PHOTOS... So the weather is never as bad as they predict...and this time they were way off. Rain that was suppose to start late afternoon didn't start until after 10PM... Heavy downpour wasn't...it was a nice gentle rain...gone by 8AM... So we headed north...saying goodbye to our new friend Bill, who is in line to babysit sweet Dakota....that line continues to grow!

As we came through lock 11...only one side of each lock door was working...and we didn't see anything there that we thought would have been a good place to weather wait....

Same issues at lock 12... And through the town of Whitehall...we are convinced we made the right choice to wait at lock 9...

On to Chipman's Marina, where we are docked in front of our Norfolk friends we often hear and travel with but have yet to get face to face time with....Jon and Lynn on ZENDO...across the dock at Norfolk at the Looper Rendezvous ..on the wall at Delaware city ( but they weren't really there) ...left with us to go to Cape May...but stayed at a different marina...traveled with us to Atlantic City...but stayed at a different Marina...pulled into NYC but were gone in a flash....left Waterford the day we arrived...we like to call this "looper Hopscotch....though sometimes it is mostly hop....here we are...finally enjoying docktails. They had a great guide book to the route north so we made a few copies of important pages...like the French to English translation pages!! We had a wonderful visit...once our sweet Dakota finally settled down....they will follow us up Lake Champlain and then plan to take a right turn at the St Lawrence and head to Quebec while we'll go left to Montreal working our way to Lake Michigan..so it was great while it lasted...but it didn't last long. I'm sure our wakes will cross again somewhere some how...that's how this boating stuff works!

We are waiting on the 40' sailboat that docked overnight on the fuel dock to leave so that we can fuel up (at American prices) before heading north..we had hoped to get away by 10 AM...that's not gonna quite happen....another night on the Vermont side of Lake Champlain, then one night on the NY side before we enter Canada. We got stung big time by Version on our last rip through so we will probably error on the side of caution this trip through...most all  of July will be spent in Canadain waters...and yes, we'll probably get to re-experience the Frenchie holiday travelers...what are we thinking???

Stay tuned to see how we fair in French speaking Canada...Hetty Bailey, we need you!