DeTour Adventures 2022-2023

DeTour Crosses her wake.

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They say the hardest part of doing the loop is leaving the Dock, family, friends, the house, is the boat ready, …are we ready.  Well for us it turns out that coming back maybe right up there with leaving the dock. We had the trip of a lifetime, filled with so much fun. 

We completed the loop on Aug 23 in Midland Ontario, we travelled 12084 Km (7508 miles), transited 110 locks, 2 provinces and 18 states and a “DeTour” to the Bahamas in 418 days.

We loved travelling the island rivers of the Mississippi, Ohio Valleys etc.  We gained a greater understanding of how important these regions are both agriculturally and industrially, not to mention the fun towns to see and explore. 

Transiting the historical canals, Champlain, Chamlby, Richelieu, Rideau and Trent provided us an opportunity to appreciate the engineering marvel (built in the 1800’s) and in our own backyard.

Above all as loopers know it’s the people you meet along the way that help make this an adventure of a lifetime. Lock staff, Tow Captains, Marina staff, locals and yes Loopers everywhere. The generosity was incredible.

Wendy has yet to perfect lassoing lock Bollards so around we go again.

Thanks Barb and Dan

The First Seven Days in the Exumas

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We spent the last two days of February in Nassau, our last major provisioning stop for the foreseeable future. Also on the “To Do List” was getting a sim card for an old Apple phone to enable us to have a Bahamian data plan when away from the boat (Starlink has been fantastic when on the boat). We pack two old Apple iphones so that we could switch out the sim cards. This did not go as planned. The phones would not recognize the sim cards, $145.00 U.S. later, we have a new android phone.

Allan’s Cay
DeTour left Nassau on March 1st, passing over Yellow Bank Shoal. Other than experiencing 7′ of water & numerous coral heads. It was a pleasant 30nm passage to Allan’s Cay, home to the protected Bahamian Iguanas. We reconnected with fellow Loopers “Follow your Arrow” & “Not Dreaming” and enjoyed Beach cocktails while being surrounded by Allan’s Cay’s “Wild Life”. We had a perfect night to watch Jupiter & Venus kiss in the night sky.
We needed to do some boat maintenance, our engine bilge had lost its ability to auto turnoff. The project was one that Colin was not looking forward to. Can we say “boat yoga”. As reprieve from boat work we took a short dingy ride to Highbourne Cay to check out the anchorage and Marina. The Cay is a private community and we were restricted to the Marina and it’s restaurant. Next stop Norman’s Cay.

Norman’s Cay
There has been so many advantages of having a small trawler on this trip. Detour’s draft is 3 1/2′ which enables us to go into lots of places that a larger trawler can’t navigate because of their draft. One of these anchorage was Norman’s Pond. The entrance to the pond is on the west side of the cay. Due to the tight entrance and skinny waters most cruisers avoid the Pond. We entered at low tide aided by the sun’s perfect angle. We were rewarded with a near empty anchorage, only other boat, a Canadian Looper, had managed to find its way in the day before. Low tide revealed a glorious sand bar, we took advantage and laid down “First Tracks”.
We spent two nights at the pond. We left in the morning on an ebb tide which we were comfortable with because we had arrived during low tide. Shortly after we weighed anchor, a cloud rolled in obscuring our ability to see the sand bar. It just so happened we had camera rolling as a we ran aground. Here is the link to the video.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B7Qqsz_-PU


The Exuma Cay Land & Sea Park
We entered Exuma Cay Land & Sea Park on March 5th, a NO Take Zone, & marine protected area. We choose to anchor at Shroud Cay. We spent a lot of time dinghying though the mangroves to the Washing Machining at the eastern end of the Cay. A great spot to walk on the sand bars during low tide or enjoying float in the current. While enjoying the Mangroves we saw conchs, sea turtles, rays and a Nurse shark.

Next Stop………..

February Stats

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The Great Loop
 February 1st saw us arrive at Key West. We managed to score a dock for a week at Key West Blight, located in the old schooner harbour. We attempted to make a run to the Dry Tortugas & Fort Jefferson. Unfortunately the weather was not co-operative for the 60 nm run. We made our up the Keys anchoring at Jewfish Cay & Johnston Cay. Two nights were spent at Skipjacks Marina in Marathon where we enjoyed visiting Turtle Recuse & Release facilities and another Flagler Museum.. We continued up the Keys to Barnes North Anchorage located north end of Key Largo.

Off to the Bahamas
We weighed anchor at 8:00 for the 60 nm run to Alice Town, Bimini Islands Bahamas. The weather was fantastic, water was like glass. We arrived in Alice Town at 3:00, cleared customs by 4:00, met fellow Canadian Looper off of “Nice Aft” for drinks. From Alice Town we travelled across the Bahama Banks, dropping anchor at 4:30 in 17′ of water, no boats or LAND insight. Next stop, Chub Key where we spent 2 nights at anchor and colin befriended a local conch fishermen.Two night of conch for dinner is two nights too many for this Girl!

