August 7, 2007

August 7, 2007 - We were up early at Carrabelle and checked the weather for our final open water leg from Carrabelle to Crystal River, FL. Everything looked the same as the day before; almost no wind to speak of and one foot or so rolling swells with no wind waves. This is good weather for Shorty to run fast in so off we went. We eased down the river channel toward the Green One Buoy and there we would call up the first of four waypoints we had put in the chartplotter the day before while we were waiting and doing our laundry at the marina. We told the chartplotter to go to the first waypoint and there was the line drawn on the chart to guide us there. It gives you the true bearing to the waypoint which is a buoy out in the Appalachicola Bay. We arrived there in seven minutes running at 18 kts. The it was time for waypoint number two and we repeated the same process and arrived in about 20 minutes. The third waypoint was for a buoy further down the coast and we put it in and when we arrived a US Coast Guard Buoy Tender was actually trying to pick up the buoy and service it so we called them on the vessel and told them the reason we were heading for them is that we were using it as a waypoint. So they held off station and let us round the buoy and turn south on the final leg and waypoint which was 75 miles away across open waters of the Gulf of Mexico and then we had a further 30 miles to go to cross my original wake at Buoy Number One at the entrance to Crystal River Channel. We did all this and crossed my original wake at 2:25 PM on August 7, 2007 and turned up the channel of the Crystal River toward Shorty’s home and Pete’s Pier Marina where we met Mike from Three Rivers Marine and Shorty was loaded on a trailer and taken to the dealership where he will be available for a new owner who wishes to have a superb boat with a good pedigree. The total miles will be refigured but the first estimate is about 5100 miles under the hull from Jan 15, 2007 to August 7, 2007. They promptly cleaned off Shorty’s mustache from the muddier waters encountered on the trip and went on to clean the outside and he looks like new. There are a few things more to do and then he will be ready for a new owner. So anyone I met who is interested please contact Mike Shotwell or anyone at www.threeriversmarine.com.

On the last day we had a beautiful pastel sunrise and just a glorious day on the water watching the dolphins that would occasionally surface just a ways from the boat and swim with us for a few minutes and then later on more would do the same thing. We also think that we may have seen one of the giant sea turtles lying on the surface until we got real close and then he dove. We did not see any sharks. The ride was wonderful and Shorty just loped along doing anywhere from 16 knots going up waves to surfing off of them at 21 knots. It was both wonderful and a very sad and emotional day knowing that this was the last leg of the trip and Shorty and I would be parting company in just a few hours. My eyes would well up with tears and I tried to be tough but it just wasn’t to be and when I passed Buoy One at Crystal River the tears flowed as I thought about all of the wonderful times Shorty and I had on the trip, the people, the marinas and above all the scenery. I thought about the support of my wife from the beginning for the trip and the calls each day to tell her that I was safe and sound and where I was at the moment and to tell her how much I missed her and wished she were there at the moment to see what I had seen that day and what was coming. I thought about the time spent with Bob Keller and on the last 1200 miles with Gary Honold whose wife was kind enough to allow him to go with me. It was an absolutely amazing ten days of travel from Green Turtle Bay in Grand River, KY to Crystal River. I also had super support from everyone at Three Rivers Marine who was the dealer for Cape Cruisers especially mechanical help from Kenny, the friendly voices of Laurie and Adelaide when I would call with a problem and most of all Mike Shotwell who I could count on for anything I needed especially when Shorty was washed up on the sandbar in Florida by a big Sport Fishing boat that went past when I was anchoring.
I know I have probably forgotten many people but I had a beautiful trip and I felt at times that the Shorty Cole who died before we could do the trip together and who I named Shorty for had his hand on my shoulder and I could hear him say, “Go get it, I know you can do it.” I can’t say enough about the boat; it just handled everything I put it through and came out with that lapstrake grin saying now that was fun and see you tomorrow morning as we went to sleep at night at a marina or on anchor.

August 3,4,5,6 2007

August 3, 2007 - The goal for today was to come from Demopolis, AL to Bobby’s Fish Camp and refuel and be ready for tomorrow when he hoped to run from there to Mobile Bay. We made it to Bobby’s place and fueled up and it was only noon so we decided that instead of paying a dock fee there we would go the three miles to the last lock on the trip and after going through it just anchor somewhere downstream where it looked like a good place to do so. Thus we are anchored about 30 miles downstream and traveled 150 miles today with no trouble at all. We are running the fan off the inverter and will use the little generator to run the microwave so we can cook. It is too hot to even think about starting the Coleman Stove. Gary has been in swimming and now is on the sand bar stalking something. The flies are terrible and we will put the screens up when the breeze dies and continue to kill the ones who show up. We are hoping that out here on the water it will be cooler sooner than it has been doing in a marina that is off the channel and in a little bayou somewhere. We have had more commercial barge traffic today and since we anchored here two more have gone by going upstream. This also completed all of the locks on the Great Loop Cruise for me as my destination is now Crystal River, FL.

We have really enjoyed the varied scenery that we have had going down the river. It has had some industrial plants but mostly it has be clays, sand, rock and even again today some bluffs in places that I would not have expected them to be. We see some neat birds every day and today was my first time to ever see a kingfisher at work fishing. Finally we saw a small deer today alongside the waterway. We also have seen lots of summer homes and RV’s but more within reach of the average person instead of these huge mansions’s which I saw many times on this trip. We had expected the waterway when we got this far south to be consisting of swamps and such but so far it has not.

It is about time to fire up the generator so we can cook our stuff fast and then shut it off before it heats everything up.

August 4, 2007 – This morning we woke up on the Tombigbee River at mile 71 on anchor. It was a very peaceful and quiet night with only two tows that we heard go by and they sort of light up the cabin when they sweep the shoreline as they proceed through the night toward their next destination on the river. Since we had gone through our last lock for trip all we had to do was eat breakfast and pull up anchor and start on down the river. We hated to disturb the silence as there was a deer foraging on the shore next to us. The shoreline today contained some really large Cypress trees with lots of the cypress knots that grow in the root system just above the water. There were also some large pine plantations and along with them the paper and pulp plants which produce the Alabama scent of money so you can’t complain about the smell. We passed some more tows on the way to Mobile where we encountered numerous different things we happening on the water such as fleeting of barges and unloading and loading of ships. We reached the head of the bay in the city of Mobile about noon today and it was just about totally smooth with the exception of all the wakes made by all the fishermen out on a Saturday and running around the bay here and there. We followed the buoys down to the mouth of the bay where we made a port turn to get into the Intracoastal Waterway going east toward Florida. We are not very far from the Florida border the way we see it on the chart. Tomorrow morning when we get up we will pass Perdido Pass on our way east. It has been seven days since we started this leg and we believe we have already logged 700 miles toward Crystal River, FL. This is an exciting time again because we are in waters which we have never navigated in before and having two sets of eyes is really helpful. We also are contending with all of the weekend traffic and as an example of that which is very typical of Sea Ray Captains one just stopped in a narrow channel and then proceeded to back up across the channel and then turn around and when we went past him he yelled and shook his fist at us because we evidently did not wait for whatever other maneuver he had in mind to do at the time. The channel we were in was barely two boats wide at the time and we thought he might have gone aground while he was doing it because we heard someone call for Sea Tow right at that time and he was definitely out of the channel which something you don’t do in Florida unless you have local knowledge.

The place we are staying tonight is Zeke’s Landing Marina and they have a whole fleet of fishing boats and a restaurant that will cook the fish you catch while they are fresh from the gulf. They are also having a fishing tournament and so there are bunches of people here and boats as well. We are again the orphan back in the corner but they put us right next to the lower priced restaurant on the dock and the smell of fish has us believing that we just may have to indulge ourselves with something good. We of course think we deserve this because of the wonderful day we had crossing the bay and because it is another hot humid day. I am just watching a huge double-decker fishing charter boat going out to the pass. We are on one side of the road and on the other side is the Gulf of Mexico and the beach. Of course there are Condos everywhere in sight which is blocking the Gulf breeze. We are also in palm tree country again. The seafood smells is overpowering and remember the choices are seafood or Chef Boyardee or Dinty Moore so need I say more about who might win out. Then tomorrow it will be onward and eastward toward Crystal River.

August 5, 2007 – I am sitting here watching a very beautiful sunset fade away in darkness as I write the day’s installment. We traveled from Orange Beach, Al to Apalachicola, Fl which is 30 miles from our next destination which is Carrabelle, FL and then the final leg to Crystal River, FL. Today’s run was 187 miles in total distance. Also as I am sitting here there is a giant alligator that they say is seventeen feet long just cruising through the harbor looking for handouts from the fishermen who are coming in with their boats this evening. He also has a buddy who hangs out with him but who is considerably smaller than he is.

Today’s travel was through large bays, narrow canals and then through some salt marshes this evening on our way here. We had some pretty good chop on the bays and traveled through some terrific downpours of rain which had no lightning in them. The longest bay was thirty miles and some sections of the river channels were about fifteen to twenty miles before the next open water. There was more of the swampy type of terrain today with large cypress trees with all of the knees sticking up on the root system. The bay water averaged probably ten feet deep and the beach sand was white and looked like sugar. This being the weekend we also had to watch the boat drivers and make sure we did not hit anyone of anything that was around us.
The shrimp fleet is up the river from Scipio’s marina and they have been heading out to the gulf ever since we got here in every type of boat imaginable.

