North Star on the Great Loop Journey: Blue Springs National Park

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, March 15, 2012

Blue Springs National Park

We left Monroe Harbour Marina this morning after getting fuel at 8 in the morning. It was dark when I got up and I even saw the sun rise, a first in many months. So many people offered us rides to get what we need, it is incredible. We did go get propane with one of these kind souls but we rode our bikes to the supermarket to get last minute items. We of course had to go to some second hand shops as always.

We are now anchored just outside Blue Springs National Park (N28 56.3662 and W81 20.8595). We will dinghy in pay the $1.00 entrance fee and go look at the clear water to see if there are any Manatee. We can swim there and ride the current down the half mile to the beginning of the elevated trail. More on that tomorrow.
The water is 74 degrees here at the anchorage so the hot spring should be pretty good.