My favorite parts of this trip – places, people, and activities.

Canada, Canada Canada!  From the minute we started down the canal system, I fell in love with Canada.  The Trent Severn was full of little towns like the towns we grew up in and stirred many fond memories in us both.  The best was yet to come as the Georgian Bay was pristine and beautiful with its clear water, tiny bays, and forests.  The North Channel was awe inspiring – the rock formations were incredibly impressive especially when viewed from the air when we did the 1000 islands tour.  I loved kayaking when we were at anchor, and fishing off the boat and off rock outcroppings I reached with my kayak. Beautiful Baie Fine – we could stay there for weeks. We saw so much there and feel like we barely touched the surface.  Canada is on our list of places we must revisit.

Once we came down out of Canada, there was a lot to see and do.  Door County fish boils, Mackinac Island with the horse drawn carriages, Milwaukee (my favorite city), Chicago, and then the river system!  The first part of our river journey was difficult, but once we connected with some looper friends to travel together, it became a shared adventure with some hardships made easier because they were endured together.  It was a huge accomplishment to everyone in our little 7 boat flotilla to make it through the last lock just as the sun was setting, and tie up at the wonderful Green Turtle Bay resort.  We celebrated together, and then one by one, continued down the river system at our own pace or with one or two other boats.   The Kentucky lake and river system south of Green Turtle bay was beautiful, pristine, and a much easier trip than when we first moved down the river.

Another adventure with a Looper flotilla awaited us when we made the 24 hour crossing from Apalachicola to Dunedin Florida.  We were stuck in Apalachicola with a bunch of Loopers for several days before we got a weather window to cross, and it got pretty cold. The trip across the gulf was a bit scary since we would be motoring not only all day, but all night long into the next morning, however we made it with our little group with no issues, and celebrated with bloody mary’s when we arrived.  Once we made it to Dunedin, it was the warm and gorgeous west coast of Florida for the rest of the trip down to our winter dockage in the Florida Keys, at Tavernier.

This spring as we traveled up the ICW on our way home, we had some issues with our prop shaft, but the delay allowed us to spend some fun time in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Once the boat was fixed we had a crazy day travelling through Miami and Fort Lauderdale on one of the first nice weekends in boating season.  After leaving Florida, we enjoyed our time on the ICW all the way through to the marina where we first bought the Quo Vadimus in Virginia.  We took a side trip on the Potomac where we enjoyed visiting Old Alexandria, Washington DC, and several other pretty spots along the great river, and we are looking forward to spending a couple more days on the Chesapeake while we move toward our home port on the Bohemia river.

One of our favorite parts of the Loop were the side trips we were able to take along the way by renting a car.  We were able to visit many cities that we have wanted to see, either for the first time or as a return visit as tourists.  In Trent we visited the Prince Edward County wineries.  We also rented a car in Orillia to visit Toronto for a couple of days.  We toured Green Bay, St. Louis, and Nashville TN as day trips.  We spent 3 days in New Orleans – one of our favorites. We’ve seen tons of sights that we probably would not have seen otherwise, and sometimes the best part was returning to the comfort of our own beds on the Quo Vadimus at the end of a long day or days of touring.

A few of our favorite places are where we spent time with family and close friends.  One of my oldest friends joined us on the Hudson for an overnight and a fun tour of a huge motorcycle museum.  We spent a few days in Rochester with Foster’s sister and her family and had a blast.  I met another dear old friend and her husband in Sarasota, family friends in Sanibel.  Our sons Mike and Dave came to visit for a week in the Keys. Pam & Gun helped make Miami/Ft. Lauderdale a fun stop.  In Hilton Head and Beaufort SC we spent time with my sister and my mom, and enjoyed seeing some sights and visiting an old family friend.  There were also places where we made new friends along the loop.  Frieda, Nancy, and Terry are some Canadian friends we met and spent a little time with. Dennis and Carol are Looper friends that advised us on the best spots in Door County and showed us the highlights of Racine. We became close with several couples in Tavernier where we learned about the Keys disease at first hand for several glorious weeks.  Finally there are the many terrific looper couples we met on the water in the Great Lakes, along the river system and the ICW – so many I can’t list them because I’m sure to leave someone out.   All are people we loved spending time with and who made a big contribution to our Great Loop experience.  One of the most interesting things was meeting someone who we met earlier on the loop, and comparing notes.

