Just a quick monthly update of where we are and how its going.

To date 2117 nautical miles (2434 statute miles), so we are about 1/3 of the way through the trip. We’ve completed month 5, so we’ve been gone almost ½ of our estimated time. We’ve traveled 81 of those days, for a total of 318 hours. So travel days are about 55% of the time, we were targeting 60% so that’s close. Our miles per travel day was predicted at 30 per day, it’s now 26 miles per travel day. It’s taken a big jump in since last month, we did long leaps around Lake Michigan and in going down the Illinois. For example we averaged 35 miles a day for the last 9 days.

We’ve burned 1,478 gallons of fuel, with an over all economy of 1.4 miles per gallon. We gotten some great mileages the last few days with a 3 knot current pushing us. The next 350 miles won’t be as good since the current on the Mississippi is less and we will be facing a current on the Ohio. Average cost for fuel is now $4.45 a gallon and has been dropping since we left Canada. We budgeted $36,000 for fuel ($6 per gallon for 6,000 miles) so we are under budget for fuel costs.

Dock cost are averaging $1.50 per foot per night. We paid $3.50 a foot (including electric and taxes) in Chicago, that’s been the highest in the last 30 days (really in the entire trip).

So much for facts and figures.

Belle is still doing OK. As an elderly cat, she has her issues, but is still hanging in there. She has kept up her routine of getting us up in the morning. Wasn’t a big deal in the Eastern Time Zones, but it’s now 5:30 AM in CST and it’s annoying. We’ll be back in EST pretty soon, so that should help. She still naps around the boat while we move, but she’s been thrown a few times by the long lock waits. She has assumed that we were done for the day and would come up. We’d then start the motors and she would climb back down and head to the V-berth.

Susan has been keeping up with the pictures and the videos pretty well. Lack of decent internet connections has made it hard to uploads. During the longer days she has been splitting the driving with me and that’s helped both of us.

She is still making great dinners. Not as often since we’ve had great places to eat in Milwaukee, Chicago, etc. But there is lots of anchorage time coming, so expect to see more posts about her great food.

Foster is still doing OK. My shoulder pain has come and gone, some due to backing down on the exertion and I got a resupply of my Chinese Herbs. There is lots of planning to do as we go down the rivers, so I’ve been more in the future than in the present moment. But my September memories of horse poop, walleye fishing, fish boils, Maker and science Fun, Sputnik and the cool Chicago buildings are very good, still super happy that I’m on the trip.

Both Susan and I are tired, the last month has been a whirlwind of places with lots of heavy duty touring and sightseeing. We have been doing so much at each place it’s been hard to keep the blog up to day. (Presently I’m 3 days behind). I’ve tried writing on the rivers, but it almost needs both of us looking for the barges, fish boats and markers.

We will be in a little calmer location in about 10 days at Green Turtle Bay in Kentucky, I’m planning a few extra days there to recharge.

The boat is doing well it gets an oil change and a transmission fluid change on Monday. I’m still working of the algae in the fuel, but changing the filter every 75 gallons seems to have that under control.

We both still miss you guys back home and are looking forward to real face time in December.

Happy Canada Day!

We are a little off on our posting cycle.  We’ve been in Orillia since the 20th, we had a short 3 day trip to Toronto.  The last 7 days have been basically hanging out here and taking a break.   I got the Toronto trip posted, Susan’s working on the pictures.

I’ll also post some about Orillia, it was a great visit.  We stayed at the Mariposa Marina at the Narrows.  People here on the docks have been super nice.  Our neighbor a few slips down had heard us talk about the great butter tart hunt, they brought us two to try.

Our Canada day consisted of cleaning the boat since we take off on Wednesday and getting things packed and put away.

One of the members of the Bayliner Owners Club (a forum I belong to) came over with his girlfriend and we went over charts and places to stay during the two to three weeks it will take us to get to Killarney.  Lots of good places to go, it’s always great to travel with local information.

We biked down to the park about 6PM.  It was a nice cool ride.  There was a real festival going on with rides, three bands playing, a petting zoo and lots of different food choices.  We went with hot dogs, sausages and fries with gravy on it.

