North Star on the Great Loop Journey: Oriental North Carolina

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, April 16, 2012

Oriental North Carolina

Sunrise in Black Creek

We had a very restful sleep at our Black Creek anchorage last night. The wind finally calmed down and all was quiet and peaceful.
We were able to look at the free town dock on a live web cam so this morning when we saw that the dock was empty, we quickly headed into Oriental, North Carolina. You can see our boat and maybe Jerry and I on the dock if you go to:http://towndock.net/harborcam

I asked a lady where the post office was and that was fortunate, not only did she tell me where it was but she works at a marine store next to the dock and told me we could borrow their bicycles to get there. We went to get groceries, went to the post office and to a hardware store. We then rode around town exploring the water front and walking the docks looking at boats. We went out for lunch to a restaurant with a full parking lot. Sure enough, the food was inexpensive and good.
We are back at the dock helping other Canadian loopers dock. A chap who met us in Ottawa Illinois came to chat for a while. The loopers are congregating and making their way north.