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, January 3, 2012

Exploring Estero Island

Emma and I have had enough of lying on the beach, we went exploring by trolley yesterday.
We went to the West end of the island and walked around Bowditch State Park. We boarded the trolley and went downtown to Time Square for a nice lunch at an outdoor Greek Restaurant. We walked around and shopped so that Emma could finish her souvenir shopping.
We boarded an other trolley and rode to the east end of the island and onto Bonita Springs to go to Love's Key State Park to go look at manatees. We were glad we had stopped downtown for lunch since the only available food is a concession stand at this end of the island. We walked around the park for a $2.00 admittance fee and went to look at the beach.  The beach is much narrower at this end and the sand is courser.  There are mounds of shells to walk through so not ideal for lying on but very picturesque.
We did not see any manatees but we did watch an osprey sitting on a tree near his nest, eating a live fish.  The fish was wiggling and struggling to free itself from the deadly talons. Apparently the red tide has killed off many fish as well as manatee.  The first to die are those that feed on algae. A cold front with high winds has moved in so that is supposed to help end the red tide issue.
We were going to go to Key West by fast catamaran today but they are not sailing because of the weather.  We will try tomorrow.
Today we will go play mini gulf and  go shopping at a mall and then out to dinner at Nervous Nellies.

Bowditch Park

Bowditch park Beach



Lover's Key Beach

mounds of shells at Lover's Key Beach

Lover's Key beach
Osprey eating a live fish

Gecko at Lover's Key
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1 comment:

  1. NinichickJanuary 4, 2012 at 11:58 AM

    Sounds like you and Emma are having a grand time on the beaches of FL. Marvellous idea to use the trolley to get around. I do not know how you guys will ever be able to "settle" back into life in NL.....you're having way too much fun!

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