Hello Dear Readers! Not long now.....you can tell the boating season is right around the corner by the fact that Rick has had to order many, MANY things on Amazon/West Marine that are boat-related. At least he says they are.... Not sure we really need a SECOND solar panel - but, WHATEVER...
Here is the basic overview of July-Nov this year! It's a lot of ground to cover, given that we spent 4 years coming up the east side.
We are starting late because the big commercial locks below Chicago are closed for maintenance until Oct 1. Our winter storage isn't cheap, but it's not $3.00-$7.00/foot/night (we are 40', in case you have forgotten) like it would be sitting around and waiting in a Chicago Marina. So we will dawdle along the Trent Severn Canadian Canal, Georgian Bay (forget 1,000 island - it's 10,000 islands there!), North Chanel to Mackinaw Island. Then stick our noses in Lake Superior and come cautiously down Lake Michigan (it's unpredictable in the fall). After spending a week visiting Chicago (CLAIRE!!!!), we will take the Illinois River to the Mississippi. At Cairo (Cay-row) we take a sharp left to get off the MI as soon as humanly possible (scary giant barge traffic), get on the Ohio River and then drop into the TN River Valley system - the TenTom Bigway. We will leave Blue Horizon at Dempolois in AL for Thanksgiving and Christmas. She will have her bottom painted in preparation for moving, once again, into sea water. In 2024 the plan is to bring her around FL, perhaps visit the Bahamas, and then sell her. Bittersweet, but I think we are both ready to do other things.
There are some moving parts this year (aren't there always) - there will be a lot of boat traffic waiting for those Chicago locks, so we need to make sure we have marina space, but at the same time we can't count on certain days due to weather on Lake Michigan. The weather inconveniently refuses to be predictable. So we are going to be guessing on marina dates. Thank goodness we are made of money (NOT)...
The route south after Chicago may be a bit grueling. We even debated not doing it - but... 'in for a penny in for a $1000', so away we go.
Thanks for joining us on the adventure - anchors aweigh!!
