North Star on the Great Loop Journey: Exercising in Fort Myers

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.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Exercising in Fort Myers

We are getting our fair share of exercise pedalling around town. We rode along the beach on the hard packed sand but we decided that the crunching shells was not good for our tires. I guess the Captain is running out of patches for the tubes. I am almost certain that we have stopped at every thrift shop in Fort Myers. There are a lot of them and we like looking at all that junk. This is where we shop for our movies.

We got back to the boat after one of our excursions into town to find two grackles feasting on our bread in the galley. We leave the boat wide open since it is so hot during the day. They had messed everywhere so I had to do quite a bit of laundry. No pictures of this mess. Luckily the washer and dryer here at the marina work well. I have since taken the head (bathroom) door and installed it in the outside doorway to discourage the messy birds. The door for the v birth will just have to serve two purposes. Sarongs are so versatile.

Other than riding and shopping we are doing some boat chores, reading and socialising at the tiki bar. We stopped at our favourite all you can eat fish restaurant for lunch yesterday. This is a restaurant called Maria's where you bring your own drinks, listen to little Maria, the Hispanic owner, yell at her staff all this while a cockatoo is squawking in the background. Ah, Florida... it has so much to offer. I was able to eat four pieces of fish but the Captain out did himself by eating six. We rode home and Jerry went directly to bed, he wasn't getting up until he lost 10 pounds.

Happy Birthday Emma and Mother Tiller!