Benedict Arnold Revisited

We completed the Loop in the Bahamas. 

For many who do it, completing the Great Loop, as we did in the winter of 2020, is the epitome of their boating travels.  In fact, many Loopers sell their boats and go on to other things in life.   We certainly like those other things from visiting with our daughters, son-in-laws and our granddaughter a

Caroline, Noah and I tailgated
at Sugarloaf due to COVID.

nd also helping them repair and improve their respective first homes, all purchased since we retired.

Liz, Matt & Charlotte visited in March.

We also enjoyed time with brother Bob and family before he headed off to his new assignment in Dubai.  It is hard to believe that he is overseeing a USAID funded project in Myanmar given all the turmoil there.

Good family friend Mark Cutler joined us and Bob and family
at the Osprey.  Max is off to graduate from Berkeley and Danny
is now a junior in high school.

Now, I can’t speak for Molly, but for me I want to do continue doing all these other things while also exploring further cruising adventures.  How about doing the Down East Circle (see map) or another trip to the Bahamas; perhaps, a winter in the Sea of Cortez or maybe a trip up the west coast to Alaska?

We just needed a few more pieces of equipment and some boat improvements.  At the top of the list were a truck and boat trailer.  These were both purchased in Spring 2020, allowing me to drive back to Maryland with a friend and retrieve Salty Paws, where we had left her in a covered slip at the end of our Great Loop adventure as COVID overtook the US in March 2020..

There are a few options in doing the Down East Circle. I doubt 
that Molly will agree to go to Newfoundland.

We picked up Tory (short for
Promontory) on 4/23/20.

Other comfort additions included a larger fridge [ice cubes are needed for Old Fashioneds!] and a new 8"memory foam mattress for our v-berth, to name two.  And, of course, the number one new addition was our new dog Tory, a Portuguese Water Dog (PWD) who joined our family a month after we completed the Great Loop.  You, see, that was part of the deal for Molly - she does the Loop with me, and we get a puppy upon our return.

Salty Paws anchored in Moosehead
Lake off Mt. Kineo.

Last year Tory developed into quite a boat dog on our two 5-day cruises, one up the Maine coast to rendezvous with friends Grant and Wendy whom we met earlier in the Bahamas.  These Texans chose to summer on their boat in Maine as Canada, which was their original plan, was closed due to COVID.  Our other cruise was on Moosehead Lake, a 4-hour trailer trip for us, and where we also used our boat as an RV for the first time. 

I had thought we might trailer our boat south to Florida in March this year for our third trip to the Bahamas, but COVID also changed that plan, and time will tell if that happened in a year.  This year’s

The Perkins clan explored 3 cemeteries and located the
 graves of ancestors going back 5 generations.

big boating adventure had us trailering Salty Paws, first to Vermont as

We spent 2 nights on our boat in a field..

an RV for a Perkins family reunion, and then to Whitehall, NY, where we put the boat in the southern end of Lake Champlain.  Our goal was to complete part of the Down East Circle including the Champlain Canal and lower Lake Champlain.

Waterways between NYC and Montreal.  The Champlain
Canal was finished in 1822.

For much of the Great Loop, the history of many of the places visited centered on the Civil War.  On this trip the focus become the Revolutionary War.  We learned that in the 1700s Lake Champlain, Lake George with two portages, and the Hudson River were the trade highway between English Canada (captured from the French in 1758) and America.  Once the colonist began to foster revolt, England soon devised a plan to cut the colonies in half by gaining full control of this trade route and isolating New England and Boston, where the independence movement was centered.

At Saratoga.

Our cruise took us to the Saratoga battlefield, Fort Ticonderoga (originally built by the French) and the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum.  Each visit seemed to center on the career of Benedict Arnold.  His name has always been synonymous with the word traitor, but we learned that his story is more complicated and nuanced than what we were taught in school.

Fort Ticonderoga.

Arnold along with Ethan Allen lead the Americans taking Fort Ticonderoga from the British in 1775. Many of the captured British cannons were then dragged to Boston to greatly increase the military strength of the colonists there.  One of the first of what would prove to be too many slights for Arnold, was he not getting the credit he deserved for capturing the Fort.

Replica of Arnold's ship at the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum.

Arnold oversaw the building of American’s first naval fleet in Whitehall and led 9 American ships into Battle off Valcour Island in northern Lake Champlain.  His genius delayed the British advance south by a full year, gaining the America valuable time to build up its own forces.  One action was building many more ship frames than could be finished, resulting in British spies overstating the American capacity.  Another was his brilliant strategy in picking the spot for the Lake Champlain battle that allowed the undermanned, under armed and soon-to-be-defeated Americans to do enough damage to the British fleet to delay their advance on Fort Ticonderoga until a year later in 1777.

We also found Arnold a prominent figure at Saratoga.  He had been injured in battle there, and General Gates, his commanding officer, had confined him to quarters.  Instead, he returned to the battle and led the Americans to success in what ultimately led to the surrender of General Burgoyne and his British forces.  While the conflict with England would continue through the War of 1812, the defeat of Burgoyne has been viewed as the turning point of the Revolutionary War.

On more than one occasion, however, Arnold felt slighted by not being sufficiently recognized for his successes or by not being promoted at the same time as his peers.  Eventually, and possible influenced by his marriage to an 18-year-old loyalist sympathizer, these slights became too much for Arnold to bear.  We all know of his treason.

Docked in Whitehall with the last lock
 of the Canal in the background.

The Skene Manor overlooks Whitehall.

The Champlain Canal was completed in 1822 and is known as America’s historic canal.  We cruised the 60-miles and 11 locks from Whitehall to Waterford where we were last in July 2019 to enter the Erie Canal. We then returned to Whitehall in the rain, and were stuck behind the last lock for 1 ½ days waiting for the water flow to subside.

Once through the lock we spent a week exploring Lake Champlain and made it as far north as Burlington.  Our favorite stop was going 7 miles up Otter Creek to the historic community of Vergennes where we enjoyed the center of Vermont's first city,

Vergennes, Vermont

the community band in the park, the free dock with water and electricity and their waterfall.

The Canal lock got filled with
Water Chestnut after all the rain.
This invasive species and others
are overtaking many area lakes
& waterways.  We also found some
of the Lake  swimming beaches
closed due to toxic algae blooms.

We viewed the Adirondacks across the Lake from our Burlington Hbr
Marina slip, It was always hazy, perhaps due to the California fires

. 

Our next leg of the Down East Circle trip is planned for summer 2022 when we will finish our exploration of Lake Champlain and journey into Canada. 

We kayaked ashore and went
hiking off Shelbourne Bay.

We hike up to the top of Mount Defiance that overlooks Fort
Ticonderoga, barely visible thru the smoke from the CA fires.
  A year after the Americans took the Fort, Borgonne had his
troops drag two cannons up the mountain to fire on the Fort.
While the cannonballs may not have reached that far, the
threat was enough to get the Americans to evacuate. 

The waterfall in Vergennes was lit up at night.

The Vergennes Community Band was excellent.

Fort Ticonderoga is actually operated by a private foundation.  They employee a number of staff
to play the part of soldiers and various people of 250 years ago.

Throughout our trip all the vegetation was very green from all the rain.

We anchored in the Hudson River near the entrance to Saratoga National Historic Park.  After an
8-mile hike to and through the Park, Tory was ready for a swim before we dinghied back to Salty Paws.

The sign in Waterford, NY designates the beginnings of the Erie Canal and the Champlain Canal.
Our cruise to here connected the dots to our travels of two years ago.

The USS Ticonderoga - see pictured plaque.