our "air draft" (AKA: "vertical clearance" or "bridge clearance") is. I replied that we needed 16.5' of clearance. I was then informed that the next bridge was 15.5', and we would not make it through unless and until he dropped the pool level (depth), which would take him approximately two hours. He advised us to tie to the lock wall immediately outside the chamber after locking through, and he'd begin dropping the water level. He went on to say that they should have asked us at Lock C-1 (they didn't). 

When the lock opened, we made our way to the wall and tied up as instructed. About 90 minutes later, he radioed us and said we should have sufficient clearance. We thanked him and got underway, and cleared the bridge with room to spare. We proceeded up through some gorgeous country through three more locks and one guard gate, ending our day in Fort Edward, NY on another free canal wall, again with power and water. This one, kind-of-absurdly named "Fort Edward Yacht Basin," is where your humble scribe is currently scribing. 

Tonight will be our third (and hopefully final) night here. We had intended to leave this morning, but weather and mitigating circumstances conspired to encourage us to amend our timing—all of which I will elucidate in due time. 

We arrived here Monday just before 4PM. After getting tied up and shore power connected, we immediately made our way to the only local watering hole that seemed open on a Monday, called Dalias On the Hudson. We shared a couple appetizers—potato skins which arrived cold and congealed and cheese-steak empanadas which were hot out of the fryer, but entirely unremarkable. The dry martini I ordered was, likewise, not dry, but after our experience in Mechanicville, neither of us had the belly for complaining about, well, anything. "Everything is fine," was our answer, when asked. After dinner, we took a kick about town to see what it is all about, ultimately getting ice cream cones at the nearby Stewart's convenience store. 

After a good night's sleep, we woke and our morning "interneting" took us until nearly 11AM, at which point we decided to seek out brunch. We went first to Ye Old Fort Diner and selected a table. The waitress stopped by, and when she learned that Stacey was reading the breakfast specials on the board, informed us that they were switching over to lunch, but she probably could sneak it through. In truth, I'm not a breakfast person, and do not even enjoy egg preparations, so when we have brunch at such a place, I often will get a BLT. To me, the bacon makes it breakfast-y without requiring me to get flapjacks or waffles, which is really my only unsatisfying recourse at a breakfast-only counter. When the waitress returned for our order and I said I'd have the BLT, she informed us the "chef" would not do a mixed ticket—meaning combined breakfast and lunch. We stood up and walked out on that news and moved to another diner-like joint a few doors down called Mamma's Cafe, where Stacey got her eggs, which she tells me were good, and I got a grilled chicken club (with bacon!) that was also quite good. 

After brunch we walked to the area's historical sites—notably the Old Fort Edward Junction Lock and the Old Fort House Museum, the latter of which is actually named, not for the town or its namesake fort, but for one of the families that lived in that historic colonial edifice. Their actual surname was "Fort." Confused yet? At one point, when the house was being used as a tavern, Gen. George Washington and his men stopped there to dine, not just once, but twice. Hanging on the wall in the entryway is the original handwritten invoice for one of their meals. All told, it was a fascinating tour, and many of the pieces in the house told more than one story, which pleased this history buff. 

Following our stroll through history, we returned to the boat and enjoyed a mostly peaceful afternoon/evening, until a powerful storm cell came through and knocked the local power out and winds flattened a tree scarcely 50 yards from the boat. Power was not restored until the wee hours of the morning today. 

We arose this morning with every intention of getting underway to Whitehall, NY. We made preparations to do so, when the skipper of a neighbor boat informed us that Lock C-8 was still non-functional due to power not having been yet restored. I was able to confirm as much, and we decided to remain until we were sure we could continue locking through. About 10:30AM came the word that the lock was functioning again, but a quick look at the weather revealed that we were going to have more unsettled and rainy weather this afternoon, so we decided to just sit still until tomorrow when we might have a good run at Whitehall. With any luck at all, we'll be relaxing at the end of the Champlain Canal tomorrow evening and celebrating another cruising milestone.

Adventuring on the water can present its challenges, and we’ve had our share in recent days. I’ll get into that shortly, sparing some of the most-gruesome of the gruesome detail, but suffice it to say we are fine and enjoying our place in the world at the moment. Where would that place be? Well, as I’m typing these words, we are anchored on the Hudson River, just north of Croton Point on the eastern side of the river. We tucked in here yesterday evening to get out of the chop from the south wind, while still being able to enjoy its cooling influence. Our intention was to anchor across the river in a place familiar to us, Haverstraw Cove, but yesterday’s heat made me seek out the breeze, which the cove likely would have largely lacked.

Winding back the clock to the end of the last entry to this blog, we had just finished the Norway cruise, and we were preparing for my concert in Alexandria, VA on June 29 (which went very well), and also preparing to cast off with a rough destination of Lake Champlain. We did select a marina on the lake where we would leave our car and ultimately dock Stinkpot when I’m on tour in Maine in early August.

Within 48 hours of returning from the cruise last month, we both developed a bad “summer” cold that failed several tests, as we tried to confirm whether or not it was a COVID-19 variant. We can only surmise that it was not, but it was a miserable few days. For me, it was the gift that kept on giving as it turned into bronchitis that I’m only now starting to shake some three weeks later. I somehow managed to drug the cough away long enough to perform on the 29th, but other than that short, pharmaceutically-driven reprieve, I have been coughing like a tuberculosis patient since mid June.

During our final weeks in North East, we visited with as many friends as we could and completed most of our provisioning for our voyage. The morning of the 30th, we got in the car and drove first to the airport in Plattsburgh, NY—about seven hours—where we picked up a rental car we had reserved, and with the two cars, we made our way to Mooney Bay Marina where we parked our own steed until we arrive there July 31 aboard Stinkpot. We then turned around and drove back to North East, MD in the rental. July 1, I made a few last-minute store runs to pick up final provisions and then returned the rental car to the Avis location in Aberdeen, MD. My good friend, and the owner of Argo, Jeff, picked me up and returned me to Stinkpot.

