6 month re-cap

November 19, 2019 – It’s been six months since we cast off lines for good from Herrington Harbour North, and started off in earnest on our ‘forward progress’ Loop. (See 3-month recap blog post)

Over the last three months (months four through six), we have traveled another 2436 miles, and:

• Completed Lake Michigan, exiting through the Chicago Harbor Lock into downtown Chicago
• Took our boat down the inland waterways
  • Illinois River
  • Mississippi River
  • Ohio River
  • Cumberland River
  • Tennessee River
  • Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway
  • Black Warrior-Tombigbee River
  • Mobile River
• Cruised the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway
• Crossed the Gulf of Mexico
• Added seven more states to the list we’ve gone through:
  • Indiana
  • Illinois
  • Kentucky
  • Tennessee
  • Mississippi
  • Alabama
  • Florida
• Transited 29 locks on the inland rivers
  • 4 locks we actually went through twice – once going up and once going back down, on our 500 mile (roundtrip) side-trip to Chattanooga
• Traveled for the first time with guests aboard (Ben’s cousin Alec and fiancee Lena accompanied us for three days on the cruise to Chattanooga)

We moved the boat on 46 days, and remained in place 46 days; on the days we moved, we averaged 53 miles, although the shortest was 11 miles, and the longest was 113 miles.

We spent 67 nights in Marinas (74%), and 18 nights (20%) at anchor; as well as one tied to a non-lock wall, three nights on mooring balls, one at a free town dock, and one at a lock. (And one underway, during our 19-hour crossing of the Gulf.)

We have gained a tremendous amount of experience, but each time we think ‘we’ve got this,’ something new comes up.

Great Lakes boating – got it.

Narrow industrial river – got it.

Anchor in strong current – got it.

Communicate with huge tows to arrange passing – got it.

Navigate through dense fog – got it.

Get on a river that’s in flood stage 30 feet above normal – got it.

Tidal salt water again – working on it….

Getting used to ‘6 feet is plenty of depth’ for hours at a time – uhhhh, not quite there yet!

We pinch ourselves that we have come so far (‘Really? Over 4500 miles traveled since May 1st!?!’) Much of it was enjoyable in its own right, but some of it has seemed as only ‘paying dues’ to get to the nice, warm, Florida part of the trip. We plan to take our time enjoying the 300+ miles down the west coast of Florida for the next month, arriving at year’s end to our two-month layover in Marathon, in the Florida Keys. Then on to the Bahamas….