Blog
We arrived at Green Turtle Bay on Sunday, Sept. 1. We had a lot of firsts this past week! Early in the week we spent time at Green Turtle Bay troubleshooting a windlass problem, which culminated in needing to order a complete new system. When we arrived at Green Turtle Bay (GTB) in Grand Rivers, KY, we were able to immediately get the boat lifted, as Conrad wanted to check on a vibration. ... Read full post
This last week has seen a lot of changes in scenery as we have traversed Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and now the Cumberland Rivers. We had, however, more barges and more locks, and much more debris in the water.
August 23-24 found us in Grafton, IL which is where we were supposed to fill the tanks up in order to make it to Paducah. Since we don't have a lot of history as... Read full post
End of day 19:
11 travel days 8 locks 645 miles travelled: 1/2 on lake Michigan 1/2 on Illinois River 490 Gallons of Fuel Key learnings: Boat is running well Most but not all lockmasters are helpful At 10 mph, fuel mileage is 3 times better than at 15 Running at night on the river is stressful Headsets do make a difference, wear them everytime! It seems difficult to keep track of what day... Read full post
Not sure where the last 5 days have gone, but here we are on Sunday morning, August 25, in Grafton Harbor. There has been little to no connectivity since our last post and that makes it impossible to update the blog.
We enjoyed our stay at the Illinois Yacht Club in Peoria (Monday thru Wednesday) even though we had to spend one additional night that we had not planned for. It was a... Read full post
We left Sunset Marina at 6:00 am on August 16 and made our way out of the farthest southern border of Chicago. It was difficult to believe we were still in Chicago. It was very early in the day when we heard that the Marseilles and Starved Rock locks on the Illinois River would be unrestricted on the weekend. They have only been open at night for barges and had one pleasure craft passage at... Read full post
Going 10 mph on Lake Michigan...just doesn't seem right. After vacationing our entire boating lives on this lake at 25-30 mph, 10 mph seems like tortoise pace. But here we are. We left South Haven on Wednesday morning, August 14, at the leisurely pace of 10 mph heading south to New Buffalo. This is the farthest south we have ever ventured on the Michigan side. Linda's cousins, Kevin... Read full post
We arrived Saturday afternoon, August 10, at North Shore Marina, in Grand Haven, MI and stayed through Monday, August 12. The marina is on the opposite side of the Grand Haven channel isolated from Grand Haven's shopping and restaurant district, except by dinghy. This is the marina where WaterMarks was purchased last Fall and Grand Haven is where we spent 40+ hotel nights over this past... Read full post
We said our good-byes with lots of hugs and tears and left our home port of Sturgeon Bay, WI on Wednesday morning, August 7, around 7 am, arriving approximately 6 hours later In Ludington, Michigan. Bruce Boyce tossed us our last line as we started out on our Great Loop Adventure. WaterMarks handled the crossing very well. Seas were somewhat calm until about 15 miles off the Michigan shore... Read full post
Our last day in Sturgeon Bay, our home port. On Wednesday morning at approximately 9 am we will throw lines, say good bye to Wisconsin for many, many months, and head to our first destination port...Ludington, Michigan...about 72 miles across Lake Michigan to the southeast.
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Welcome to our Blogsite. We are happy that you are interested in following along with us as we traverse this boater's dream trip of a lifetime.
Since many of you reading this blog are not boaters, you may not be aware of the ability to leave Lake Michigan south of Chicago, proceed down all the river systems to Mobile Bay, cross the Gulf, go around the Keys, go up the east coast on the... Read full post
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