Life on the loop was life as we live it every day, but with amazing places and people thrown in.  We didn’t always have fun.  Sometimes we argued, sometimes the weather was terrible, sometimes we were in trouble.  Sometimes it was like going to a job every day – a really COOL job, but a job nonetheless.  We had some losses during the year – Aunt Hazel, my Dad, and our resident cat on board Belle.  Belle enjoyed her life on the boat more than she enjoyed her life on the hard, and had a very peaceful ending.  Dad, who had Alzheimers, was very happy about us going on the trip.  He remembered and asked me about it every time we spoke.

It’s hard to explain how amazing this trip is to people who have not been on it or on part of it.  All I can say is if you are thinking of going, just go!

#fishing&catching  #docktails  #bigorangeballsFTW  #LCBO  #canals  #lock_walls  #Bad_River  #Baie_Fine  #Hopewell_Bay  #Escanaba  #Door_County  #Milwaukee  #St_Louis_   #herons_vs_alligators  #kayaking  #quilting  #canadian_seafood=whitefish  #dolphinbabies  #Appalachicola_oysters  #shrimp_in_the_dinghy  #stone_crabs_vs_blue_crabs  #manatees  #biking  #a_good_internet_connection  #you_got_packages  #teamwork  #sunsets&sunrises  #marina_loaner_cars  #best_marina_loaner_corvette_ever  #maritime_museums_adinfinitum  #best_year_of_my_life

This is the monthly status report. We have gone 3200 miles in 7 months. We are about a 10 days behind where I wanted to be, most of it due to bad weather in the last 3 weeks. We are in Apalachicola for a week now, and looks like we will get out in a few days.

We did take advantage of the weather days to do some side trips. In the last thiry days we did a three day trip to New Orleans and another three day trip to see my son and Susan’s parents.

For the last 30 days there has been lots of Loopers. From Midway Marina to Apalachicola there was only three nights that we were not anchored / docked with another set of Loopers. So we’ve had lots of opportunities to meet other people.

Susan is making good progress on her quilt. Everything is cut out and the small puffy squares are sewn and waiting final stitching. It looks like there is a good chance it will be done for Christmas.

I’ve been busy blogging, posting on the AGLCA forums, the Bayliner forums and of course chatting with the loopers. There have not been a lot of maintenance items on the boat. The bad fuel issue seems to have been reduced, I can go about 200 gallons between filter changes. I’ll change it before the big crossing and see how it makes out with all the extra sloshing around. If it’s clear then I’ll run as far as Sanibel Island and try to use what fuel is there. Still running about 1.4 miles to the gallon and my price is $4.17 a gallon. Fuel has been much cheaper here. With the next few fill ups I’ll be under $4 per gallon.

There is one minor problem the door that leads to the fly-bridge has a small tear in the gasket and it leaks when it rains. We’ve been doing a towel there to catch the drops, but I need to put something in place for the three weeks we will be gone.

We are both looking forward to being home for the Christmas holidays, hard to think there is only 28 days to go.

Enjoy!

There are many things to see on Mackinac Island, but two of the standouts are Fort Macinac and The Grand Hotel. Today’s post is about the Grand Hotel.

Mackinac has always been a popular place for summer vacations. From what they can tell even the native Indians came here in what would be the 1500′s. In the early days, there were smaller buildings that would hold a dozen or so guests.

Construction of a grand hotel started in 1886. There was a lot of limestone to clear and building construction didn’t start until 1887. There was a problem, they had booked rooms for the summer in a building that didn’t exist yet. The offered a huge construction bonus if the hotel could be completed in 90 days when the season started. The construction company brought lots of labor in, some of it was skilled. Sadly they missed their bonus, construction took 93 days.

You can read all of it here: http://www.grandhotel.com/aboutgrandhotel/our-story

We walked up to see the hotel and to have lunch at their lunch buffet. There is a $10 charge to see the hotel and walk around the grounds, but you can apply the money to the $45 lunch. (And it turns out that taxes and tips are included in the price, so it wasn’t that bad)

We got to the grounds about 11:30 and paid our fee to get in. We strolled along the “Great Front Porch” (it’s official name) and went into the Parlor. Acres of red carpet and tons of plush stuffed chairs. We found the elevator and creaked to the 4th floor. Up a flight of stairs gets you to the entrance of the Cupola Bar.