August 6, 2007 – This report will be very short because the only move we made today was from Apalachicola to Carrabelle, FL on the Apalachicola Bay which did not give us much to see or do in thirty miles other than watch for markers, shoals and make sure we got into the correct place at Carrabelle. The marina is called The Moorings at Carrabelle and it is a first class marina. We have been sitting here since we arrived and going over the chart for tomorrow and making notes and finished putting in the waypoints we will use on the Gulf portion of the trip which is just more navigation over open water and making sure we arrive where we want to be.

We just finished lunch and are going to do laundry this afternoon so we have that done and once we get to Crystal River and find a way home that will pretty much be it.
This is the first time in a few days that I am going to be able to post. I could not get a good cell tower the signal some days as we were too much in the boondocks or the cell lines were all used up on the weekend and I kept getting a busy signal

August 2, 2007

August 2, 2007 – We checked out of the Columbus Marina this morning about 6:30 AM or so and headed out for the Stennis Lock and Dam right next door. We waited for him to fill the lock and then we headed on through and down the Tombigbee for the next lock as we had three of them to do today. As we were traveling 118 miles today we had to really get up and go. We made all three locks fine and tonight we are in Demopolis, AL. No rain showers and slime today for both us and the boat.

As we went down the river today we saw what was described as blue rock and some chalk cliffs along one side or the other. The cypress trees were still along the river and we began to see Spanish moss on some of the trees. They also have an overabundance of herons as we see many of those. This is another of those things I am going to have to research further and add to this in the future.

This is very short today as we traveled pretty fast so we could cover the miles. From here to Mobile Bay they are pretty long trips each day.

We had this cat at Columbus Marina that seemed to adopt us for some reason as soon as we arrived there and went to the office. Last night it rained during the night and Gary got up to close the windows and then when the rain was over opened them up again. We had seen the cat walking around checking out the boats before we went to bed. Well Gary missed one of the fasteners and who came through the screen but the cat and he had just started to go to sleep when the cat pounced on him. Scared the dickens out of him and he promptly put the cat out and closed the screen. This morning the cat was back in front of the office door as he knows where his bread is buttered

August 1, 2007

August 1, 2007 – Today was a very short travel day. We are spending the night in the Columbus, MS marina. We did this so we could get Shorty’s oil changed which we needed to do to stay in the 100 hour range between oil changes. We went through the Aberdeen Lock and Dam this morning early and then rolled on down the river. The country has gotten a lot swampier and when we come to wide parts in the channel we are seeing more cypress trees and more cypress stumps with second growth which we think looks like little bonsai trees growing. We passed a few commercial operations and docks on the river. We also came around a bend shortly before reaching Columbus and there sat the The Delta Queen paddle wheeler that traverses the rivers of the country in lots of different areas. Very surprised to see her on the Tombigbee Waterway. The gangplank was leading to the shore and at the end of it there was a tent set up and it could have lead from the shore to one of the antebellum homes on the plantations down here. Would like to have heard the old steam calliope as we did when she used to come to Clarksville on the Cumberland River ever so often. It used to echo up and down the river valley and everyone took off work to see her go by. Tomorrow morning we start a long day by going through the John Stennis Lock and Dam and then a couple more and after the long day we hope to be in Demopolis, AL.

July 29,30,31, 2007

July 29, 2007 – Hello from Clifton Marina at Clifton, TN. Left out this morning at about 7:00 AM and we arrived here and are tied up at 5:00 PM which surprised us as we were planning on stopping at Pebble Isle for today but we passed there at noon and decided to go on a little further while everything was working fine. The scenery along the Tennessee River was quite spectacular the further south we went. We would have bluffs on first one side and then the other. The rocks were limestone, sandstone and some shale and the limestone had weathered till it had holes in it everywhere and then trees were sprouting out from the holes and fissures in the stone. It was beautiful in summer and it could only get better if you were coming through the area in the fall. We passed under several bridges today including I-40 running east and west through the state. We also saw a little change in what was growing along the river. Shortly before we went under the interstate bridge we began to see what appeared to be small cypress trees in the river’s shallower and marshier parts. We also passed numerous day beacons which at night are lit showing the rivers trail that had osprey nests in them and all along we searched all the dead trees looking for more eagles nests. There of course were numerous RV Parks and summer homes all along the river. For the farmers reading these we also saw lots of corn growing in the river bottom land on the opposite side of the river from the bluffs. One had and irrigation system set up. We also saw a few towboats pushing lots of barges and thankfully they were all headed downstream except for one and that will probably be the one we have to wait for at the locks tomorrow.

If anyone happens to be going south along the Tennessee River I would also say to you don’t neglect the small marina we are in. It has all the amenities and room for only a few transient boats so be sure to call ahead. It has a small restaurant and a courtesy car if needed to get emergency supplies and also do laundry.

Shorty is now headed south toward Crystal River, FL on the last leg of the Great Loop Cruise and it is still just as exciting as the first few thousand miles.
July 30, 2007 – This morning we got pretty early and were on the river by 8:00 AM headed for Pickwick Dam which was fifty miles up the Tennessee River. We arrived at the dam about eleven and then after querying the lockmaster found out that we would have to wait for a tow which was coming through going down the Tennessee River and that this would take about two hours. It took a wee bit more than the time he estimated and we left the lock about 2PM and were headed five miles up the Tennessee River where we turned south on Yellow Creek which is part of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway going south to mobile. We decided to stop for the night at the Bay Springs Marina which is three tenths of a mile from the first lock on the Tombigbee and hit it first thing in the morning because we have a series of locks which are very close together tomorrow and thought we might have a better chance by getting there early in the morning. The scenery on the way today was once again spectacular with bluffs on one side of the river or the other with so many layers of rock and so many colors, enough so that even a colorblind person like myself could see them they were so bright. They had layer upon layer of limestone and some places they had holes in the walls where there were swallows flitting around about on the water below. We met a couple of tows which passed us going the right way which was opposite of us going downstream. We saw one cave fairly high up on one of the bluffs. We had one disappointment today and that was the Shiloh Military Park which fronts on the Tennessee River. They need to provide a dock so that you can go up the hill and see the park on foot. We had planned to stop at least an hour but with no place to land we had to slowly pass it by and hope to return sometime to see it by car. In the river in front of the park there were numerous boats which had divers and diver flags up which were searching the riverbed for relics from the war. We slowed down and gave them some room. The area is being discovered all along the way by the rich and even in some of the small towns there were condos on the shoreline or on the top of the bluffs. It is a shame that the only thing people can do is spending all their money on personal assets instead of doing some good works to help others. I know quit griping because if I had the money I would do it too, no way, I would just get a bigger boat and do this trip again and see other places that I did not go to this time. A person who has done it four times said he has never stopped the same place twice.

We thought we were really going to suffer in the heat last night but it turned out to be pretty good sleeping. When I woke up in the middle of the night I covered up with the sleeping bag which felt good. And in the day when we are traveling it is nice because we have all the windows open and the screens back and the air and most all the flies or whatever just flow through and out the back door. If they don’t flow through they die an early death by fly swatter. They put us in the shade this evening in a covered slip and said something about rain so I will check the weather when I finish this. I am not aware of any change in the weather until the end of the week.

July 31, 2007 – We left Bay Springs Marina this morning and were just three tenths of a mile from the first lock and dam so we called and were really fortunate that there were no towboats going through the lock or waiting so we had to wait just for them to fill the lock and to lock us down. The locks are now going south so we go in with the lock full and come out at a much lower level and the first one dropped us down 84 feet to the next level of the Tombigbee Waterway. We then proceeded to do pretty good and our timing was on and the locks were just a few miles apart. Then we caught up with a sailboat and then we started having to wait for them to lock down with us. This caused us to have a major slowdown in our day. We still managed to make it through six locks and are now sitting at Aberdeen Marina in Aberdeen, MS tonight. We are just about a mile from where we go through our first lock in the morning which is the Aberdeen Lock.

Our last lock today brought a big surprise. Just before we entered the lock it started to rain. We thought nothing of it because it did not look like there was going to be much from it. We tied off in the lock and then the storm hit. It had formed pretty much close to us and then the bottom dropped out and it poured down rain. The rain came down in sheets and if you can imagine this is happening while you are enclosed in a lock with no escape. Then the wind started to blow and the lockmaster came on the radio and said to hang on because the winds 40 feet above us were forty miles an hour and gusting higher. The rope from the boat to the bollard was strained and as tight as a fiddle string and you could here the cords stressing out. I did not think it would hold but it did and the wind was blowing so hard when the lockmaster released us and the rope was so tight we could not lift it off the bollard we had to just cut it and go on. We will have to do another piece of rope for the bollards for tomorrow. That was not all, the storm was blowing the rain so hard that it was peeling the scaly mud off of the walls and it was landing on the boat and both Gary and myself. We looked a mess when it was over and everything is drying on the back of the boat. We just washed it all off of Shorty and I cleaned most of it up that came in through the window where I hold on to the rope that encircles the bollard.
That was our adventure for the day.

