North Star on the Great Loop Journey: Mobile Alabama

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.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Mobile Alabama

I am not hearing banjo music and I am not afraid.
We have completed the river section of the trip and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The Illinois was commercial but it was a relief after the winds and waves of Lake Michigan. The Mississippi had quite a current and turbulent waters along with wide tows but it was enjoyable. we fought a two knot current on the Ohio and the Cumberland but the scenery became more pastoral. The very best was the Tenessee and the Ten-Tom waterway even if there were 13 locks. We found the Recreation Area anchorages just super. The people are extremely friendly and polite.
We anchored with our friends who are travelling on D.E.Schwein and our Canadian buddy on Black Tickle. We all left Demopolis Marina together and anchored at Bashi Creek (N31 57.3905' and W88 04.2869') on Saturday, at old Lock #1 (N31 34.5368' and W88 02.1573') on Sunday and the Alabama River Cut off (N31 11.331' and W87 55.845') on Monday. We arrived at Dog River Marina on Mobile Bay at 4:30 last night and we are all three of us moving to Turner marina next door. Dog River marina is offering a free night with a fill up so we all took advantage of this. There is a West Marine store on the premises so everyone is happy.
Turner marine is offering weekly dockage for 41 cents a foot so we are all moving there for a week before we tackle Mobile Bay and enter the Intracoastal waterway. There is a hurricane Rina brewing on the Yucatan peninsula so we will let her have her way before we set out. The weather is fabulous so far but it is expected to deteriorate by he week end.