North Star on the Great Loop Journey: SSMarie Michigan

Preparing for the trip

Captain Jerry has been making the final preparations to North Star, our 32 foot Cape Island down east trawler. We are anxious to leave our landlubber lives behind and begin our long awaited journey around the Great Circle. Join us as we travel 10, 000 kilometers: through the historic Trent Severn Waterway; the pristine waters of Georgian Bay; the North Channel of lake Huron; and hop from beach to beach on lake Michigan. We will visit Chicago and begin our trek along the rivers: Illinois; upper Mississippi; Ohio; Cumberland: Tennessee; Tenn-Tom Waterway and the Black Warrior. We will have transited through 68 locks at this juncture. We have chosen the inner route from Mobile Alabama to Tarpon Springs Florida and the shorter Ocheechobee Waterway to reach the East coast of Florida. We will skip over to the Bahamas to wait out the winter before heading North on the Atlantic Inter Coastal Waterway.
The 10 years of researching and planning are finally at an end and we invite you to come along on our adventure.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

SSMarie Michigan

We crossed the St Mary's river yesterday and called customs. Two agents arrived in short order to inspect our vessel. They cleared us simply by looking at our passports, they issued us a number for the vessel after a quick perusal, but they are not able to issue a cruising permit the same day. They took our completed application and will be able to issue the permit by Friday. They suggested we stay at George Kemp Marina overnight, which we did. We are to call this morning and they will let us know when we can pick up the permit at Drummond. We are free to carry on until we get to Drummond which is two days cruising from here. The cruising permit will allow us to go anywhere in the US without having to check in at every port we decide to stop.
Oh well, we went bike riding and got some items that we were not able to take across like citrus fruit and tomatoes. Nice clean town and flat so bike riding was not such a big chore. I was able to pick up more books at the Goodwill store, the one that has my kind of price.
Beer is so cheap at 15. for 24 as opposed to $32.50 and rum at $19.99 for a large bottles opposed to $52.00, unbelievable. I bought a ship spotting book. It is a lot like bird watching only it is ships and the book provides a description and lists the port of the ship, something to do.
George Kemp Marina has reasonable rates at $1.00 per foot. It is clean wedged between the museum steam ship Valley Camp and a coast guard station with cute little tugs.
Today we are heading to Lime Island to anchor. I hope I remember how after 7 days at a marina.