Sunday, August 17th - to Shelburne, VT
Up early, as we were both excited about getting home today. After letting Ben wander around the grass for a while we got underway at 7 am.
Just as we were leaving the dock/wall, we noticed a few hot air balloons go up. Then we saw more and more and more... until we realized that today was the day of the Hot Air Balloon Festival of S-J-s-R! Within 15 minutes the skies overhead were filled with over 50 hot air balloons of all different colors and shapes. Most were the typical tear drop shape, but several were figures: faces or whole characters. It was magnificent!
With the wind blowing from the north at 10 mph, we kept pace with the balloons as they were blown south along the river. As the balloons crossed the river, most dove down and seemed to skim the surface of the water before rising back up to clear the trees on the opposite shore. It must be a hot air balloonist's dare-devil trick. One balloon came down just behind us, skimmed the water and then the wind pushed him parallel to the shore for quite a while. He maintained a height of no more than 30-40 feet, and went right over the heads of all the people out watching the airshow from their docks. When he was finally pushed onshore, he didn't get enough height in time to miss the trees, so he crashed through the tops of several trees before he gained altitude to fly clear.
Most
balloons were up for a half to three quarters of an hour, but some
stayed in the sky, and parallel to us for an hour and a half. Great
fun to watch.
We crossed the border back into the US at 9 am, always pleased to see Fort Lennox - our first indicator that we're back on the lake. Fort Lennox is an old decrepit fort on the New York shore just south of the border. It was never completed, having been rendered obsolete before it could be finished.
We pulled into Lighthouse Marina in Rouse's Point, New York, to clear Customs, and what a trial for our patience that was. We called customs at 9:30, as soon as we got to the dock and tied up. The Customs agent is usually at the marina, but sometimes he isn't and has to drive over from another marina, or perhaps from his base of operations. After 45 minutes of waiting, we called again to ask if someone was on the way, and were told that the agent was "very busy", and would get to us as soon as he could. As we continued to wait, more and more boats pulled in to clear customs. Around 11 am we noticed that the customs agent was at the marina next door, where there were NO BOATS waiting to clear. We could see the agent standing there doing nothing. We called again, same answer. As more and more people collected, and we all stared at the customs agent who was still doing nothing, we started having everyone pick up the phone and call, one after the other, so that whomever was on the other end of the line would get the point.
At 11:30, just as a bunch of us decided to mutiny and walk to the marina next door (which is very much against the rules of clearing in), the agent got in his car and drove over to our marina. Upon his arrival he was very apologetic, but said that he wasn't allowed to leave his post at the other marina until cleared to do so from his supervisor, and despite our many calls (which apparently went to his supervisor), he was never cleared. Very frustrating!!!
At noon we were back underway motoring south down the lake into familiar waters. The wind built from behind us to a nice 10-15 knot breeze, but the boat handled it well without rolling like it's sometimes wont to do.
At 3:30 we pulled into Shelburne Shipyard's fuel dock. We spent 30 minutes taking on fuel to fill the diesel tanks and pumping out our waste, then finally, after 65 miles today, 801 miles total and 56 locks, we were back in our own slip. Thanks for reading along!
