Lake Champlain from the NY side

Bret: Today was an awesome day, we saw Champ from the ferry. You could just see his back. I liked the ferry, I was cold because it was an ominous wind and rain, and it was so cold that I went into the car twice to warm up, and the third time I had to put Reed's jacket on top of mine so I wore two. I was very anxious because I really wanted to see Champ and get a picture.

Randy: Bret wouldn't let me go inside and be warm because he wanted me to watch the whole time.

Reed: I stayed warm inside the van while everybody else froze on the ferry. I saw Champ after dinner, but it was maybe a loon, but it seemed pretty big, much too big to be a loon.

Bryn: We took the 9:15 am ferry from Burlington, VT to Port Kent, NY, arriving at 10:30. We drove south down Hwy 22, watching the lake as we went. Our destination was Port Henry, but it was smaller than we had anticipated.

Champ was first spotted in this bay by Samuel de Champlain in 1609 - 4oo years ago!

We ended up having a picnic on the beach, where a little boy came up to Bret and asked him to play. Our half-hour lunch stop turned into lunch plus a 2 hr swim in the lake. While the boys were swimming, I saw Champ. It kind of looked like a jumping fish, but it was triangular. Since we learned all about lake fish yesterday, I know it wasn't shaped like any of them. Therefore, I think it was Champ's tail as it was submerging.

Bret: At Port Henry, we talked to some locals who have seen Champ, and we had fun swimming with our new friend Matthew. If you think we're talking about you, you're probably not him unless you're short, you have dirty blonde hair, and you're five years old. Matthew gave me a bracchiosaurus but we pretended it was Champ. We had dinner by the lake and we think we saw an eel.

Bryn: We had one more search for Champ at our dinner spot. We're sorry we did not get a definitive picture, but looking for Champ has been a blast! From Port Henry, we drove back up north to a hotel in Plattsburg, NY. There are many campgrounds around, but most of them require a 3 night stay. We're not doing as much camping as we had anticipated. Randy hasn't been able to find anyplace to stay in the Adirondacks, so we'll be having a long drive tomorrow.