North Star on the Great Loop Journey: Christmas Spirit

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, December 21, 2011

Christmas Spirit

I find it difficult to get into the Christmas spirit when the temperature is in the low 80s. We have put up decorations on the boat, the Tiki bar is well decorated with hundreds of Christmas lights. The live entertainment keeps playing Christmas carols. I guess what is missing is family and our northern friends and snow. The latter we can do without.

The Captain is working on prepping the super structure of the boat for a much needed paint job in mid January. I am catching up on emails, blogging and reading. We continue to ride our bikes all over town for supplies and to explore. We are meeting new friends every day but we do miss our friends from the North and our family at this special time of year.

There is a fishing charter, Sea trek, that goes out every day with a boat load of tourists. They go out about 2 hours on the gulf and stop at various fishing holes. When they come back to the dock to clean the catch, the pelicans just love it.

This is the longest lay over we have had since the trip began and we are anxious to get moving again.

Merry Christmas to all.