We got our chairs set up in a prime location to see the fireworks and people watch.  Wow were there people!  I’m not sure what the population of Orillia is, but it seemed that most of them were at the park.  Most were decked out in red and white to celebrate the day.

We saw a floating car putter back and forth a few times in the harbor.  They were very festive with their giant Canadian Flag.

At 10PM the fireworks started off.  It was a stunning set off fireworks with the largest roman candles I’ve seen.  Large in both how high they went and how long they went off.   Lots of good air bursts and giant stars.

After the fireworks, we packed our bikes back up and headed home.  Susan had planned ahead with flashlights for both of us so it was a easy ride back.

A great day, Happy Canada Day!

Filled the aft water tank, the forward one is about 1/2 full and we will make it to Peterborough before it needs to be refilled.

In my check of the engines, I noticed that the shaft seal that is supposed to have a slight leak (water keeps it cool) but the leak was about a drop a second, which comes out to about a gallon every 8 hours.  I’ll keep an eye on it and if it gets worse, I’ll get a mechanic to tighten it. (It’s a 3″ nut, I don’t have a wrench that big).

We were off the dock at 11 and heading north to do our locks for the day.   Things were going great until Lock 16 in Healy Falls.  This is the lower of the double locks.

A double lock is one where the two locks share a center door.  The center door towers 70′ over you when you are in the bottom lock. They use the water from the upper lock to fill the lower lock.  In our case, there was a tugboat coming down while we were going up.  Because of this they wanted us to go as far forward in the lock as possible.

With her now normal skill, Susan got us on to the cable at the front.  As I moved the boat stern up against the wall there was a loud crack and a smack of something hitting the water.  The cable had broken and went crashing into the water next to Susan.  She quickly stepped back to the next cable, snagged it and tied off.

Deep breaths all around as I went back to tie the stern off.   There was a small pile of concrete from the wall on the walk way that the end of the cable had taken off the wall on it’s way down.  A black mark on the side of the cabin was the only mark on the boat. We were lucky.

We calmed down and soon the water level was rising. As the doors open we saw a 2 person tug come through the opening.  There is a side plate that said it was made from a Glenn-L design, and had the builders names on it.   It was piloted by an elderly couple who passed by and were soon tied up in the lower lock.

We then moved s l o w l y forward and got set for the next lift.  During it we looked up at the cables every few seconds to check on how they were doing.

We were soon in the winding Trent River.  Most of the trip was made a “No Wake” speed of 6nm or 10km per hour.  There are hundreds of houses along the shore with flat yards that run to the edge.  I can see how flooding or even a large wake could fill their yards.

We got docked at 4PM and did our shutdown sequence and we were soon on our way to <i>Banjo’s</i> for dinner.   It is a small place and they were playing 60-70′s songs in the background.  The food was good and we had a great time.

Next was a walk into town to look for post cards and to see what was around.  We found a used book store and stocked up since we won’t have a lot of internet access in the next 6 weeks.  So its back to dead tree books rather than e-books.

Susan replenished her fishing supplies and went back to the boat to read.  I grabbed a <i>Holy Smoke Beer </i> that I had gotten in Campbellford and went to talk to the dock residents. Two slips down from me is a smaller version of my boat, and I went to talk to the owner for awhile.   On the way back there was a group on the dock that I stopped and talked to for awhile.  They gave me great tips to places to go on our trip on the Waterway.   I also got a heads up on trash in the water on the other side of the lake.

Susan collected me about an hour later and we went to the corner ice cream store for sundae’s.   I stayed up to do some postings and to check out the stars.  Being away from the light pollution really opens up the night time sky with billions and billions of stars.

(I added the picture from the morning to get the marina sign, but you know how Mr. Photo Bomb is … )

Last post from Ilion, I promise.

We had a misunderstanding over the opening of the canal. We got told if we wanted to go west we needed to be at the next lock at 7AM. That means a 6:30 departure, that’s not going to happen. So we opted to hang out. Turns out they were trying to say the Canal is open starting at 7AM.

It was just as well, there were still a large number of large sticks coming down the river. We spent some time pulling the ones away from the dock wall where they were wedged between the boat. Some of the larger ones I walked down to the fuel dock to let them deal with it.