The scenery is again changing and it is growing hotter each day with less of a breeze but it is still a very beautiful shoreline all the way along. We are mostly in a canal but then it widens out in front of each lock. We are seeing more and more cypress trees and swampy areas and less and less bluffs and rocks as we are now going downhill toward the gulf.

We also ran across Steve and his boat Molly Inez today just a few miles before we came into Aberdeen so we are sitting here swapping stories and problems and the heat and a lot of other things. There is one more boat behind which should arrive at any time unless they decide to anchor out for the night. That is the sailboat that was in the lock with us today when the storm hit in the lock.

So much for today and the sun is beginning to set and hopefully it will hurry up and get behind the trees and then a small breeze would be nice. But I have a feeling it is going to be another airconditionerless night with the fans running full force. Somehow it manages to cool down to the low 70’s each night so far and I end up covering up in the sleeping bag.

June 30 to July 28, 2007

June 30 to July 28 – Well for the last month I have been visiting with friends, spending time on Shorty and organizing the charts and all for the last leg of the journey to Crystal River, FL. I have been living under my concrete shade tree long enough and been studying the weather along the leg ahead and made the decision to move closer to the end and if a hurricane does approach I can always go to plan B which is to load Shorty on a trailer and move him inland until the hurricane passes. I was going to wait for September or October before I started south but if I did I may as well store him here at Green Turtle Bay and go home. But that is not easy either because I would miss the boat and all the friends here as well. There are several people here who are going south a little later in the year and some have started now. The sailboat named Molly Inez left the other day headed for Curacao in the Caribbean by way of the Florida Keys, Bahamas and etc. Another is preparing to leave this fall for Corpus Christi, TX and around the other side of the Gulf of Mexico. I have been here long enough that it is time to take the Velcro off the dock and start moving again. Seeing people leave for their destinations makes me want to make my way toward mine. They have been really nice to me here at Green Turtle Bay at Grand Rivers, KY. There have been quite a few people on the Great Loop Cruise who are staying here awhile and then moving further south as far as Mobile, AL to see what the weather does. I have been doing some day trips while I have been here to see places that I have worked at along the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers because the Marina has a courtesy car. I have introduced some of the people to Barkley Lodge which is 30 miles by river and about the same by car. This is a beautiful state owned lodge and park and marina on the Cumberland River. Others have gone up the Cumberland to Nashville, TN and said I was right when I told them it would be a nice trip. The geese that were sporting down now have their feathers and are stretching there wings to fly. The Turtle Lady brings her day school group down to the place where I am moored and lets the children feed the turtles bread they get from the restaurant above me. Every morning when I wake up Herman the Heron is sitting on the dock in front of me fishing for his morning meal in the pastel light of dawn and working with the fish he catches until he gets them turned around and can swallow them head first. Some friends took me and others along to a bay just up the way called Smith Bay on Kentucky Lake which is a refuge and closed during parts of the year for the Bald Eagles who have their nests there in some old dead trees. One in particular can be viewed from the boat and it has two eaglets that are busy making their parents supply them with food. One has already started to get its white head and the other is just brown feathered. I don’t know whether it is true or not but someone said they will be three years old when they start to get the white feathered head, this is something I will research later after the trip is over. It has been as always a very serene and thoughtful time when I have been tied up for a while. In some ways it is much like being in a monastery where you can be alone with your thoughts and being without TV and newspapers for most of the time helps a person not to become so involved in all of the trials and tribulations of this world but see life in a much simpler way. Of course it is hard because of the internet and cell phones and all not to be connected to the world outside but there is much more time to just be alone with your thoughts. I can see why writers will just go off somewhere to write a novel or book where they are not bothered by anyone

June 23 to June 29, 2007

June 23, 2007 to June 29, 2007 – I have finally got most of the nooks and cranny’s cleaned and the boat is somewhat presentable at this point. I have been whiling away the days doing mostly nothing at which I am very good at since retiring. I go to the reading room and sit and read all the boating magazines just in case I do this trip again I will have a lot of additional research done. Some of the time I play a game called FreeCell against the computer and most of the time it wins unless I get serious. But I have also gotten the charts for the last part of the trip and have been studying them to get ready for it. I have been meeting the people here at the dock and they are a varied lot from retirees to people who just come here for the weekend. They have new boats, old boats, restored boats and they are sail boats, houseboats, trawlers and what have you. Every one of them is just as proud of their boat as I am of Shorty. I still cannot believe the distance traveled in a month’s time aboard the boat. I checked again and got almost 2700 miles in a month. I am still cataloging in my mind all of the things I saw in that period and looking at the photos to make sure I have not forgotten something.

Since I have been here it has been really hot and humid and when it rains I just crawl up in the forward cabin and listen to the rain on the bimini top since Shorty is parked in his garage under the restaurant here called Dockers and he is short enough to be in the shade amongst the dinghy’s for other bigger boats as they come to eat. Occasionally he is joined by the Boat US towboat and the Bippy Pumper which goes from boat to boat when your waste tank is full and pumps it off.

God has been providing outstanding entertainment almost every afternoon or evening when the showers have been coming in the form of thunderstorms. As I lie in the cabin it is like someone who is in charge of the drummers of the heavens has need to practice every day and reward us with the sizzle of the lightning and then the drums rolls throughout the Ohio, Tennessee and Cumberland foothills and along the lakes as the peals of thunder roll and echo back and forth off the hills going up the rivers. It seems as though the storms were saved until we are safely ensconced for a while. As the storm moves off into the distance you can hear others receiving the same show. Then the birds come back along with a cool breeze for a while until it heats back up and maybe another show is in the offing. In the cool periods after the rain it is nice to take a walk while everything smells so fresh and the leaves are gently stirring with the slight breeze. And after while reality hits again and it is hot and humid. But all of this is good for the farmers in the area as there crops were suffering in the heat when we arrived here. There is something for everyone.

A couple of slips over at four thirty in the afternoon the turtles begin to accumulate awaiting the arrival of the turtle lady who brings the daycare class down to visit the turtles. She brings bread with her and while the kids feed the turtles she shows them all of the ones she has names for and then explains all of the different kinds that show up for turtle class every day. She has sliders, boxes, mud, snapping and a whole lot of other kinds of turtles and identifies them by there shells. There is one called Nick who was struck by a boat propeller and who seems to be doing okay. I cannot remember all of the named ones but I also go feed them bread and the people above in the restaurant go outside and give them leftover bread and biscuits not eaten so there are about 50-100 turtles in the area next to my boat on a regular basis every day.

June 21, 22 2007

June 21, 22, 2007 – I have decided to rest up a bit before the last leg of the trip from Barkley Lake to Crystal River, Florida. With all of the exceptional weather we had from the time we left Norfolk, VA on the 18th of May until now we have traveled up the east coast of the USA and crossed Lake Ontario into Canada went up the Trent Severn Canal System across Georgian Bay on the Small Boat Trail into the North Channel to Drummond Island, through customs and into the Straits of Mackinac down to the Manitou Passage, down Lake Michigan’s east side to South Haven, MI across Lake Michigan to Chicago, down the Illinois Waterway into the Mississippi, down to the mouth of the Ohio River, up to the mouth of the Cumberland River, through Barkley Lock into Barkley Lake to Green Turtle Bay Marina in a day or so over a month. That is why there is a need for a period of rest and reflection. We had a bug attack when we arrived here so I am cleaning up the boat and doing other odd jobs, catching up on correspondence, working on the photographs taken along the way of which more have been posted.

This morning is humid and overcast and calls for rain seem likely. I got up with the birds this morning and took a long walk in the woods along the road leading into here. This was my first long walk to smell the roses so to speak in a month and I was sure out of shape going up and down the hills of Kentucky.

Bob is on his way home to North Carolina and more doctors appointments thanks to my friend Gerald who picked him up yesterday and drove him to Clarksville where he could catch a bus home. So this morning when I woke up it seemed strange not to have someone on the boat with me.

I will probably be writing some more occasionally as time wiles itself away and I have more time to reflect on the past month. It has been an exciting month to say the least. I hope to be able to spend time visiting with some friends as well up here in Kentucky and Tennessee.

