Tag Archives: AGLCA
February Stats
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
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.
Video #5 The North Channel Part 1
Video #5 is now up on Youtube, North Channel Part 1.
We hope you enjoy it.
Our Top10 Highlights & Decembers Stats.
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.
Great Time In Pensacola!
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.
