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.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Welaka

What a cute little town is Welaka. We decided to stay an other day.
There were some African American locals fishing when we arrived yesterday morning and they patiently fished until dinner time. They were jolly and friendly and kind. The white folks arrived after them and they were disorderly and smoking and cursing. Lucky for us they have no patience and left after an hour or so. Early this morning the same African Americans are back and they are very patient and quiet and quite pleasant.
We went bike riding and found a dirt trail that crosses the entire town, the James E King recreational trail. There is not much here, a couple of restaurants and bars. I did manage to get a much needed hair cut a walk in hair salon. We went to check the night life at Shrimps are us Tiki Bar. We had a draft beer in a frosty mug for $1.50. They serve a $2.99 breakfast all week and the rest of the fare looks reasonable and cheap. Cheap is an other of my favourite words. They have live music tonight so we will partake in that.
We also stopped at the Log Cabin Bar where an 87 year old German guy was chatting me up. He had interesting tales to tell and insisted on buying us a drink. He reprimanded patrons for swearing and bought them drinks as well. He is known locally as Chicago Al and apparently owns many properties around the area. What a collage of characters we are meeting.
Jerry wants to do some painting today, we will go for a bike ride and go sample the breakfast. More on Welaka tomorrow.