RIDING THE FERRY

Mr. W wanted to take some kind of boat ride on Lake Champlain while we were there.  We originally talked about taking the lake cruise boat and do a sunset cruise.  You could order either a pizza dinner for 4 or a cold cuts/cheese/wine dinner for 4 while on the cruise if you wanted.  It ended up that schedules didn't allow for that.  So, we decided to ride the ferry.

The ferry leaves Burlington and travels to Port Kent, New York and returns. We planned to take the ride on Sunday.  I looked up the schedule and Sunday was the last day that the ferry would be running for 2019 season. Good thing we picked Sunday.

We decided to eat lunch down on the dock before the ferry ride. We picked a place that was actually right on the water.  We sat outside because the weather was so good.  There were boat slips all along the dock and there were a couple of REALLY NICE yachts docked there. I had read that these slips were available for rent.

The ferry ride to Port Kent takes 1 hour, there is a 15 minute loading/unloading and then 1 hour back. There is absolutely nothing to do in Port Kent on the dock. So, unless you drive over, you just pretty much stay on the ferry and that's what we did. It made for a relaxing Sunday afternoon.

We rode on the ferry boat Adirondack. One of the things we learned about the boat while on the boat is this was going to be the Adirondack's last voyage ever.

Once I found out this boat was going into retirement, I wanted to learn more about her history. Here's the history of the Adirondack. Built in 1913 as the “South Jacksonville” for the Jacksonville Ferry and Land Company, this 130-foot double-ended ferryboat had a 40-foot beam and was powered by a coal-fired steam engine. She was put into service on the Saint Johns River between downtown Jacksonville and South Jacksonville. A bridge (a ferryboat’s worst enemy) was built there in 1921, and the boat was no longer needed.

She was sold to the Tocony-Palmyra Ferry Company of Philadelphia and put into service on the Delaware River under the new name, “Mount Holly”. In 1927, she went further north, to New York Harbor. Her new owners, the 34th Street Vehicular Ferry Company, kept the name Mount Holly and put her into service on the East River between Long Island City and the foot of East 34th Street in Manhattan.

In 1936, the national economy was in the midst of the Great Depression. The company failed, when the Mount Holly was a quarter of a century old. New bridges and tunnels were eliminating the need for ferryboats up and down the east coast, making her future gloomy indeed. Yet the Mount Holly survived.

On May 5, 1938, the expanding Chesapeake Bay Ferry Company purchased her. Major rebuilding of the superstructure was done at this time, giving her, to a large extent, the appearance that she has today. She was renamed the “Governor Emerson C Harrington II” and ran on Eastern Bay on the Chesapeake, connecting the communities of Clairborne and Romancoke.

The company was taken over by the State of Maryland in the early forties. In 1945, The Governor Emerson C. Harrington II was sent to the Baltimore Marine Repair Shops where her original steam- and coal-fired boilers where removed and replaced with a pair of 6-cylinder Atlas Imperial diesel engines.

The first span of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge opened in the summer of 1952, and the State of Maryland ceased its ferryboat operations. The Governor Emerson C. Harrington II was for sale again. The Lake Champlain Transportation Company, of Burlington Vermont, purchased her in 1954. The ferryboat that was about become the “Adirondack” (named for the mountain range in Upper New York State) entered a shipyard in Troy, New York, where her upper deck was disassembled and lowered to the car deck. This was done so she could be brought up the Champlain Canal with its low bridge clearances (13 feet) to Lake Champlain. The Adirondack’s second deck was restored to its original position in Burlington, where she began the current phase of her extraordinary and colorful career.

The Adirondack has sailed every summer between Burlington and Port Kent since 1954. Her only major modification during this time was the replacement of the Atlas Imperial engines with two 12V71 Detroit Diesel engines in 1970. The Adirondack is the oldest, in service, double-ended American ferryboat of all time! On January 15, 2013, the “Adi” celebrated her 100th birthday. I guess being over 100, it is time for her to retire.