And So It Begins

GREAT LOOP ROUTE MAP

Where are we going and why?

Years ago, we read a book by Ron and Eva Staub called, "Honey, let's get a boat." It was about their trip on what is called "The Great Loop," a water route that circumnavigates the eastern third of the US and some of Canada. As boaters, we were immediately hooked.

The first thing we did, was join the America's Great Loop Cruisers Association, or AGLCA, and start reading their daily blog. The blog consists of posts by current, past and wanna be loopers on topics related to the loop (boat problems/fixes, low/high water areas, good/bad marinas, etc.).  Everyone who joins the association and does the loop, flies the burgee below. That allows the current yearly "crop" of loopers, to identify each other as they work their way around the loop. Once you have "crossed your wake," i.e., finished the loop at the place you started, you get a gold version of the burgee. And, you if do the trip again, you get a platinum version. After that, who cares?

The Great Loop generally takes at least a year to compete and is 6,000 - 7,500 miles long depending on the number of side trips you take and your exact route. Our plan is to do it in one year or a year and a couple of extra months.

So, we've been dreaming about and preparing for this trip for years (get the right boat (HUMBUG), save enough money, dump the big house, retire, etc.) and it seems surreal to us that we're now about to actually start. But here we go...

HUMBUG

We'll begin our adventure on May 22, 2013 when we leave our dock in Mystic, CT and head down Long Island Sound to New York City at which point, we'll turn right and head north up the Hudson River.

Just north of Troy NY, instead of turning left onto the Erie Canal (which we did on our last boat, Summer Salt), we'll continue north on the Champlain Canal, up Lake Champlain and enter Canada at the north end of the lake.

The Chambly Canal is next, followed by the Richelieu River and the St. Lawrence Seaway. While on the Seaway, we'll stop in Montreal and then continue on to Lake Ontario.

AGLCA Burgee

At Trenton, on the north shore of Lake Ontario, we'll enter The Trent Severn Waterway which takes us to Port Severn on Georgian Bay which is part of Lake Huron. We'll follow the north shore of Georgian Bay and reenter the US in Michigan at De Tour Village then we work our way down the east coast of Lake Michigan.

From there, we take the Chicago River through downtown Chicago, head south on the Illinois River, go 200 miles on the Mississippi, north on the Ohio, east on the Cumberland, south on the Tennessee and Tom Bigbee Waterway and end up in Mobile, AL. The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway takes us from there, to Carrabelle, FL. and an overnight passage gets us to the west coast of FL.

We'll spend the winter floating around FL, including a month at Marathon Key, then head up the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, spending a month on Chesapeake Bay, and ending up in Mystic late June or early July 2014.