North Star on the Great Loop Journey: 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.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Welaka

We stayed an extra day at our peaceful anchorage on Murphy Lake. The Captain wanted to continue painting and it was windy so it was the perfect place to stay out of the wind. I just played the guitar and read all day.
We finally saw an alligator this morning. The guide professed that this creek was a great place to see large ones and sure enough we had a 12 footer swim across the creek this morning.
Most of the navigation markers are host to Osprey nests. They line these with stick and Spanish moss since there is an abundance of it hanging in most trees.
We are now 14 miles down river in Welaka at a free town dock. This one even has showers, haven't had one of those off the boat since Feb.10, what a treat. There is supposed to be a good seafood restaurant with a $2.95 breakfast,we will see tomorrow. This appears to be a small city like Crescent City, we will go explore later when the painting is done.