Nassau was our next stop and our last chance for reasonable priced provisions and a sim card. Because we arrived on Sunday and all the shops were closed, that meant an extra day at the marina. We manage to escape Nassau on Tuesday and spent the last to days of February anchored at Allans Cay, home of the Bahamian Iguana.

Summary
As you can tell our anchor to marinas ratio is still not what we had hope for 11 to 17, March will see that finally change!
The only screw for the month was catching another crab pot, this time Colin.
We were heavy on museums in Feb with a total of 11.
During our travels our Anniversary sneaked up us enhance Colin’s additional entry😘

January Stats

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Detour’s Stats for the month of January. Like a lot of people I always found January to be such a long month, but not this year! After sending New Years Day in Dunedin, we travelled to Clearwater Beach & secured dockage for 3 weeks. This enabled up to fly home for 2 weeks to see Colin’s mom & friends. On returning to Clearwater we up graded our batteries to 4 golf carts batteries. Installation, a future project, stay tuned. After Clearwater we headed to Sarasota Y. C. and visited the very impressive Ringling Compound. The facilities included a circus museum, Ringling’s Ca’ d’Zan mansion and Museum of Art, housing their vast art collection.
After Sarasota we anchored at Cabbage Key, Naples, Marco Island. Marco was fun we meet friends from home, Barb&Dan and spent time with Trevor & Sharon. Our last port of the month was Everglade City, we docked at the Rod & Gun Club built in 1864, toured the town & one of the best small town museums that I have visited. Feb 1st finds us anchored in the Keys.

Off to Sarasota

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Ok. Back on the DeTour after two weeks with Mom back home.
We left Clearwater beach and are now at Sarasota Yacht Club for a couple of days
As we crossed Tampa Bay again we were greeted by our new friends. Never get tired of these guys.

our friends

sunshine skyway Tampa. on way to Sarasota

Our Top10 Highlights & Decembers Stats.

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Our Top10 Highlights & Decembers Stats

It’s hard to believe that we have been on the Loop for six months & nearly a year since I retired. We have travelled 2972 nm (5504 km) and put 473 hours on the engine during that time. DeTour has spent more nights in marinas (95) than at anchor (82) which is disappointing. We have kept screw ups to a minimum with only 2 minor incidents. Heated discussions, 6 (usually over silly things) not bad for living on a boat for six months.

Here are our Top 10 Highlights so far:

  1. The North Channel.
  2. Taking DeTour into L. Superior & visiting The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum.
  3. The sand dunes of Lake Michigan.
  4. Taking our boat through downtown Chicago, twice.
    (once at night with Katie)
  5. Traveling the historical inland rivers of United States
  6. Locking through 29 Very Large commercial locks.
  7. Meeting & passing tows with a hauling capacity of 22,500 tonnes.
  8. The glorious beaches of southern Alabama
  9. Swimming with the Manatees in Crystal River.
  10. All the wonderful friends that we have made.

December Stats
The month of December saw us travel 457 nm (1000 km), putting 70 hrs on the engine, consuming 568L of fuel, for a fuel bill of $1044.00. Our anchor to marina ratio was looking very favorable, unfortunately we ended up spending 7 days at marinas due to weather. As a result our days at anchor virtually equaled our days at Marinas, for a cost of $780.00. The major expense was the purchase of Starlink, which has been a game charger for data management. Number of screws ups and heated discussions (1 each) were connected. Colin & I have different philosophies of navigating through a sea of crab pots, especially a disorganized one! I prefer to hand steer while he likes to use the autohelm. As we entered a crab pot field off of Tarpon Springs, Colin insisted (heated discussion) that I try his method. Well I managed to catch a crab pot, luckily I was able to get the boat into neutral before it wrapped itself around the prop. His punishment was a swim in 10c water. I will be hand steering the next time.

Great Time In Pensacola!

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The Great Loop: Dec. 8-9.
One the things that makes doing the Loop special are the people you meet by happenstance. We were anchored at Perdido Key, near Pensacola with a few other boats. On our way to the beach to watch the sunset we stopped by another boat. The owner happened to be a retired TopGun Flight Instructor. We mentioned to him that we had hoped to visit the National Naval Aviation Museum. It is located on the Pensacola Air Force in Pensacola (home of the Blue Angels) & requires a military personnel escort to enter the base. We were over the moon when he volunteered to pick us up the next day & give us a personal tour of the museum. It was fascinating listing to his stories.
We ended our short stay in Pensacola with a trip to Joe Patti’s Seafood shop. Colin was in seafood heaven.