Valcour Island, Lake Champlain

August 23 – 24, 2011
When I wrote the synopsis post for Lake Champlain, I told you that I would be writing a special post for two of our favorite places. Valcour Island, NY is certainly one of them and should be on every cruiser's anchorage list.

Valcour Island was the site of a 1776 Revolutionary War Battle for Benedict Arnold and his naval fleet while he was still on our side fighting against the British.

Spoon Bay anchorage

The 1000 acres island belongs to the Department of Environmental Conservation of the State of New York. It is accessible only by boat, which helps minimize use. There are 5 great places to anchor, and that means you can get protection from most wind directions. We dropped the hook in Spoon Bay and had great holding. In the photo above, you can see how calm the waters look. We are on the north side of the island, with winds expected out of the SW.

Paradise Bay

There are 7 miles of hiking trails on the island, through a variety of wooded habitats. We couldn't wait to launch the dinghy and go ashore to explore other parts of the island. There are a few useful signs that give you an idea where to turn off the main path and walk to some of the other bays. We heard The Snaps on the radio and wanted to surprise them by walking across the island to Sloop Cove where they had anchored. On the way, we stopped at, appropriately named, Paradise Bay.

Scenic path

Much of the island's terrain and coastline reminded us of our travels in Maine. There are huge conifer trees; some of the small saplings had been gnawed by beavers. We knew that from the distinctive grinding marks left on the little stumps. The “beaches” were mostly small-sized well-worn rocks, accessed by climbing down between big boulders.

The happy crew

I managed to find a good spot to set the camera to get this group shot with minimal complaining. If I had taken this the following day, we would have been getting misted from the waves hitting the rocks behind us. You would have seen white-capped waves on the Lake and water smashing the little island in the background splashing water high in the air. I know that because I stood in the same spot the following day, holding onto my hat, and getting wet.

Nature's embrace

The shoreline's vegetation shows the effects of challenging weather conditions, making for interesting gnarled shapes of trees, growing out of cracks in the big rocks.

Isabella

Camping is permitted on parts of the island in designated sites by permit only. We sure were surprised to come out of the woods and see a campsite. I first saw a snorting pug tied up to a tree looking back at us. Then I said to Eddie “Look that is a goat walking around!” When we got up right next to the campsite the little goat came up to me. I asked the woman at the camp if I could pick her up. Isabella was only 3 weeks old. Her mother had died, and Isabella had to be bottle fed. Since her owners had planned a camping trip, and didn't have anyone to leave Isabella with, they brought her along and she was doing just fine. She was the cutest little thing I'd seen all summer! Ursa didn't even seem to mind her, but we already have one old goat aboard FLUKE and couldn't even think about having another one.

The lookout

We couldn't dinghy around the whole island because the Lake was way too rough once we got out of the protection of our little cove. Ursa never passes up the chance for a dinghy ride and likes to see where we are going.

By late in the afternoon of the second day, the wind shifted more to the east, causing the water to swirl around the end of the island and hit us broadside. We should have moved over to the west side of the island, but since we knew we had good holding, we didn't. Plus, we thought the wind was going to shift back more to the south anyway. It never shifted, and we had an AWFUL night of getting rolled around. I think I may have only gotten 3 hours sleep since the noise of the anchor line was so loud and it felt like I was going to end up on the floor.

Upon waking on the third day, with the weather forecast poor for the next several days, we knew we had to leave Valcour Island and seek a more secure anchorage. We truly would have liked to stayed longer and hiked more of the trails, but not in the rainy weather. So, that's when we moved on to Shelbourne Bay.