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:
- The North Channel.
- Taking DeTour into L. Superior & visiting The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum.
- The sand dunes of Lake Michigan.
- Taking our boat through downtown Chicago, twice.
(once at night with Katie) - Traveling the historical inland rivers of United States
- Locking through 29 Very Large commercial locks.
- Meeting & passing tows with a hauling capacity of 22,500 tonnes.
- The glorious beaches of southern Alabama
- Swimming with the Manatees in Crystal River.
- 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.