June 20, 2007

June 20, 2007 – Yesterday was a long day as the weather was good and we left at six fifteen in the morning for a goal of Barkley Lake and the preferred marina which was just a mile or less from the dam. We knew it would be a busy day as three locks were involved; two on the Ohio and the one at Barkley Dam. The first one on the Ohio that we came to was open as all the wickets which hold back the water were down. This happens when water levels are low and the difference between upper and lower sections of the river is practically nil. The second one on the Ohio was much different we had a two and a half hour wait to be locked up in the auxiliary chamber because of the number of tows which were waiting in line and commercial has priority over pleasure in the lock systems on the rivers. The weather was again fantastic and when the day ended at ten o’clock in the evening we were extremely tired and ready for the sack. The first part of the day was on the Mississippi with its magnificent bluffs and the way they show up when least expected. The river was very wide as we went further and further downstream from Hoppies Fuel dock where had stayed the night and filled our tanks with fuel for the long day ahead. There is only one place like Hoppies and it is a must stop on the trip. The advice received there only served to make the trip more enjoyable. We were going to be going through two sections of the river where the US Army Corps of Engineers had been doing some work to help control the river flow but it did not work and created to sections where there were now some pretty extreme whirlpools of water which if you do not have enough speed can suck you in and then spin you around and it does this with not only boats but also can break up tows and there barges. People have seen telephone poles spinning around as well as dead animals and such. Not a very pretty picture but with Shorty we had the power to go right through them with no consequences and I did even realize I was past until Bob said we had passed the first one. After finishing the Mississippi we approached the mouth of the Ohio River at Towhead Point where we made the turn to go upriver to the Cumberland Rivers mouth. The Ohio River was very broad and had some narrow channels due to shoaling with low water levels. The channel was not very clear and at one point I came close to putting Shorty on a sand shoal but Bob spotted it first and I had to slow up and feel my way out of it using the depth finder readings and looking at the different shades of water. That is why it is difficult for one person to do the trip. There are too many things to be on top of at one time including lots of debris in both the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Up a short ways and we came to the mouth of the Cumberland River which was very different as it was much narrower and deeper than the other two and had hardly any debris floating in it. The Cumberland River is a very pretty river with wooded steep sides lots of trees and other foliage growing along the shore. The other rivers were full of buoys to guide you whereas the Cumberland is more of stick to the middle of the deep channel. We ran across what we believed to be a lead mining operation right at sunset on the river and we wondered how much of the lead was leaching into the river from that operation. We finally entered the lock at Barkley Dam at twilight and when we came out on the lake it was dark and using the chartplotter we felt our way for a mile to the entrance to Green Turtle Bay where we tied up late without registering until morning. We took some photos but I am afraid they won’t do justice to the beautiful bluffs along the Mississippi and the flat agricultural land along the Ohio and also the many beautiful wooded islands and the large sand beaches all along the way. One of the sand beaches looked to be better than a mile long and totally deserted and the countryside along the rivers was very scarcely populated all day with the exception of the little towns and all the houses were built on either high stilts or a good way up the hillside to defeat all of the flooding which occurs every year along those rivers.

The boat last night was a total mess as we had a bug attack after we left the lock at Barkley dam and got to the marina. The inside of the boat and outside was chock full of mayflies which had just hatched and I sprayed them with bug spray and now will have to mop the floor with a scrubber and wish I had a vacuum to get them out of everywhere else. The cockpit of the boat was full of them despite the screens because to dock we had to put up a section of the screen and in they came.

June 19, 2007

June 19, 2007 – After we had the thunderstorm yesterday it was still overcast when we left Grafton, Illinois. We had to locks to go through at St. Louis and then it would be open water on the Mississippi. We had heard that one of the locks was having problems on our VHF radio and that tows were backed up waiting to get through the locks. There were three pleasure boats that showed up for the first lock down and they used the auxiliary lock to put us through and on our way. Now for the lock with the problem. We arrived at the lock only to find a big tow coming out and one waiting to go in. Tows have priority over pleasure boats so they told us we might have as much as a four hour wait for a lock ride down. Low and behold they called back in a few minutes and said there was a Coast Guard boat coming up in the lock and they would take us pleasure boats down if we could hurry up and get there. We hit the throttle and the lock gate was a green light and in we went and down. When we got let out at the bottom I imagine all of those tow boats waiting had locked jaws and it was all due to the little Coast Guard zodiac that we get let down before they got the ride up. We did not stay to socialize with them because technically they had the right of way and it was just a kind lockmaster who did not want us circling in front of his lock for four hours that he put us through. After that it was down the river to top off our fuel tanks for tomorrows run which could put us a long way down the river by tomorrow night. The river current is the fastest we have seen yet and very treacherous if you fell in because it is running at about five miles an hour at least. The towboats leave very large wakes and you run for about a mile behind them to get through to clean water. The big towboats are powered by three large engines and look like they are more than 150 feet in length and are at least three decks high or more and pushing 24 or more barges on the average. The river looks somewhat low for this time of the year and that makes meeting them a little more difficult because they take up so much of the channel. The towboats going upbound are really working hard and those going down have it easy except it is harder to control the empty barges in all of this current.

Going through St. Louis this morning we saw the Arch, the Budweiser brewery and downtown from the river and that sure was a different way to see it. The Arch was shimmering in the morning sunlight and looked not a day older than when we visited St. Louis earlier. There were some beautiful homes on the bluffs and also what looked to be a monastery on one bluff. As I write this there is a towboat with three tanker barges which are carrying different types of liquid materials and have what looks like air conditioning units on the barges. It is very warm out today and the northerly breeze is nice but it certainly is not cool by any means.

June 18, 2007

Today was another milestone completed. We finished the Illinois Waterway part of the trip which was approximately 333 miles. We just keep lucking out with the weather. We got some really heavy rain showers during the day but with no thunder and lightning so Shorty got a little bit of a bath. We are tied up tonight at the Grafton Marina which is at mile zero on the Illinois Waterway. In Quimby’s this marina is given 5 anchors which means it is very nice with everything close by. We needed a few groceries as we were running really low and they just gave us the keys to a car and said about seven blocks up was the grocery store. We got everything done, signed in, groceries and here comes the thunderstorm which had been following us late this afternoon and we were nice and safe in our slip. The river was so interesting, the tows and barges kept getting larger and so did the elevators and all along the way the Electric plants which use barged in coal just kept getting larger the from Chicago till now. We will be running on the Mississippi River tomorrow and have two locks to negotiate before we reach St. Louis so it will be a busy day. The next place for fuel since we fueled up tonight will be a place called Hoppy’s on the Mississippi and I think it is better than two hundred miles or close to it before we get there so it will be conservation time for fuel as it was today on our trip. Since we had the current with us we eased up a little on the rpms for the same speed. The scenery was really nice today with occasional bluffs along the way and lots of sandy beaches as we had for the length of the river. Lots of birds and we can’t verify it for sure but we saw what looked to be an eagle fishing in front of us a ways today. He swooped down very fast scooped something out of the water and flew off to one side so all we got was a good rear view of the bird. It had a huge wingspread though. The grain elevators were loading barges today and the coal barges were being unloaded at the electric plants along the way. Of course being a Monday there were very few other boats and the tows and us had our way. We came up to the lock today that was our final one and called the lockmaster on the radio and he said come on in the gates open so what can be a long job took only ten minutes to complete today. It has been so interesting to do the locks because if you look closely each one is a little different and the personnel at the locks are the same. Some of them hurry and others take it like it’s a serious government job and no hurry should be involved. Today’s lockmaster was really fast and he still stopped and said hello while others seem to hide out somewhere and communicate by loudspeaker. Most have been very helpful especially in Canada where they seemed to have the answers to everything, good marinas, and locks close or in the center of town, grocery stores, etc. Here it seems to be get it going and you find it. I know it seems as though we have been going really fast but we run faster on large bodies of water than other boats and we have had absolutely the best weather you could ever dream of having and instead of fiddling until the weather got bad we have been taking advantage of it and going more miles per day because we still have lots of time to sit out weather later on.

June 16, 17, 2007

June 16, 2007 – We left Big Basin Marina at about 9:30 after catching up on things and I did my laundry there as well. Then it was off down the Illinois River where there is lots of industrial activity on the waterway and you can see agriculture on the sides of the waterway with cattle standing in the water because it is hot. We pretty much have seen everything that Illinois is famous for and all the brand names that you can think of represented along the way. The tows and towboats are getting larger now as the bridges are closed and removed or they are tall enough for them to clear. We now have to be sure we fill our fuel tanks when we see a place because they are getting scarcer all the time. Also marinas are getting scarcer as well. The path they laid with buoys is easy to follow if you are paying attention. We cleared the Dresden Lock, the Marseilles Lock, the Starved Rock area lock and then we started looking for a place to anchor out because there is no marina where we ended up for the day. The scenery is typical for the area of Illinois we are in Elevators, Chemical tanks, Gas and Oil Company tanks, Processing plants of all kinds. There seemed also to be a lot of lakes attached to the river and sloughs and marshes for ducks and geese. We saw a lot of duck blinds and passed a lot of conservation areas.
June 17, 2007 – We left our anchorage fairly early as we had a long way to travel. We had to go through one lock today and that took two and a half hours out of our day. We are staying the night tonight in Havana, Illinois having passed through Peoria and other towns and cities along the way. The river today was very wide and resembled some of the sounds of the Carolina's. We saw a flock of snow geese today on one of the marshy areas of the river. The winds today were coming straight up the river and the water was rougher than when we crossed Lake Michigan. There were pretty much the same things along the river today as yesterday as far as plants and agriculture. Just before we came in today the channel started to narrow somewhat and looks like that may be happen more often tomorrow. We have one more Illinois River lock called the La Grange lock and lets hope there are not so many commercial tows going through as today. The tows we met today we upbound with the exception of one we passed going down and he should clear the lock by the time we get there tomorrow. Our marina tonight is Tall Timbers in Havana, Illinois which seems really neat. We both need showers because of the heat and humidity. Tomorrow the forecast contains thunderstorms so we will have to be careful. We have about 120 miles to cover tomorrow so I will let you know how we do.

