We are about to embark on the journey of a lifetime! Just the two of us, and Frodo too, are leaving on what is called America's Great Loop. This is a journey that will take us through the Great Lakes to Chicago, where we will enter the river system of the mid-western United States. The rivers will take us all the way to Mobile Bay on the Gulf of Mexico. We will travel in the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway to Carrabelle, FL. We will do an open water crossing from there to Tampa Bay, FL. From there we can choose to go to the Florida Keys or cut through the Okeechobee Waterway to the east coast of Florida. We will make our way to Miami and then do an open water crossing to the Bahamas where we will spend a couple of months. In the spring we will return to Florida and head north on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, through Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay to Cape May, NJ. From there we will travel in open ocean waters to New York Harbor. Then we travel north on the Hudson to the Erie Canal and the Oswego Canal. That brings us to Lake Ontario where we cross back into Canada and take the Trent-Severn Waterway on our final stretch home. Phew! That should take us about 12-14 months.
Our good friends, Dave and Kathy, said that we had to cut our lines when we left the dock to signify breaking ties with a land based life. They even gave us some old lines that we could cut. So, officially, on June 20, 2022, we cut our lines at Beacon Bay Marina in Penetanguishene, Ontario, and started our Great Loop journey. Our first run was 34 nautical miles to Three Finger Bay, also called Five Finger Bay, in the Massassauga region of the Thirty Thousand Islands. We connected with the Dave and Kathy on Good Idea, and the following day we were surprised by a visit from Wayne on Gemini from our home marina in Wiarton. What a great start to our Great Loop. We enjoyed a very peaceful few days on the hook along with a great dinghy explore through the region.
You can watch us cut our lines and cruise away.
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