We went to the Remington Arms museum. They have rifles from day one (1800′s) to present. Plus some samples of their hand guns and early typewriters. They don’t give factory tours any more, but have a long video that shows the entire process.

Hit downtown again, post office to mail things, another tour of True-Value and went to Froggy’s Burgers for lunch. They were good, but not like the Voss’.

In order to be ready to go at 8 on Wednesday, we did a quick pump out. At the dock met a guy who is single-handing a canoe from Connecticut to Niagara, Ontario. Very interesting guy and he also agreed that the cleat of the lines to get on the wall is a must.

The Lil’ Diamond was last nights highpoint, along with Susan making a cheesy, sausage potato casserole. It was unusual to eat something that wasn’t fried. We topped it off with our last Voss’ sundae of the trip.

Before I leave Ilion, I did want to say that I’m impressed about the train traffic along the Hudson and Erie Canal. On the Hudson we saw passenger trains every 30 mins and freight a little more than that. Once we got on the Erie, freight is king with a train every 15 minutes. They are going both directions, are very long and have a variety of cars. Most times it’s the stacked containers, but many times it’s a train of just UPS trailers. (Wonder if that one has my parts!!)

All in all a good visit to Ilion! We’ll miss Cody at the dock and all the people at Voss’, but it’s time for new adventure!

We really enjoyed Utsch’s Marina and our few days at Cape May, even though several of them were rainy.  We needed a little break from the bustle of getting ready.  We had a chance to see the antique dredger pictured on Foster’s post at work Thursday evening, and I also got a nice sunset picture.

Sunset at Utsch’s Marina, 5/1/14

On Friday morning, per our plan, we got ready to leave for Atlantic City by pulling up to the fuel dock and refueling before heading out.  The waves were a little rocky and I made the mistake of starting out in the salon, which gave me my first case of seasickness on the QV!  After sitting up on the bridge for a while, I felt better.  You can see some of the rocking in the video, which is a very quick one since battery number2 on the GoPro was insufficiently charged and only lasted for 15 minutes.

We pulled in to Kammerman’s Marina in Atlantic City relatively early around 12:45.  Had time to take a picture of Wee Kilted Pig before I got bit by some nasty big unknown bug.

Wee Kilted Pig upon arrival in Atlantic City, NJ

Straightened up just a little for a visit from a local friend, Lisa, who kindly dropped us off at the Atlantic City Marina for our sight seeing tour. 

After the aquarium we sat for drinks at a nearby place and tried to decide where to celebrate my 51^st birthday.  We ended up at Dock’s Oyster House, which was extremely good.  Service was also excellent.  Got a pretty sunset picture before we turned in early and I was up early as usual, to get some nice pre-dawn and dawn shots.

Sunset in Atlantic City, NJ 5/2/14

View of Atlantic City from Kammerman’s Marina just before dawn 5/3/14

View of Atlantic City from Kammerman’s Marina at dawn 5/3/14

Dawn in Atlantic City, NJ Kammerman’s Marina 5/3/14

The Wee Piggie is embarking on the retirement journey of a lifetime with Captain Foster, Susan, Belle – sailing around the Eastern United States in what is called “THE GREAT LOOP”.

Wee Kilted Pig has had many adventures so far: Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Russia, The Dominican Republic, Las Vegas, oh, and SKYDIVING?!? But this is really one for the history books folks! What’s even better, is that the spirit of Wee Kilted Pig will live on and continue his usual shenanigans, while ‘First Mate Pig’ will take on the duties associated with water life…. Including but not limited to grog procurement, mermaid control, penicillin injections, pirate poker league organization, and avoiding being buried in the kitty’s litter box. Oh, yeah… and maybe not trying to fall overboard….

Kilted Pig’s Facebook is public and welcomes new friends! See his current, past, and cloned adventures, and follow his journey on the Facebook places map and
Great Loop Album

For those of you who are new to the adventures of the Pig, there is a cartoon called Pearls before Swine where one of the main characters is Pig. My daughter has a stuffed version that she has taken all over the world with her. We’ve offered to take “First Mate Pig” with us on another adventure.