June 15, 2007

June 15, 2007 - People who have done this cruise in a small boat like we have been doing on Shorty will know what I am talking about. The last few days of experiences we have had on the Great Loop Cruise will be some of the most memorable. As you know I am doing this on a 26 foot boat. If you have read stories in the past about Georgian Bay, The North Channel of Lake Huron, Straits of Mackinac and the Manitou Passage you know that they can be some of the most treacherous of waters and to tackle them in this size boat you expect that it will be a rough ride to say the least. As you know, if you have been reading the blog that we have some of the most phenomenal weather to tackle these bodies of water. Well this morning after listening to the weather on the NOAA weather channel we knew that our perfect weather window was closing out possibly by later this afternoon or evening. We got up at six AM and were under way by six thirty. We came out of the breakwater at South Haven, Michigan and once again there was our perfect weather. With this in mind and the waypoint set for Chicago Navy Pier we left on our journey not knowing for sure if we would make it before the winds might hit and hoping that if they did they would be on our backside. The distance from South Haven to Chicago, Illinois is about seventy to seventy-five miles as the crow flies. Off we went and I want to tell you that if you have never seen the horizon disappear behind you on a trip of this nature and then trust your compass heading to get you where you are going then you have not lived. After one hour this morning South Haven’s shoreline started to disappear and then we were alone in the middle of Lake Michigan for the next hour and a half in the boat and with one hour to go on the lake we could faintly make out the city of Chicago which appeared in the deep haze and fog of this super cold lake. Then as time passed slowly we began to see the shoreline clearer and clearer but out cameras could not focus through the haze and we had to wait until we got almost there. But to see the sun shining on the glass and steel buildings above the haze and fog was one of the most spectacular things amongst the many events such as that on this trip. I will never forget that sight as long as I live. And true to its name the closer we got to Navy Pier the more the wind picked up on the lake as if to greet us in its true fashion and also why it is known as the windy city. Then we were at the Chicago river lock in downtown Chicago and waited a bit for the gate to open and drop us one foot down to the Chicago River. Then going through the downtown area of skyscrapers on the water was another super experience for the day. We saw the buildings and the bridges you read about in the news, State Street, Wabash Avenue and others and the old towers which raise all those bridges for taller boats to go under but for Shorty it was a piece of cake. He fits under everything with ten feet of clearance or better. Then the next part of the trip took us through the Illinois Waterway and the industrial area of the city and it was neat seeing all of the companies named and that have docks on the waterway and are household names, refineries, chemical companies, grain, sand and many others. Then you go through a section where the canal is made up of old limestone blocks and is actually at housetop height and you can look over the top and then understand why flooding does so much damage to the homes and businesses below you. We dropped about 50 feet down today going through three locks on the river and are going to be going through a fourth early tomorrow morning at Dresden, Illinois. There are commercial tows everywhere along the river with barges, tugs and other water related stuff. The towboats here are the largest we have seen and look to be seventy feet or better in length but very impressive in how they manage the power that they possess to move things and how very quietly they approach and go around you when you meet them. The buoy system is a little bit different now that we are going downstream again. The locks are huge and we feel like a pea in them in comparison to their size. Tonight we are tied up in Big Basin Marina tucked in off of the waterway and also where we could top off our fuel tanks for tomorrow’s run. Places to buy fuel are now much scarcer than they were most of the trip and we are going to have to be careful to conserve so we can meet the longer distances of the trip. Tomorrow will be another adventure as we go around new curves and river bends and see more new water and things we have not seen before.

June 14, 2007

We woke up again this morning to the most unbelievable weather for Lake Michigan. It was almost calm so once again we ate breakfast early and took off South toward Chicago. We are in South Haven, MI for the night. That is another 161 mile day and we were here by two o’clock in the afternoon. They are now saying that at most we have one more day of this weather left so we plan to do the same thing again in the morning. Tomorrow will be a short day in that we plan to get within 30-40 miles of Chicago without staying in the downtown marinas that are so costly. Bob and I have both been to Chicago and seen the tourist things there so we will be happy to get off the lake before the weather gets bad. We are tied up to one of those Florida type docks where you are down in a hole and have to look up at the dock. I don’t know when these people will learn that floating docks are the best to have. Today as we came down the east side of Lake Michigan we were close enough into the shore to see the waves breaking gently on the shore below the sand dunes. The area is getting to be more populated now that we are reaching the southern end and getting close to population centers. Some of the homes on the shore have gigantic stairways leading to the shore so they don’t disturb the sand and vegetation on shore. Although I don’t see any other way they could get up and down the dunes. People have a tendency to look like ants when you see them onshore and you are running along about a half mile away but close enough to see the little waves breaking on the shoreline. We saw very little activity because of the heavy haze over the water. We saw a couple of ore boats way off in the haze. But I am not the least bit upset that the water was almost calm with the exception of boat wakes and little wind ripples at times. It could have been its usual self with two to three foot waves or a short chop which would have slowed us down a lot.

June 2 to June 13, 2007

June 2, 2007 - I sincerely hope we have not used up our lucky days. This morning in Oswego we got up about six in the morning woken up by all the fishermen headed for Lake Ontario. They were kind of a loud and raucous bunch as fishermen in a group usually are. But we went ahead and rose for the occasion which was to be an early morning trip across Lake Ontario which was about sixty miles we figured as the crow flies. We looked across at the flags on the marina and they were totally still. So it was get ready and go and we will eat breakfast on the way. We had planned on having milk and cereal anyway for this morning. We heated up our tea in the microwave, unplugged from shore power and loaded with the gas in the tanks from yesterday off we went. Well I have seen hazy conditions before but these were almost like fog. We set the power of the engine on about 3500 or a little more in rpms and started the trip. We could see an occasional fishing boat from time to time as we crossed. The haze out in the middle of the lake had become a fog in which we probably could see only two boats lengths around. We had tried to set up the radar before we left but it would not turn on for some reason so for parts of the trip we were running pretty blind with only the GPS to tell us what was going on as far as a course across was concerned. We had put in three waypoints the night before because we had to pass close to an island which was surrounded by lots of rocks and if we could read it right on the chart some kind of lighthouse was on it. We hit our first waypoint on the nose and then I screwed up setting the course for the second one and had to reset it. It came on and we lined up on it and by this time the weather had eased just a bit and we could see somewhat better. We were getting close to the rocks and the second waypoint when in the sunlight the thing we thought might be a lighthouse came upon us with its brilliant white paint shining in the sun above the fog layer. What a beautiful sight to see and it was surrounded by rocks and scads of birds but the lighthouse itself was just almost decayed to nothing but yet painted this wonderful white color. Now it was on to the next waypoint and again the haze and fog thickened around us only this time we were now running close to shore but could barely see an outline of it. And again when we reached the waypoint there was another big and beautiful white lighthouse. We felt very fortunate at that point that we had succeeded and our navigation had worked. All of a sudden as we got closer to land the sun came out and it became a glorious sunny day. We continued to follow the markers through the bay to get to a canal cut that ran on to Trenton, Ontario and that is where the Trent-Severn Waterway begins in Canada. But before that; in the cut we had been told that there would be two road bridges which were very low and Shorty would not fit under had to be opened by a bridgemaster. We came to the first one and I noticed it said on my chart that it was a customs checkin point as well. We pulled over and tied up and I went up the bridge house and asked if we could check through customs there and he said sure; he would call them for me. I went to get the necessary things he said I needed from the ships papers and then went back. He made the call to border services and I gave the man the information and he gave me a number to use anytime anything went wrong in Canada and he would help us. Did not even need a passport to get in and Shorty did not need a decal. We proceeded through that bridge and the next and then we were in the bay which led to Trenton and we arrived there at about noon. Then we proceeded onward to the first lock where after being locked through we went into the offices there and purchased our transit pass for one way through the canal system and also a pass to tie up at any lock after we passed it for free by tying to the wall outside it where the have restrooms, picnic tables, benches, etc. We can also fill up with water which we did this evening. After the first lock it was just like the Erie Canal in that they have in very quick succession a series of six lock they like for you to complete all at once and which are probably less than a mile apart. We completed this set with two other boats and since Shorty was small we were told to tie off on the bigger boat instead of the lock wall. Boy did this make life easy for us and a little bit harder for them and we were the lead boat out and second one in for all of this series of locks and while this is all happening everyone is chatting with each other. It is somewhat like my mom used to call a hen party. We did this until three o’clock when we dropped out because we were tired and had a long day at that point. Then we tied up the boat and went up to visit with the lockmasters that had traveled all over in the USA including Florida and Texas and elsewhere. Today was also a very hot day for up here and they said it was too early to have one of these. There is a tropical depression on the US coast which is stalling a cold front for up and here and making the winds southerly and pulling our hot humid weather this far north. All that is supposed to change with a possibly rainy day tomorrow and onward with cooler weather but I hope not cold weather. One of the other boats said they watched us go across Lake Ontario but did not realize it was us until they were headed the same direction as we were. We were going much faster than them and then they saw Shorty’s big outboard and understood why we were doing 20 mph and they could go 15 mph max. So we sort of lead the way but if you looked at our track on radar we were probably doing a lot of ess curves all the way over as Shorty seems to torque first one way five degrees and then the other when going that fast in about 1 foot swells left over from other boats wakes and even waves from windier days prior. Also I seem to have an attention deficit because I have a tendency to look all around and when I come back I have lost my heading by a few degrees. Bob says I turn the wheel the direction I am looking unconsciously. But after a hazy, foggy start the sunset here is just a pale pastel of colors and once again the water is like a looking glass and we have just had one fantastic day crossing a large body of water that is one that is generally windy and nasty. We have many more to go and I am sure our luck will not hold forever but when it does it is a beautiful thing to behold. This is a very scenic part of Canada and the trees we noticed are much smaller in size with more pines and cedars and hardwoods and also cattails in the marshy areas. The locks we are going through are hand operated by the lockmaster and his crew and most of the locks are gravity filled and emptied. We have changed our flags to the Canadian flag on top, USA next, and below that our great loop flag as a courtesy to the host country but not forgetting our heritage, merely honoring theirs as well.

