Getting ready!

Less than a month before departing for Canada and our list of things to accomplish before leaving is getting shorter (but still exists).

We hope to leave Merritt Island around April 27th, weather permitting. We have made some major improvements since last year: a mechanism to allow us to lower the mast to bring our air draft down from 22 1/2 feet to 15 1/2 feet (we'll need the lower clearance in order to transit some of the canals in New York state and Canada), have purchased a new 10 foot Achilles dinghy which will be much more stable and comfortable, replaced both holding tanks and all the sanitation hose, replaced the entire house bank of batteries (10 Trojan T-105 6 volt batteries providing 1100 amps of 12 volt power), replaced all the interior incandescent 12 volt bulbs with LEDs, replaced the running and anchor light bulbs with LEDs, added additional shelving in storage spaces, and added removable side awnings, along with a lot of smaller additions and changes.

Our cruise this year will take us north on the IntraCoastal Waterway (ICW) from Florida to Norfolk, Virginia; up Chesapeake Bay, through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and down Delaware Bay to Cape May, New Jersey; up the New Jersey coast into the Hudson River at New York City; up the Hudson River as far as it's junction with the Erie Canal north of Troy, New York; into the Erie Canal to the Finger Lakes west of Syracuse, then into Lake Ontario via the Oswego Canal; through the Trent-Severn Waterway to Georgian Bay and return; the Thousand Islands area at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River; the Rideau Canal to Ottawa and down the Ottawa River into the St. Lawrence Seaway to Montreal; to Sorel and the beginning of the Richelieu Canal to Lake Champlain; finally returning to the Hudson River and retracing our track to Florida! We're estimating the total distance to be about 8,000 statute miles. Along the way we'll be joined by family and friends who will be aboard for various lengths of time; Andrew and his family will be joining us for a month for part of the Canadian portion of the cruise.

The cats haven't yet been told that they'll need to put on their sea legs in a few weeks!

You can check out our blogs from previous years here:
2008 at 2008 Cruise to Bay of Fundy
2009 at 2009 Cruise to Chesapeake Bay
2010 at 2010 Cruise on the St. Johns River