It is a very plush room with a wooden bar at one end a panoramic view of the Straits of Mackinac from the other three sides. There is a huge chandelier in the ceiling that comes from the floor above, made from what looks like carnival glass. So we climb another set of stairs (we are now on the “6th floor” and at the top of the Cupola. We get a table where we can see out and admire the view. By this point in the day the rain had ended and there were wisps of fog across the strait. Very pretty.

We ordered Bloody Mary’s. They arrived in large goblet garnished with a pickled asparagus spear and two olives balanced on top of the glass on a bamboo skewer. Tres fancy! We had asked for spicy and the drinks were accompanied with two tiny bottles of Tabasco sauce with the “The Grand Hotel” logo.

We sipped and Susan let out a contented sigh. Her quest for a good Bloody Mary on the trip had ended. After disastrous and disappointing ones across Canada, where the best one came out of a can, she was happy.

Along with the drinks came a cruet filled with a spicy snack mix. It was wonderful. Lots of crackers, nuts, and seeds coated with a spicy, salty coating. We asked the bartender about the mix, she gets it preloaded from the kitchen, so she couldn’t help me get more. (And I spazzed about asking in the gift shop if they had any for sale).

We took pictures and enjoyed the views in the cupola as we sipped our drinks. Very nice.

It was time for lunch, so we got our bill ($16 each, tip included) and headed down to the main dining room. It runs along the front third of the hotel and can easily seat over 1,000 diners. Because we arrived early we were able to snag one of the last window seats.
The buffet is described as over 100 feet long and I believe it.

The first table contains the salad course. Three kinds of lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, onions, cucumber, carrots, and croutons to make a tossed salad. Coleslaw, potato salad, cantelope wedges with jello points and a macaroni salad round out the table. Of course Foster skipped this table.

The appetizer table had oysters on the half shell, peeled cold shrimp, smoked salmon, smoked trout, 4 kinds of cheese, rolled sliced ham and turkey, quiche, pate, finger sandwiches, marinated artichoke hearts, little bread balls that had been hollowed out and filled with salmon mousse or avocado mousse and finally, lamb lollipops. We both thought this table was our favorite. Susan said the oysters were stale, and when we talked to another looper she said they were “dirty”. I’m going to guess that getting oysters ready for 1000 people would be a daunting task. But everything else was wonderful.

There was a table with about a dozen different kinds of breads, rolls and butter.

For hot food they had a mixed vegetable medley with green beans, Brussel sprouts, red pepper and onions; Asian flavored beef with white rice, pasta with an Alfredo sauce, chicken breasts in gravy and a carving station with pork loin, and lots of sauces, jellies, and chutneys for the various meats and seafood.

Dessert was pecan, cherry or apple pie, cheese cake, lots of different tiny pastries, cookies and bread pudding.

Something for everyone!! Being old hands at buffets we knew to look first to see what was there and to take small portions so we could try as much as possible. But even with skipping the salad table it was three passes through the others.

By the time Foster got to the desserts, the cherry pie was gone. There was a young man putting more pecan pie out when Foster lamented “I waited too long!” The server said not to worry, he would go back to the kitchen and get a slice!! True to his word he was back in a few moments with pie. It was great, with very flaky top and bottom crusts and a great cherry filling. Great service and great pie!

After stuffing ourselves like Thanksgiving turkeys, we waddled to the front porch and sat in a pair of rockers to marvel in the gardens and the front porch. Once revived we toured the rest of the hotel and set off to see Fort Mackinac (covered in another post)

Well pay up on your bet my man!  Here’s my 33” northern pike that I caught less than 20 minutes later… from the swim platform of our boat.

I even have a picture of me holding the fish with the guy’s sailboat in the background.

It was close going getting it into the boat – my tackle is really too light for such a heavy fish, and our nets are not big enough!  Foster tried using 2 nets, and they still weren’t big enough!  Fortunately the lure tangled in the net and we were finally able to get it into the cockpit.  After some mild hysteria and trophy photos, it went back in the water – too pretty to eat.

