“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger” Friedrich Nietzsche

Maybe a bit of an exaggeration. But it didn’t feel like an exaggeration at the time. We cruised out of Chipman Point around 10am and headed north on Lake Champlain to Big Otter Creek.

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Just before entering the Creek we drifted a bit in order to eat lunch and Jim realized the steering was not responding. This had happened to us previously so he had steering fluid available to add and that was resolved pretty quickly. Minor heart attack.

The Creek entrance was narrow and not all that clear from the Lake (no signs, haha). It is probably all of 150′ wide and the center depth was at least 7′ throughout our 7 mile ride inland.

We wanted to stay at the Vergennes Town Dock. Staying at a town dock is often free, or inexpensive. It allows you to be in the center of a fun place, usually walking distance to stores and restaurants. Contrary to what we had read, after traveling a good hour upstream in the heat, there did not appear to be a viable dock. We went a little too far as the Captain was sure there must be something around the bend, closer to the falls, and gave a gentle hello to the bottom of the creek with Irish Eyes’ propellers. We decided to tie up to this wobbly dock with no bumpers of any kind and figure out what was going on.

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What we found was there was no water and no electric hook ups and no restrooms. Katie and Brian were joining us here in a few hours and had rented an apartment in order to work from home for two days before getting on board. There was no question about leaving. At this point I am really stressing (and too hot) and wondering if this was like exercise for my heart or was going to give me a heart attack. About an hour or so later the neighbor came over and offered us to use his hose for water. The Fire Chief stopped in the park with his family and noted an electric outlet (not on the dock) that we could probably tap into. So now we have air conditioning and that, plus the neighborly kindness made everything considerably better.

The view of the falls from our cockpit-rainbow changing colors.

That ’15’ in the foreground is the engine on our dinghy, off the swim platform.

The map below is taken from our Nebo Tracker app which shows where we and other boats who use Nebo are. Particularly useful for Loopers as we can see and contact each other for tips and updated conditions.