We Have Crossed our Wake!

Monday, April 2, 2018 Islamorada

Yesterday we said good-bye to friends and headed out of Marathon, headed south to go under the 7 mile bridge (following a deep channel) and headed north to Islamorada and the marina we left a year ago. It was a beautiful day for our last voyage (sigh!)

Now we are back to where we started the Great Loop. Loopers call this ‘crossing your wake’. So after about a year and over 6,000 miles our fabulous journey comes to an end.

A quick recap: We started from here, Islamorada in the Florida Keyes, on April 11th 2017, with not much experience but a lot of excitement and anticipation. We had some mishaps along the way but what a great adventure. Looking the the attached map here’s our path:

– We went all the way up the Atlantic ICW, Chesapeake and Delaware Bays to the NJICW, through NYC and the Hudson River, north through Lake Champlain to the St. Lawrence River and past Montreal

–  Up the Ottawa River to Ottawa, capital of Canada,

– Down the Canadian Rideau Canal system to Lake Ontario, then to Belleville and Trent Ontario,

– Up the Canadian  Trent-Severn canal system to Georgian Bay, Lake Huron and its North Channel.

– Down the beautiful east side of Lake Michigan viewing huge sand dunes along the way and then at the bottom,  west to just below Chicago

–  Through the canal that leads to the Illinois River and then to the Mississippi River

– After St. Louis we went up the Ohio River and then down the Cumberland River to the Kentucky Lakes and then the Tennessee-Tombigbee river and canal system to Mobile Alabama (where we left the boat while we headed home for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays)

– Across the beautiful Alabama gold coast and Florida panhandle, then crossed to the West Coast of Florida and  where we spent some time before arriving in Marathon in the Keyes

– And now a few more miles north to Islamorada where we began.

We enjoyed so many places big and small and experienced sites we never could have imagined. But of course, it’s the people we met and visited along the way that really made the trip special in so many ways.  And also the blog followers that once in while let us know they were there – thank-you all!

Here are some final photos as we leave Marathon, and arrive at our small but just right Treasure Harbor Marina in Islamorada.

Thanks for you support! It’s been an amazing year!

Postscript: Facts from the trip…

• Wandering Star went through 138 locks!  102 were in Canada on their beautiful heritage canal systems.
• We stayed and marinas and anchored out/moored about an equal number of days.
• We began April 11 2017 and finished April 4 2018, almost a year of thinking about boating and the Great Loop. We went home (Thanksgiving and Christmas for example) or to Sarah’s a number of times so the actual time traveling was about 9 months.
• We sold the boat for about what we paid for it (minus all the repairs !:)) within 2 months.
• It was the best year ever!