Crew arrives and ready to go

One of the exciting things about this trip is that our granddaughter Lily is accompanying us. She just turned 14 and we invited her because she had never been out of the US and was up for some travel. She is an enthusiastic and avid photographer so we hope to have lots of pictures to post.
Lily arrived after a long day, getting up at 2am to make an early flight, being delayed for two hours in Chicago and finally landing in Burlington nearly 12 hours later at 2 pm. We trust that the rest of her visit will be much less stressful.

Lily in North Carolina            photo by R. Kennedy

Finally unwinding on the boat

After a visit to Barnes & Noble, Lily samples some maple yogurt

We have filled the water water tanks with water, and the fuel tanks with diesel (not vice versa as occasionally has been known to happen), updated the electronics and are stocked with provisions. So after months of planning, weeks of poring over charts and hours of cleaning and polishing we are anxious to be on our way.

We have had a request for a map of our travel plans so we have one here from the internet in which the waterways are shown in blue. At the bottom right you will find Lake Champlain, our starting point. Follow us as we make our way up through the Richelieu River, through the Chambly Canal to the St. Lawrence River at Sorel where we will make a sharp left turn toward Montreal and parts west.