North Star on the Great Loop Journey: Back in Welaka

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.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Back in Welaka

We enjoyed the day at the dock at Hontoon Park yesterday with the kind folks we met there. I visited the exhibit on the wildlife in the park as well as the history. There was a manatee skull and others that were quite interesting.
We left at 3:00 and anchored near Boat Show Marina, which is now called St. Johns Marina, at River Forest Oxbow (n29 01.3095 and W81 23.6673). We took the dinghy over to walk around the marina, the place is in ruins. A lot of the docks are falling down and the restaurant is now closed.
We continued on to Shady Oak restaurant where I had some delicious frog legs. We went back to our anchorage where we were serenaded to a deafening chorus of tree frogs. they were getting me back for eating their kin. It was an other quiet peaceful anchorage.
We stopped at Silver Glen Springs on the way here. This spring is off Lake George. We could not get in with North Star because the water is too low. We anchored and took the dinghy in. I had a swim and we walked over to the spring, it is only 16 feet deep. The water is nice and clear and refreshing. Perfect for this hot day. It appears to be a party place with folks anchored and standing waist deep in water drinking. We carried on since anchoring on the Lake is not a good option. The lake was dead calm today.
We are now tied up at the Welaka town dock. We will avail ourselves to showers and dinghy over to the Oklawaha river tomorrow. Again, not enough water for North Star but apparently worth seeing. it is only a mile from here but it goes inland for many miles. There should be some large alligators there.