North Star on the Great Loop Journey: Murphy Creek off the St. Johns River

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, March 7, 2012

Murphy Creek off the St. Johns River

The East wind kicked up to 17 miles per hour yesterday morning and poru North Star was being rocked and pounded against the town dock in Crescent City. We rode into town to get supplies and to have breakfast since it was too rough to cook. We had 2-3 foot waves at the dock. We managed to manually swivel the boat around a piling so we could start it and leave. It was quite the maneuver with the Captain starting the boat while standing on the side deck. It was a lot better out on the water. It is only an 8 mile run up the lake to peaceful Dunns Creek.
We are anchored in Murphy Creek (N29 35.0125 and W81 38.6277) in a quiet calm and wild spot. There is greenery all around us and we have only seen 2 fishing boats. Jerry is doing some paint work since there is no hurry to leave. There is supposed to be a lot of alligators here but I have yet to see any. Maybe they don't like the sound of our generator.
We will pull anchor later today and head into Welaka to a free town dock.