Essex NY

Essex, NY:  Well as it turned out we'll have to save Burlington, VT for some other trip.  Weekends in Burlington are busy for boaters and this is particularly true the last 2 weeks of July, so all marinas are booked full.  Such is the consequence of "seat of the pants" itineraries, one must be prepared to alter course.  We chose instead to visit the small historic hamlet of Essex, NY. This destination took us a little further South than planned and thus has eliminated both Burlington, VT and Westport, NY from our overnight stay list.  Since Westport has a large marine store, we plan on tying up for some short period of time to go shopping before heading for the Champlain Canal but we won't be staying overnight.

On the way to Essex we passed our two triangle loop acquaintances - Dunwurkin (CT) and Morning Star (FL).  The captain was sure to snap a couple of photos of each vessel as he passed them.  Both vessels have a lower top speed than ours, so even though they each got a head start on us, we were able to catch up and overtake their vessels.  We'll be looking for them further along.  Who knows we may even be locking through together on the Champlain Canal. 

It was a wild ride coming into Essex Marina.  Earlier on Lake Champlain the water had been smooth as glass, but when we reached the marina, the waters were stirring up due to wind.  At one seriously rocky moment I was caught on the back (French word poupe) deck with a view into the main salon where I was able to watch, but not stop, the dumping of several items from the counter to the floor or into the galley sink.  We have non-skid mats in many places to prevent things shifting, but when the boat tips sufficiently for gravity to take over, things start to fall.  As I watched, my water bottle flew into the sink (thank goodness it chose a nice place to land), and all the literature we have collected during our trip fell to the floor and spread itself around.  I saw nothing go flying that was worth letting go of my handhold for, so I just let it go figuring on cleanup later. 

Apparently, as I later learned, the captain had his own problems.  He was on the phone with the marina when we had the most significant rocking, so he was steering the boat, talking on the phone, and watching / trying to catch the binoculars, charts, etc that decided to fall off the bench seats up top onto the floor.  With my own predicament I didn't think about the fact that things could be falling up top as well as down below.  As far as I know there was no harm done - just a little "excitement" to pass the time.

Essex is a cute little town with, as we found out when browsing in the local thrift shop, 671 residents.  Walking the entire town took no more than an hour walking very slowly with much browsing along the way.  There are 2 restaurants in town and one was closed due to a special event so that left us with one choice which didn't jump out at us.  We found an alternate option in the local market just up the hill from the marina where the owner makes frozen dinners to take out.  We selected the vegetable ziti side dish plus fresh salad greens to go with the tilapia I already had on hand.  I also bought a berry pie made with strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries for dessert.  It was homemade and looked too good to pass up.

We tied up next to the breakwater wall for the night in the Essex Marina.  It is rough wood and the captain said that this was the perfect application for our fender boards which we'll be using down the Champlain Canal, so we set them up to rub up and down the wall all night instead of our fenders.  The wind caused constant rocking so I found it was very hard to stay awake even at 5:00 in the afternoon.  Rock-a-bye baby!  I expect we'll get to bed early for an early start in the morning so we can head to Westport and then continue on to Whitehall, NY for one more good night's rest before hitting the canals / locks again.