We still had to empty our sponges which filled again today with water from somewhere but that is a small price to pay for what we are experiencing and it could be worse. Our patch is working now.

P.S. Those mosquitoes you hear about that appear in clouds are here to welcome you to Canada in the evenings but outside of being more of them they are babies next to Texas mosquitoes.

June 3, 2007 - We spent the night in Campbellford, Ontario on the canal wall but with power at their visitor’s center. They had very nice facilities and very clean ones. The day getting to Campbellford was one of looking at very scenic areas all along the way. We saw hilly countryside and some of it was being farmed. The farms looked like dairy farms and on some we saw the cattle languishing in the lush spring green pastures. But also there were a lot of marshy areas along the canal and river basins feeding it. These are marshes of cattails and not of salt grasses. There are a lot of small islands in the river channels. And of course being a short distance from Toronto by auto there are lots and lots of summer cottages and some huge homes. Yesterday was a very hot day for Canada and if the front comes through it will be rainy and breezy tomorrow. There are also a number of small villages and they are usually at the locks we go through because there are usually roads leading to them. We checked out the local real estate values and they are the same as they are in the States anywhere from 150-500 thousand and more. There property taxes also run more but that is to be expected with the Canadian system of government which provides lots of services. Sometimes we will see small marinas and occasionally there will be some small boats like we are in them and other times there are just fishing boats because the whole area looks like it would be a fishing haven. We also have seen lots of fish jumping in the shallows and some quite near the boat but have not been able to identify them as to kind. People are really surprised at how hot it is here at this time of year. We have seen a few brave souls in swimming. The boat traffic on the canal has been really slow and they say it has been steadily decreasing since the price of fuel has gone up so high.

On yesterday’s run of locks we reached an area that had kind of a gorge through it and you could view the gorge from a suspension bridge over it. You also go a good look at the power plant at this location and it was cut through granite and then the stone was used to build the building and walls of granite were really neat looking.


June 4, 2007 - We finally got the rain that has been promised. It rained during the night and is still raining this morning in Campbellford. We have a short series of locks that are bunched closely together and which raise us rapidly up another fifty feet or so and then we leveled out for a long way. One of the locks was even a double lock which means you go into the first one and it raises you ten or fifteen feet and then into a second one ahead of that and it raises you another ten or fifteen feet at one time. These are usually powered locks but all the rest of the locks in the Canadian system are hand powered by two people turning a lever that looks like a big wrench and hand crank the gates open. All the locks fill and empty using gravity and no power. Some places adjacent to the lock will also be a small one or two turbine power plant to use water power from the river to produce electricity. It has now stopped raining this afternoon but it is still overcast and they said it would be the same tomorrow and then it will clear up for a few days. The breeze coming off of the river is pretty cool and I am sitting here writing this with my sweatshirt on and feeling comfortable whereas yesterday it was hot and humid and you sweat with any movement. The town of Hastings where we arrived at around noontime has grocery store, pharmacy and anything else we might need just around the corner from the locks. The lock building here does not have showers but the bathrooms are clean as a whistle and it is about a hundred yards from the boat to go use them so you again must plan ahead or use the head on the boat. It is just a very quiet serene place to sit and write and after while we will fire up the little generator and sit back with all of the comforts of home.

June 5, 2007 - This morning started off as another gray day. We had breakfast and then as soon as everything was shipshape and ready to cast off here comes the rain. As the day went on the rain got harder and then stopped for a bit when we got to the city of Peterborough where there is a visitor center describing the hydraulic lock that we were going to be going through a little later on that is located in Peterborough. When we got back to the boat and ready to go up to the lock it started raining again and we had a very cold wind to go with it. The Peterborough lock is a hydraulic lock which if you can visualize two giant pans of water one on each side of a large tower. The pans are filled with water and one is then filled with slightly more than the other and when that happens it pushes its piston down and the other pan filled with boats rises 19 meters to the top and the gates are opened and the boats are on the way. Then they refill the upper one with boats and down it goes to lift the one on the bottom filled with boats. If there is a boat going up on one side and not the other they just balance it out with water and carry out the operation that way. We went from Lock 18 where we overnighted to Lock 24 and called it quits for the day. Our hands were cold and Bob’s were beginning to turn blue. We have the generator sitting on the dockside and our heater plugged in and running. There is a chance that we will have some frost tonight the lockmaster said. We are going to do our cooking and then shut the generator off and light our Coleman stove if we need some heat so we can conserve our generator for making microwave stuff in the morning. The wind was really blowing today in addition to the rain and made the locks hard to negotiate. About half way through we caught up with a group of rental houseboats with inboard motors going about 5-6 miles per hour between locks so we got locked through with them all day and when we stopped they continued onward because they wanted to get to some particular lake before they had to turn around and repeat the locks backward to where they rented the houseboats. They really got blown around in the wind and current. They tell us at the locks that from here on the scenic landscapes only get more so and we saw some very nice houses, cottages and more farms today along the way. We also hear that there will be more wildlife appearing as we go further. I did notice today that it was getting a bit rockier and also that the trees we see are slightly smaller as we go further north. In the winter they use the canal for skating because at the visitor’s center in Peterborough they had a great big room set aside for skate changing. Our tie up area just above the lock is very quiet and peaceful and I know don’t complain, just a couple of days ago we were sweating in the locks. The water is actually warmer than the air so it is steaming some now and certainly will be in the morning.

June 6, 2007 – We spent the night last night tied up at the lock wall in Duoro and it was really cold when we woke up and the boat was sweating inside with condensation. I woke up during the night and when I turned the condensation hit my head and rolled down on the pillow making it nice and wet. But we managed and with daylight came the realization that it might be just a gray day with no rain, better but not perfect. As the day went on things got better, the clouds continued to break up and now this evening at Burleigh Falls it is a gorgeous, not warm but cool evening which could lead to another gorgeous sunset. We are again tied off at the lock wall with use of the restroom facilities at the lockmaster office building. This is free because we bought the wall pass when we started the system at the first lock. We walked around the corner to see the falls and rapids which were very neat; all carved out of the granite and water clear enough to see the bottom of the stream. Our wake as we slice through the water is a beautiful white now and the water has only a slight colorization from the trees at the edge of the water. The scenery today from where we started is like the difference of night and day. We are now following a channel dotted with granite islands covered with trees and some of them have really beautiful summer homes on them with only access by water or in the winter by ice. Most I believe are just summer homes as they don’t appear to be open yet and they range from hunting and fishing cabins to mansions but they are usually set back so far in the woods that you can hardly see them and the only hint is a dock or a slight opening in the trees. Where we started today there were farms and agricultural land on the flatter side and marshes on the other but not any more. People tell us here at the lock that it only gets more spectacular as we go on. Today at one of the locks we met some people on vacation up here in Canada on a houseboat and they leave for Crystal River, Florida on Friday. They have a boat and it is taken care of by Three Rivers Marine there as was Shorty when I bought him and where Shorty will be returning to when the trip is finished, maybe. You never know who you will meet and where they will be from. The trawler in front of us tonight is going to their home port in Montreal, Quebec via the Rideau Canal system and they have a home on the St. Lawrence River there which sounds spectacular as it is on a hillside overlooking the St. Lawrence Seaway and the other side as well. The people are so nice and some are funny. A fellow saw me carrying my gallon can today to buy fuel for the generator as our tanks are fixed so we can’t even steal fuel from ourselves with a siphon tube to run the generator. He asked me if I was going to purchase Canadian gold because gas here is the equivalent of almost five dollars a gallon here. The lady at the general store also told me a little about the money. They have a dollar coin with a loon on the back and they call it the Looney. They have a two dollar coin which has two different metals in it which they called the Tooney. So you could go to the buy something which was a Looney Tooney in price. One lock before the one we are at tonight they were having lock problems with the cylinders and we had to wait for a diver to come and go down in this hole with a flashlight and fix the pin which had broken off with another stronger one and some more washers and cotter pin. It took them an hour or so but no one complained. They either watched or like I did went to the Lockside Trading Company and the general store and then came back to watch them finish the job.

