We'd heard that the Missisquoi Delta area was a lovely place with lots of migratory birds and the Paddlers' Trail Guidebook made it sound like one of the wilder parts of the lake. We hoped to see lots of ducks and geese as well as herons.
What I hadn't expected was to find Lake Champlain looking like the tide had gone out. The lake doesn't have daily tides but its level fluctuates between 6 and 9 feet over the course of the year. It is highest in the spring after the snow melts and lowest in the fall as the waters slowly drain out the Richelieu River to the north. This year was one of the driest on record for Vermont, so the lake level in September was near record lows.

When we paddled up around the Delta headed to Highgate Cliffs on the eastern side of Missisquoi Bay we found out just how low the lake was. What looked from a distance like navigable water was only a thin layer of water over mudflats choked with weeds and algae. Frustrated by the heavy clumps of weeds that clung to my paddle blades as I pulled them out of the water, I eventually developed what we called the Missisquoi stroke. Instead of pulling the blade straight up and out of the water at the end of a stroke, I slid the blade towards me before lifting it. It was slow going, but it kept the weeds off the blade.

At some point, even a special stroke didn't make up for lack of water under the boat so Martha and I got out and pulled our boats with the bowlines slung over our shoulders. Jim had swung wide and away from the Delta and managed to keep paddling. Looking down at the slime streaked on my legs, I hoped we could find a place to swim when we got to the cliffs.

The slime didn't end with the Delta. When Martha and I resumed paddling, we stopped to talk with several fisherman sitting in a big power boat. Jim commented on all of the algae and one of them said, "Well, that's what you get when you have 9,000 cottages dumping their gray water directly into the lake."

Warm temperatures, shallow water, and far too many nutrients from the lakeside dairies and farms, as well as all the lakeshore cottages, meant that all of Missisquoi Bay for as far as the eye could see was coated with a half-inch layer of bright green algae.