I stopped fishing about 25 years ago, so I was very excited to take it up again on this trip.  I made sure to get us the correct outdoor card plus fishing license that Canada requires. Foster and I shopped for lures, texas worms, and doodads guaranteed to catch (something).  Since it had been so long, I also got some books to help me out on the finer points of jigs, rigs, spoons, crankbait, etc. as well as fish identification.  I wasn’t sure what we were fishing for, just that I wanted to fish again!

Once we hit Canada, we were in the canals for a while and we would both throw out a line at night.  I caught a few very small fish but nothing that anyone would keep for anything but a photo. I knew there were people around us that were catching bigger fish, but they eluded me.  Once we got through the locks into the Georgian Bay area, I started seeing bigger fish, even in the small stuff I was catching, but it was still small – even the little kids were catching bigger fish than I was!

Finally, on our travels, we arrived at a beautiful little bay that was quite deserted and rocky. Someone had set up an inunnguaq – a little rock man that is sometimes used to mark good fishing spots.

I decided to take the kayak out to one of the shores and do a little fishing.  Much to my surprise, I finally caught a decent size fish almost right away.  I was so used to failure I didn’t even have a stringer with me to save the fish, so I had to improvise by cutting a piece off the kayak rope.  I fished for a little while longer with no luck, but that night we were going to have fish for dinner!

I forgot the work that goes into cleaning the fish and found it is also more difficult to hold onto a big fish and chop its head and tail off than the small ones!  We’re anchoring out for a while with a somewhat limited water supply, so I was a bit annoyed at all the water I was using.  I rinsed the fish in several changes of clean water to get the slime off, then soaked it for a few minutes in salt water.  Once I was done with my side dishes (red potatoes and fresh peas), I dredged the fish in flour, salt and pepper, and set it to fry in some olive oil and butter.

I was cooking in the cockpit on my little propane ring because I didn’t want to get the fish cooking smell embedded in the interior of the boat. I had the burner turned up too high, and the fish started to burn a little.  Cooks know, once fried stuff starts to burn it is hard to get it back down in temp to cook it long enough.  As a result, the fish was not cooked all the way through when it came off the ring and I finished it in the microwave.  With that caveat, it turned out to be perfectly cooked once I had it on the table. As intended, the skin and scales came off with the flour crust, and I pulled meat off the bone and served it to us both.  There was enough for seconds, and more left over besides.

Next problem was identifying the fish.  When you’re not used to catching them, it’s pretty hard to tell what you’ve got.  I ruled out trout right away, but thought I had gotten a walleye through comparing the pictures to our pictures of my fish, and the recent memory of what it looked like as I cleaned it, and what was in its stomach (tiny mussel shell and a tiny crawfish claw).  Foster’s son Mike Schucker, who is a fishing maven, corrected me to say it was a small mouth bass.  Looking at the next fish, I agreed with him – because there was a next fish!

The day after our fish dinner, I took the kayak again to another part of the shore and did some more fishing.  I had a fish on the hook within a few minutes, but it jumped off, and numerous other nibbles and sightings in the clear water that morning.  I went back to the boat about 3 hours later and we decided to stay another night so I could continue my fishing spree.  After a little lunch break, I went back to another part of the shore in my kayak.

This time I hit a hot spot.  Within 10 minutes I had a fish on the line and landed it.

It was a bit bigger than the night before, but I thought fish dinner two nights in a row was too much, so I threw it back, after taking a very good picture of it laying in shallow water.  I continued to get more hits, and had three more fish on the line that managed to knock off the hook as they jumped in the air and backtracked into weeds.  It was a great fishing day, overcast and calm.  I spent a couple more hours in that spot, but the fish stopped biting once the sun came out.

I gathered my things and went back to the kayak, and took a little detour through a small channel.  The little detour turned into a two mile kayak ride which took me back out into the deep water of Georgian bay before I came back into our little cove.

All in all it was a great couple of days of fishing, kayaking, and taking some really pretty pictures of our cove.  Here’s a couple.

Rocky Shores

Flowers – water lily and wild roses

The bay

June 19

Last night we were tied up to the top of the lock wall at #39. 

It was very pretty, a closed off area with traffic limited to bikers and hikers.  Since there was no power, I cooked out on the picnic table again, and we had a perfect breeze keeping things cool. 

There were some fun surprises in wait last night. 