A fellow from Parks Canada stopped by to see the boat and get Three Rivers Marine’s phone number. He said he had heard about Shorty on the radio as the locks talk to one another and let each other know how may boats are headed there way. He said that he was part of a group studying the canal system of Canada and finding out what they are going to do in the future as the infrastructure of the system is costing Canada just like the Intracoastal Waterway does in the USA. He said it may come to the point where they will have to shut down the locks and maintain the dams and hydroelectric power they produce. This was the way I felt when I began the trip; that if I did not make the trip soon it would not be there. I feel that maybe in the future the Intracoastal will be so condominium loaded that no one will care about the waterway itself and the people who use it and make there livelihood from it that they will decide not to maintain and just let it decay and forget about the boaters and retirees who live on the waterway. Everything has to do with the bottom line anymore and no one sees or cares about the beauty of the system except the people who have been on it and who use it. I wish he would have had more time to visit.

June 7, 2007 - We moved across three lakes today from Burleigh Falls. One was the lock and lake called Lovesick, then on Lake Buckhorn after the lock there and one more called Pigeon Lake to the town of Bobcaygeon, where we are tied up at the town dock again this evening. We arrived in town around noon but going across open water we move faster so it did not take us too long to get here. You have to watch the channel very close in the narrow areas of the lakes and then you can go faster on the open water as there is not much to see there. There were lots of rock islands which had to be treated cautiously as the granite rock extends out into the lake from points and it is clear enough some places to see it under the water when the wind is not rippling the surface. The winds were blowing pretty well but they were behind us most all day. A couple of times it looked like we might have some rain but most of it has now passed us by and it is a nice sunny and breezy day. We went out for lunch today since that is when we arrived here because Bob wanted a good hamburger. I had a good chicken sandwich trying to be good with the food because the day before I fell off the wagon and ate a hole in Bob’s little white powdered sugar donuts. This town is centered on the lock because it was the first lock built in this part of the system. It was built to promote trade of lumber and agricultural products from one part of the province to another. I went to the town library today here and used their internet correction to get my emails and erase all of the spam. From the last six days of no internet connection. When I finish this today I am going to try to publish it and hope I will be successful in doing so. We are across the street from some housing built to house the elderly people in the area and which is very new and nice. Last night just before sundown we had a loon very near to the boat but we did not want to scare it; so hence, no photos. You usually only hear there mournful calls in the evening answered by another loon in the distance so it was nice to see one up close. The scenery changed from more rural to flatter land and more housing today along the shore. So we are back to scenic for now and I am told it will change again tomorrow We are about as far north as we will be going and I believe tomorrow will begin our descent to Georgian bay as the river flow changes up ahead. I have not done any research on the charts though so I could be wrong. I think we passed the infamous buoy numbered C233 where a trawler hit a rock. When we were coming up on it we went real slow and tilted our motor up and hoped we would not hit anything and we didn’t so I hope that is the one. I am going to do a little walking around after bit to get in some exercise that I can use to work some kinks out. My computer aircard cannot seem to make a connection now so I will try later tonight. We think the cell phone companies up here are still analog and not digital so that might be the reason we cannot connect. I did not bring any discs to write on with me otherwise I might be able to publish from the library.

June 8, 2007 – We got up this morning and had breakfast and then started across Sturgeon Lake which was to be one of three that we would cross today. After we crossed the lake we came to the first lock at Fenelon Falls. We pulled over to the side because the lock did not open until 9 AM. This gave us a chance to go up and photograph the falls and look around a little bit because the lock is right in the middle of town. They had done a nice job of landscaping the grounds around the lock area and the falls were very nice and they also powered a two turbine power plant with the water as well. We proceeded through the lock and across Lake Cameron to the Rosedale lock. After Rosedale we crossed Balsam Lake and Mitchell Lake to the Kirkfield hydraulic lock which is slightly different in that it was built with structural steel and concrete and not solid concrete like the Peterborough lock. We stopped there after going through it and took some photos to help people better understand what we saw. This one was also two pans of water balanced on a cylinder on either side which goes up and down when weighted heavier on either side to raise or lower the pan. Next we passed through Canal Lake which was a virtual weed bed with a channel through them and not very deep. After that it was another series of locks lowering us which were about a half mile to a mile distant from each other on a cut through the limestone and granite. After doing this all day we are now just a short distance from making a fairly long run across Lake Simcoe which is huge and had small craft warnings posted for it today as it was very windy. The scenery today was a lot of homes and resorts built on these lakes and very weedy and marshy areas in between. Although the last few miles put us back in agricultural areas again and there were some beef cattle grazing along the canal and in the pastures. Crossing open bodies of water where you can barely get a good view of the homes is not like going through the granite of the day before. Today was hot and very sultry and now we are trying to have a thunderstorm here at the marina only it is just coming in fits and starts and gusts of wind and not much rain. All thunder at this point you might say. It has finally hit us after all the noise and we really got a downpour and it is still raining. One of the locks today was tended by two women which was unusual because mostly males get the jobs because of the gates which they opened were manual and not power gates. I bet by the time the canal closes this year they will have good muscle tone. They were using there butts to open the gates by backing the lever around behind them where the men pull the gate lever when it is not powered. It is about four in the afternoon so we don’t have to hurry with everything before we go to bed.

We are tied up at a marina tonight because we had to pull in and get some fuel. It is off of the canal and back up a creek. It is the last stop to get fuel before tomorrow.

We looked at some of our route through Georgian Bay last night but have a lot more to do before we start across that part of the trip. We will be much further north and in a lot more granite if all those islands are rocks and I’m pretty sure they are.

June 9, 2007 – We woke up this morning and the weather looked like it was going to be a sunshiny day and they had said the day would have about 10 kt. winds. We were at Trent Talbot Marina on the edge of Lake Simcoe and knew that we had about 40-50 miles of open water including Lake Couchiching which was pretty narrow so weather would not be a problem. We went out into Lake Simcoe and it had a pretty heavy short chop on it and the winds were not all that strong yet. It was a pretty rough ride and we had to plow right into the wind so it was pretty wet. Then we entered the final stage of the Trent-Severn Waterway which was composed of four locks. They were pretty big drops of better than 20 feet and then the next final lock was reached which is called the Big Chute. In the lock you enter a cage type apparatus on railroad tracks and they pick your boat up in a sling and then lower it onto the floor of the car. The car then starts up this hill with your boat in it. After it reaches the top of the slope it then prepares to take you down the hill for 75 feet in height on the rails and you slowly enter the water where you float free from the car and away you go. We then went through the last lock on the waterway and we were now in Georgian Bay our northernmost point thus far. We are spending the night in Honey Harbour, Ontario at South Bay Cove Marina. They keep telling us there is no fuel available in Killarney, Ontario so we filled our tanks today so we have about 3 days or more of running time just in case and that should put us to Little Current which is across from Killarney on the bay. Our markers have now changed sides to reds on the right green on the left and I have no idea how many times they have changed but it has been a lot. The reds have little pointed hats on them and the greens have flat tops and they are very hard to spot sometimes against foliage and other stuff. We are now truly back in rock country as rocks are everywhere and the channels are narrow and sometimes the channels split in two and there is more than one way to go. The water changes color at times and you can see how close the rocks are to the channel. They are very beautiful but at the same time very dangerous if you miss a turn so Bob is constantly checking charts and letting me know direction and how narrow the space is that I am in. After crossing the lakes the waterway got really rocky in the last stretch of waterway and now the bay. But the shores were lined with homes and we had to go very slow with all the no wake zones. Boats were trying to pass us in the narrow sections making it pretty harrowing as it is Saturday and the weekend people are out. It looks now like the shores may be pretty bare as people build back in the coves where there is more protection from the elements. They say the weather will be pretty good tomorrow but I think a front is coming in from the Dakota’s and if it was like the thunderstorm yesterday it could be pretty severe. Even though the weather is sunny it is very cool and we are wearing sweatshirts and yet we have seen people trying to swim in this cold water.

