Day 87-89. June 27-29 In Cohoes, NY lay days and flying to Atlanta to see grandbaby

Day 87-88

Some pictures from the Blain’s Marina near Cohoes, NY

Here are some drone shots from our marina .

We slept late and cleaned the boat, did laundry, and caught up on photo management. Bill tweaked the salt water pump and replaced the VHF radio.

The photo above shows Bill lying in the cabinet that houses the electronics on the fly bridge in order to access the VHF radio.

Took time away from chores to go on a bike ride. There was a nice bike path that went to a local park.

Next we packed up to get ready to fly to Atlanta to see my daughter and her new baby, Avery, and celebrate her other daughter Mia’s second birthday. We are excited to be reconnecting with family. Kyle will join us for a few days while we are in Atlanta, so the whole family will be together.

We will take an Uber to the Albany airport and fly direct into Atlanta tomorrow early afternoon.

As we will be in Atlanta for a week, I will collect photos to post and share at least once while we are away in Atlanta. Grand baby sitting takes precedence over blogging!

Reflections on the Great Loop -

Over the 5 and half months last year and the almost 7 months this year for a total of 351 days, we travelled 6348 miles, through two countries 19 states, traversed over 200 locks to find large cities, small towns, farmland, and vast natural waterways and bays. Our route took us through sites of the Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and Civil War, as well as the history of how America grew along her waterways. Beginning with canoes, rafts and barges people and goods moved through these waters. The sailing sloops and steamships changed these rivers, requiring locks and canals to be built to facilitate travel and commerce. Today it is amazing how much commerce moves through these waters. We developed a healthy respect for the freighter and tow captains and lock masters and harbor masters that keep the system working. We have lasting impressions of early morning sunrises, beautiful sunsets, and moonlit bays, the hospitality in all the towns we visited, the vast undeveloped shorelines

Day 194-195. 2nd year. December 3. On to Redington/Clearwater and then to Home. Miles 15 Total MIles 6021

Slept in again. Was nice to finally catch up on our sleep. Found our morning a bit foggy but promises to be a sunny day once it burns off. One of the boaters attracted a female manatee and her baby with his hose, so we walked over to the next dock to enjoy the show. Manatee are often found in shallow areas this time of year as they like the warm water. They also will take advantage of access to freshwater, especially if a hose is left hanging over the side of a boat. Bill also took some drone shots of Caladesi State Park. We did one last beach walk before we left today, turning north to explore that part of the island. Found a few turbans, an olive, 2 small horse conch and a whelk for our shell treasures today. Sea fog started to come in off the Gulf so we turned around and headed back to the boat. We left later in the day as we had to be close to a high tide to get out the channel at Caladesi. A local boater offered to lead the way to a cut that provides more water so we took

April 2 2022. We cast off our lines!

Day 1. April 2 We cast off our lines at 9:00am on out Great Loop adventure. Our friends, Phil and Aggie helped record our departure. The weather was overcast as we traveled out our canal and into Tampa Bay. As we approached the Skyway bridge a dolphin twice leaped completely out of the water, playing in our bow wake. An omen of good fortune for our adventure! As we ended our Tampa Bay crossing, the sun began to peek out and as we traversed past Longboat Key/Bradenton and entered Sarasota we had ourselves a sunny day. We traveled 34.4 nautical miles in four hours and anchored behind Otter Key, a mangrove Island near Lido Key in Sarasota. There we joined another boat from St Petersburg, FL. The owners were for many years sailors from the Caribbean down to Panama. What adventures they shared! The anchorage sports lots of manatees, dolphin and of course, the osprey who lords over Otter Key. Once settled properly, we took a nap, Will spend the rest of our day with a glass of wine

Crustacean Travels

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