As I got off the boat with my cooking gear, I realized there was a large patch of wild strawberries right in front of the boat, with strawberries just ripening. 

I picked a few to show Foster and left the rest.

Around the picnic table where I was cooking were lots of tiny wild flowers.  I think we used to call them Indian Paintbrush, not sure what the correct name is. 

After our dinner, I was starting to clean up, and I noticed some small brown animals loping toward us along the lock wall.  As they got closer, we realized it was a mink mama, with a baby in her mouth, and 2 more babies following her. 

They didn’t seem at all phased by our presence, but I think the wind was blowing away from us, because they got very close, and then the mama started galloping away with the one baby in her mouth.  She went so fast that she left her other 2 babies behind, and they hunkered down in the grass very close to us. 

I was concerned that the mama might not come back because we were here, but Foster advised some patience, and before too long, the mama came back and grabbed another baby in her mouth and took off along the canal.  The last baby tried to follow, and fell right off the canal wall!  Of course I thought that was it for the little guy, but mama came back, disappeared down the bank, and then came right back up again with baby number three in her mouth. 

Pretty amazing sight, and more amazing that I was actually able to get a few photos that were sharp – here are a few:

Later that evening we fished a little.  I caught a couple of small fish, a bluegill and something else unnamed, and threw them back.

We had very few bug problems, and slept very well in the cool breeze, and then continued on our way today.  We were slowly passing through a very narrow canal just before noon, and I saw another mink!  This one had launched off the riverbank and was swimming right towards us until he realized his error and swam quickly away.  I managed to get a couple of blurry shots of him.

I left out the obligatory eh? Because this is more about how beautiful the country side is, every day it gets better! I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, and you can see how enthralled I am with the clear air and water.

Little hidden byways

Sky bleeding into the water

Look at the amazing garden!

I can imagine myself sitting here with a glass of wine and a couple of friends, want to be my friend?

Someone needs to fix up this old house on an island, maybe me?

The water today is so clear that you can see the fish nibbling on the hook.  It can only get better!

June 5

We stayed an extra day in Campbellford and went on a hike to go back and see the lock we had traversed the day before, which is in the latest video,

a suspension bridge over a gorge,

and some waterfalls. 

Campbellford is a great little city – the hike was just the right length, and there were more beautiful views and interesting neighborhoods as we walked back to the boat. 

We enjoyed stopping a second time at the Stinking Rose pub to relax before boarding the boat, and making dinner.  Close to sunset, the river through town got glassy and gave us some great reflective shots.

So here we are, made it at last!  The trip across Lake Ontario was really easy since the water was very flat.  It took quite a while so I had time for a nap!  Once we were close to the shore, we went through a sailboat race, which you can see in the video.  I didn’t see anyone shaking a fist at us, but it was not clear sailing for a little while, since we have to give the right of way to sail boats.

Once we got through that hazard we were into a little canal and through some swing bridges.  The swing bridges were pretty neat – they wait until you get right up on them to swing through, and then at the first bridge the bridge keeper came out with a little brass cup on the end of an extendable pole to collect the $5 fee for passing through.  There was little to no wind, but I wondered what would happen if a strong breeze blew my money out of the cup!

It wasn’t long after that we came to the town of Trenton, in Ontario, where we are docking for at least the night.  We were surrounded by loopers at this marina, and they’d all come from different starting points, so Foster had fun chatting for a while.

We lucked out at this marina with an excellent wifi connection, but our prior experience has been that we have wifi about 30% of the time at marinas.  Sometimes the marina offers wifi but we can’t connect because the signal is too weak.  That was no biggie in the states since we used Foster’s me-fi, but international data is ridiculously expensive so we either have to rely on the marina, find a temporary me-fi here in Canada, or go without.

We cleared customs with no issues and then set off on some errands and exploration.  Foster exchanged money, we stopped at the tourist bureau to see what our options are, the liquor store to try some Canadian beers and wine, an interesting sort of dollar store/food store, and finally a very  nice asian restaurant called Thai Sushi where we drank Tsing Tao and Tiger beer, and ate some very good sushi.

Have some more posts to add, but also wanted to draw your attention to the updated gallery section.  There is a page with all the videos linked so you don’t have to search through posts to get to the video.  There’s also a lot more new photo galleries added!