June 10, 2007 – We awoke this morning with fog in South Bay Cove Marina but the sunrise was beautiful and bright. We knew the fog would burn off shortly with all the bright sun that we had and sure enough about and hour after sunrise it was going to be okay to go. We are still on the small boat trail through the 30,000 islands area of Georgian Bay but we think in addition to the islands there 30,000 more rocks that no one is living on. We made some really weird twists and turns on the trail all the while it seemed like we were backtracking on ourselves but all the while we were going further north and west at the same time and this afternoon coming into Byng Inlet we were actually going east by the compass heading. The trees on the shoreline of Georgian Bay look more like overgrown Christmas trees. They are probably thirty feet high on the average and you can definitely see what the prevailing winds are on the lake as the trees grow out on one side and have stubs for branches on the other side. Since the weather has been so nice since the thunderstorm and as long as the Canadian high is in place that we are traveling under we have decided it better to make hay while the sun shines because the weather is supposed to change soon. If we are in Killarney when the weather changes that will be a good place to hole up for bad weather because at that point we are going to be going through another large body of water called the North Channel. If we had been in Killarney today we would have made a run for it as the weather is perfect for Shorty to run fast. The winds are less than 10 knots and the waves were just probably six inches to one foot. Byng Inlet is a very pretty channel with all of the high granite bluffs around in with deep water coming in from Georgian Bay. Another thing which can scare the bejeebers out of you is to be running fast in 8-20 feet of water up here and look out the side window and even with the water rippling see the bottom of the bay or channel just as though you could reach out and touch it. Some of the channels next to huge rocks seemed as though they were about 30 feet wide at times and when you can see the rocks you just know they are waiting to nick you. Then you would hit deep water and all around you see rock outcroppings that are just waiting for you should you make a mistake and get out of the center of the channel. I would not trade this experience for nothing and up here you can actually go from place to place by boat easier than by road. People have built cottages on rocks and islands where it looks like there would hardly be enough area to turn around on. We met one fellow who said the islanders build and haul stuff out in the winter when the ice is as much 4-6 feet thick and sometimes more. We are fortunate in that all of the ice has melted but the weather seems cool enough and maybe there is still some lingering around. There is the cutest tugboat looking cruiser tied in front of us this evening. It is made out of steel and even the cabin is steel. It is about 35 feet long and has a raised pilothouse. We had planned to stay at the public dock but we are going to buy fuel and keep our tanks full so that if things are right we could keep running. We came probably a hundred miles from Honey Harbour to here today and tied up at the dock after running about 5.5 hours. I estimate that we used about 22 gallons of fuel. We will know for sure when we fill up tomorrow. Bob has gone to town with a loaner care to pick up some groceries we need and we bought milk yesterday at Honey Harbour so we will be pretty well fixed again. South Bay Cove in Honey Harbour, Ontario absolutely cannot be beat for facilities, amenities and staff. When we arrived yesterday there were three people at the dock to meet us, tie us up and present us with the goodies package. And now again today two people met us at the dock and did the same thing. The Canadian hospitality for people on the water is outstanding and our country could take some lessons from them.

June 11, 2007 – This morning we were up early, ate breakfast and still had time to wait until the marina opened at 8 AM before we could get fuel for Shorty. As soon as they opened we loaded up and fuel and headed out for Killarney, Ont. Which was about 70 miles away and most of the trip would be out on Georgian Bay and the North Channel and not as much inside on the Small Boat Trail which we have been following since we left the Trent Severn Waterway in Port Severn and which follows the north shore of Georgian Bay. It twists and turns through the rocks and channels until you lose all sense of direction and then you get a straight stretch and can relax for a while and not be on the constant lookout for buoys and turns and rocks running underneath the water ready to nick you in a minute if you don’t pay attention. Today’s run put us further north still but I think we have reached the northernmost part today and tomorrow we will start to go a little bit southward. We are at 45 degrees latitude North which puts us almost closer to the north pole than the equator and with the last few days of no clouds in the sky the sun looks ready to come up at five AM in the morning and it is hard to sleep late so we get up then and retire fairly early in the evening. We arrived in Little Current at about three this afternoon if I remember correctly after going seventy miles or more today. We stopped in Killarney for lunch and had fish and chips at Herbie’s fish house which is a school bus converted into a take out restaurant right at the place where the fresh fish come from the lake to the store. They were absolutely the freshest fish I have tasted and I like catfish filets. These I believe were perch fillets. After eating we went the final 20 miles to Little Current so we will be ready to tackle the final run on the North Channel back to Drummond Island, Michigan to start another phase of the trip in the USA. The weather has been unbelievable and I hope I don’t jinx it by writing about it. The scenery today was mostly solid granite cliff and huge rocks coming right down to the shore of the lake. There was hardly any cottages or homes like there has been before and a lot of the land is in a huge provincial park called Killarney Provincial Park and the rest is Indian land or as one fellow put it yesterday today we would be traveling through the crown’s land as Parks Canada is known as. We also saw some mining operations going on today and we think they were mining copper but not positive of that. They were working on an island just this side of Killarney. There was a low mountain range running north of us today for most of the day. On Georgian bay if it had been rough there was no place to put in for shelter today you would have had to just tough it out.

June 12, 2007 – After spending the night in Spider Bay Marina in Little Current and being cleared out of Canada by Canadian Customs people in the afternoon upon arrival we left this morning headed for Drummond Island and being checked in by US Customs people. We arrived at 11 AM and waiting until noon for Customs to show up we could not get off the boat. We fueled up for tomorrow while waiting for customs to show. It was another day of just a very light breeze and mostly flat water and we had 75 miles of open water to go today from Little Current to Drummond Island. We left at 6:30 AM and arrived in Drummond at 11 AM so we did a good job of letting Shorty run. There are lots of islands and big bays on the North Channel but we just do not want to waste good running days so we passed them by. There was not much scenery today but that is because we chose to go straight across and not up and down each bay. I know we missed a lot of good towns in the bays but if the weather were to change to worse while we were doing the exploring on good days we would wish we had made the time to go as we did. They are having exceptionally warm and calm weather right now and expect it to last the rest of this week.

I took the time to call some people I met while in Moore Haven, FL in January of this year. They live on Drummond Island and winter in Florida. We went out to dinner this evening with Tom and he spent the afternoon on the boat with us talking about the trip and we got some of the news we missed from him. He took us on a tour of what is the largest island in the Continental US and told us lots of history as to how it became a part of the US. It seems that some of the British and American surveyors spent some time together and got a little drunk and the Americans reran the survey so that the US came up with the island and got the British to go along with it. There is a long story to this and I will be redoing some of my writing later when I have time to review the history and get it correct. The man who owned Domino’s pizza made a number of huge investments up here and built lots of buildings, cabins and houses and when he got all through sold it to the locals and they have continuing development going on. The marina we are at has a huge investment in heated indoor storage for the boats in the winter and probably will be adding more as the price of fuel goes up and the boats are cheaper to store here than take back to Chicago and elsewhere. The water today when we were running was a deep blue and over a hundred feet deep and the water in the marina is a pale green and clear to the bottom in about 10 feet. There are rocks under water just waiting to get you and have to do a good job of navigation.

June 13, 2007- We left Drummond Island Yacht Basin at about six this morning and our goal was to make it through the Straits of Mackinac and down to Leland, Michigan as the worst scenario. Well again the weather gods have blessed us and we made it through all of the worst big water with not too many places to hide or get off of Lake Michigan. We made it through the straits and all the way down past Little Traverse Bay, Traverse Bay and the Manitou Strait and down to Frankfort, Michigan which got us now into the area where we can make short or long runs based on the weather. As we got closer to the shore after running about 150 miles of today on the open water we began to see the beautiful sand dunes of Michigan shoreline and they are huge even when you are a mile or better off shore in deep water which is between fifty and a hundred feet deep. The depth finder quit registering when it went over six hundred feet deep. The beautiful blue and clear water that we are in is so nice we just can’t believe it. Our wake and spray is just so white you steer off course some times just watching it. Our run of 210 miles is the longest yet and probably will remain that way as it was an eight hour run.

This is the first time in the twelve days that I can connect again to the internet so I am going to post this first and work on the photos from that period and may or may not get them posted today.

Shorty also got his oil changed today on his 300th hour of running by The Boat Doctors who came right to the boat and changed it. He also got his filter changed so now we pronounce him ready to run again in this marathon. If anyone has a need for maintenance or anything just call this fellow in Frankfort, Michigan or contact by internet at www.TheBoatDoctors.org. They did a super job of servicing him without having to remain tied up for another day tomorrow.

June 1, 2007

This was a downhill day in the Canal Systems of New York. We left Sylvan Beach at about six thirty this morning and headed out across Oneida Lake. We were running in a real hazy morning and could just barely see the buoys which were placed about a half mile apart. The sailing ship Nina which is a replica of the ones which sailed over to America left before we did. We caught them about half way over the lake which is twenty-eight miles long. We finished crossing the lake just as the sun burned through the haze. We then went through a few more locks and turned to the right at three rivers junction and took the Oswego Canal to the shore of Lake Ontario where we have bought fuel for tomorrow in Oswego and the weather holding we will be running across the lake to the Canadian side. This will be close to sixty miles of open water so we will do like this morning, start early and hope for the ripples on the water we had today. If this does occur we will be very thankful. Today we saw numerous small flocks of geese still wending their way north for the summer. There were a number of pairs that call New York home which have already nested and the chicks have been born. They look like little puff balls following there parents around in the water and some of them were up in peoples yards eating grass and I am sure they were leaving them presents as well. The countryside changed a little today to more pine trees and hardwoods than the day before.
The locks also were steeper and dropped us quickly to the level of Lake Ontario.

While in Canada I will write the blog every day as always but will not post it because of the high cost of roaming time while in Canada. I may post it once a week. So if there are no new issues just bear with me until I get back into the States and I will post all of them at once. The same goes for photographs taken in Canada while there.