North Star on the Great Loop Journey: Turnbull Island

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 2, 2011

Turnbull Island

It is a beautiful calm morning in the anchorage on Turnbull Island (n46 09.262' and W082 45.633'). We got here just before the winds pick up yesterday and spent a bouncy day with 20 knot west winds right into the anchorage. The forecast was for calm overnight and they were right. The water temperature is down to 71 degrees so we have reached the end of the comfortable swimming for this year. It will get cooler the further west we go.
Not much to do at Turnbull Island, a short walk takes you across the island to a nice colouful rocky sandy beach. We rode around all the little islands in the dinghy and trolled but no fish.There is a sandy beach close to where we are anchored but it was too windy for a campfire. We had a lot of fun watching a couple who were trying to get into their short kayaks in the waves and high wind. He never did make it in.
Today we are leaving the wilderness and going to Blind River.