I assessed the currents for the next day and determined that a 10:30 departure would allow us fair tidal current most of the way to our intended anchorage, and I let Jeff know since he intended to “stowaway” for the first couple days of our journey. The morning of July 2 arrived, and we were underway at 10:41 and enjoyed a following current from Turkey Point all the way to our usual anchorage on the Conhansey River. Delaware Bay is a two-day affair for us, and the Cohansey is one of the few decent anchorages along its length and gives us wonderful views, and a perfect midpoint at which to stop for the evening. It’s also prone to be filled with accursed greenhead flies. They bite.

For those who have been following our recent comings and goings, you know that Stacey and I docked Stinkpot in North East, Maryland a few weeks ago for a concert I played on May 18 in the same town and thought it a perfect place to stage from as we took a cruise through the fjords of Norway on a cruise ship from June 8-15. What follows is a description of the trip with a voyage overview laid out in prose. After that will be a quasi-chronological photo-dump with captions. The captions will be the detail that is lacking in the prose.

​The cruise, which was organized by Irish Music Cruises, and had me playing fully four times aboard the Celebrity Apex for the assembled group of savvy world travelers, while we all enjoyed the amenities of the vessel, four foreign ports of call, and scenery that was to die for.

The itinerary? Well, we boarded in Southampton, UK and cruised overnight to our first port of call in Bruges, Belgium, where we enjoyed some time ashore walking around (but neglecting to take many pictures) on a pleasantly, but not overly warm, sunny day. We then cruised across the North Sea, which was a little spicy with 14-foot seas, to the Norway coast, ducking inside the barrier islands for shelter from the wind and waves in sight of Hellisøy Lighthouse. We then proceeded to make our way in sheltered waters overnight to Sognefjord which led us to Aurlandsfjord and the quaint town of Flåm, where we, again enjoyed walking around in a picturesque area. We decided to enjoy these towns they way we would if we were cruising on our own boat, and eschew the cattle-call shore excursions and tourist traps. We walked about five miles in Flåm, enjoying the views of the steep, snow-capped mountain walls around the town, waterfalls, streams, quaint neighborhoods, and a stunning beach area right on the fjord with crystal-clear water. From Flåm, the ship returned to coastal waters by way of a port of call in the village of Olden (I pause here to point out that Olden is well inland, and we cruised overnight back to the coast, then up Nordfjord and Innvikfjorden to get there), where we also walked extensively, and enjoyed touring two historic churches (the old church, now rarely used, and the "new" church, which was build in the 1930s to allow the 300-year-old predecessor to be more of a tourist location and an alternate meeting space for special occasions and religious holidays). Dropping lines, Apex proceeded back down the fjords to the coastal city of Bergen, where we also stripped five miles off the soles of our shoes. This was, by far, the most interesting stop from a walking-around perspective. Re-boarding after Bergen, the ship once again got underway and set course back down the North Sea to return to Southampton, where we went ashore and flew home.

Getting there from the US? We parked our car at our friend, Kim's house (Thank you, Kim!). She drove us to Baltimore/Washington International Airport where our flight from the US to Old Blighty began. The first Icelandair flight dropped us in Reykjavik, Iceland (technically Keflavik, I guess) where airport construction and crowds preempted any time for a bathroom break, before loading us on a connecting flight to London's Gatwick Airport. Once on the ground in the UK, we were herded through customs, to baggage claim, after which we consulted Google Maps for transit directions to Southampton, which required use of two consecutive trains with our considerable luggage in tow. Once in Southampton (where we could've spent a month exploring), we walked to our hotel (about 1/2 mile from the train station), checked in, and proceeded to, on foot, enjoy our evening in a very historic city, even meeting up with our Florida friends, Gary and Liz, for fish & chips (with mushy peas) at the Red Lion Pub. In the morning, parsimony won out over expediency as we trudged the 1.3 miles, bags in tow, to the quayside, where we were processed aboard Apex. 

Our return to Southampton after the cruise was far less exciting. We waited our turn, and when our number was called in the late morning, we were herded off ship into a waiting van that delivered us and our luggage to London Gatwick for our flight home, once again via a toilet desert that is Reykjavik, and back to BWI and a waiting "Kim's BMW" to our own vehicle that we drove, sleep deprived over a VERY long day, to dinner at Applebee's in Aberdeen, MD (the only thing open at that hour in the area) and our bed aboard Stinkpot, some 23 hours after rising from our comfy berth on Apex.

The entire trip took 8 days from beginning to end. We knew we'd be encountering long hours of daylight above the Arctic Circle in mid-June, but nothing really prepared us for what that would really be like. We were torn between seeing the sights from our large stateroom window overnight, and using the very effective black-out shade (the latter often won the battle most nights). The sun did ultimately set, usually around 11:30pm local time (GMT -1), but the final crimson reminder of its last position would not fade to black, but, instead, circle around the horizon from west to east where it would rise again mere hours later. Night was not night again until we descended back below the Arctic Circle. It was stunning and amazing to witness.

This cruise may well be among the last of its kind. In 2026, a new law will be going into effect that will prevent cruise ships that burn diesel, bunker oil, or other "dirty" fuels from Norway's fjords. They will make exceptions only for so-called "zero-emissions vessels," but the regulations are so restrictive that it's unlikely that any members of the existing fleet will likely make the grade. Plans are apparently underway to create a small fleet of hybrid cruise ships that might get a pass, but that remains to be seen. Ultimately, if a trip like this entices you, book it now. You might not be able to for long.