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, November 8, 2011

Panama City

We anchored across the bay from Panama City last night in a place called Smack Bayou. There were 3 other boats there as well as 2 sunken boats and a sailboat that looks like a permanent resident. It was a nice anchorage but with the East wind, we could smell a nearby paper mill.

Jerry caught a nice flounder for to night's supper. Last night we had dinner aboard the Black Tickle and made an early night of it. Randy is going into Panama City Marina today to do laundry and such.  We are going on to White City at a free dock if there is room. We like being able to go to a town and ride our bikes again since Florida is nice and flat. We no longer need to go to marinas to borrow a courtesy car as most tons have stores near anchorages and town docks. Jerry cut across a small grassy area in Fort Walton Beach and got 2 flat tires from little cactus like prickles he picked up. Luckily he has an other bike.

There are lots of jelly fish and dolphins but I have yet to capture them on film. The Intracoastal  waterway is a series of narrow sections with large bays. which is still a lot more protection than the open Gulf of Mexico.
Dolphins slapping their tails on the water?

Randy and Jerry with our dinner

lots of sand dunes along the shores of the Waterway

Entering a narrow part of the Intracoastal

Osprey gave us a show this morning
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1 comment:

  1. NinichickNovember 12, 2011 at 11:59 AM

    That's quite the fish, Jerry. I remember eating flounder as a child. Good eating as I recall. What's the ETA for Fort Myers?

    ReplyDelete

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