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Americas Great Loop

avril - juin 2025
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The Great Loop from Florida follows the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, the Hudson River, the New York Canals, the Great Lakes, then south on the Inland Rivers to the Gulf Coast and back to FL to complete the Loop. En savoir plus
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  • VoyageurAmericas Great Loop

    Day 8: Savannah, GA, to Beaufort, SC

    22–25 avr., États Unis ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C

    6 hr 09 min. Remember to say 'BEW-fert'. We still have Georgia on our minds, and it's hard to believe we're in the city of Savannah as we depart on the Skidaway River, with a hard right rudder to immediately negotiate the first turn from the marina. The various suburbs are just through the trees, but you can't see them. Savannah is a major ocean port. There's a lot of industry around here. We get out of town safely.

    Another day of cautious cruising on the sinuous ICW follows, with Graeme accruing some more helm-hours in his virtual logbook.

    Despite tying up at Beaufort's Safe Harbor Marina right at downtown, at 1400, we're too late for the various horse-drawn and golf-cart tours of the town. The last ones are just leaving and they're all booked out. Seems we're not the only visitors in this historic town.

    We walk around and visit the Visitors Centre and an original house that is now a museum that presents the history of Beaufort... first the War of Independence then indigo then cotton then slavery then the Civil War (often known in the south as the War of National Aggression) then 'reconstruction', and now tourism.    En savoir plus

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  • VoyageurAmericas Great Loop
    1

    Day 7: Sunbury to Savannah

    21–22 avr., États Unis ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C

    4 hr 10 min. Half a day today, up another sinuous portion of the ICW, again with the company of dolphins, and into historic Savannah for an afternoon of exploring. What will be open on a Georgian Easter Sunday? We'll see.

    Well, we pulled into the Isle of Hope Marina in a southern island suburb of Savannah, tied up, and left Preston to it as we ordered up an Uber and rode into the North Historic District of downtown Savannah, to catch a hop-on/hop-off bus tour... a 90 min circuit, and stay aboard if you want more; which we did to get back to the waterfront precinct for a very late lunch/early dinner. A totally excellent exercise!

    The so-called 'Spanish Moss' (which they tell us is neither Spanish nor moss) hanging from the Live Oak trees is such a 'down-home, southern feature, we can't help but think of numerous movies we've seen, including Forrest Gump, quite a bit of which was filmed in Savannah and its parks. Tonight we'll go back to the boat and get "Midnight In The Garden Of Evil" up on Prime Video. None of us has seen this and we should, as it features much of the Savannah we've just explored.

    Tomorrow, it's onwards to Beaufort (say BEW-fit) South Carolina, but tonight we have Georgia on our minds.    En savoir plus

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  • VoyageurAmericas Great Loop

    Day 6: Jekyll Is, GA, to Sunbury, GA

    20–21 avr., États Unis ⋅ 🌧 19 °C

    7 hr 36 min. To paraphrase Daniel Emmett, we're glad to be in the land of cotton! Another stupendous morning, and we slip the slip at around 0830 after Preston has cooked biscuits and sausage for breakfast. Well... it was supposed to be sausage, but Nina's fingers had apparently slipped when packing for Preston and we had a few burger patties in there as well. But we'll survive! We're heading for Midway, GA, today (actually, not so much 'Midway' as an historic old place called Sunbury), where we have bookings at both the local marina and the Sunbury Crab Co. restaurant, which Preston has advised we MUST dine at. And so we shall.

    Our waitress last night at Zachrys at Jekyll Is marina introduced herself as 'Hollis', and what an excellent Georgian ambassador she was. With her accent (How y'all doin?), Graeme thought she'd said 'Haul-arse', and Lorraine had to caution the two of us against our sniggering.

    Another cloudless day... scarcely a breeze. We depart and curve our way up the Mackay River, passing under a sight quite unique to Georgia... a bridge that has been closed and bypassed by a new structure high enough to accommodate the masts of sailboats on the ICW. The old bridge remains, with the channel spans removed, and exists as two stub-end fishing platforms.

    Graeme and I obtain some advanced helm experience in confined and curving waterways. Hopefully. we'll get better... (from somewhere in the bowels of the boat, "Ferg... where are we goin'?"). Yessir, we can only improve...

    The ICW, on this portion of our sinuous voyage, takes us from the Mackay River, across Altamaha Sound, up the Little Mud River, across Doboy Sound, up Old Teakettle Creek and then the Laurel View River to dock at rustic Sunbury.

    G & L go 'into town' for a walk and look at the history (this used to be an important seaport), Preston goes up the dock for a swing and a chat with his wife, and I get some Aussie news on my laptop.

    At 1830 we repair to the (very) nearby Sunbury Crab Co. restaurant, where proprietor Elaine welcomes ua and agrees to a shoulder-hug photo with me ("Watch where you're putting that hand, buster"). We had sausage and fried wings, then fried flounder, lobster sauce with shrimp, black-eyed peas and collard greens, blackened shrimp with fries, and local beers. No, we didn't all eat that... it was our bill.

    Back to the boat to watch some TV and to sleep the sleep of the innocent.    En savoir plus

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  • VoyageurAmericas Great Loop

    Day 5: St Marys to Jekyll Island

    19–20 avr., Mexique ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    3 hr 50 min. A short one today. We rise without a rush into a totally still morning and wander 'uptown' to breakfast at one of St Marys' numerous eating houses. Graeme wonders how come such a small town has as many eateries and bars as it has.

    Preston remains aboard and gets ready for our departure, by which time a breeze has arrived. We slip away and curve back down the St Marys River. At the entrance we turn left and head up Cumberland Sound towards a restart of the ICW. In the process we pass the entrance to the East River and the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base. There's a boat tied up to one of the wharves and is partly covered and being worked on. A Navy security launch sits nearby to ensure that we don't come away from the ICW and towards the base.

    Four short hours up the ICW via the East River and Jekyll Sound brings us to the Jekyll Harbor Marina, where it's rush hour and we're number three for docking. Preston goes off to run an errand and G & L and I get the marina's free golf cart and trundle off to do a circuit of the island and see what we can see. It's something of a resort and convention island, with excellent RV and camping places plus up-market hotels. We arrive back at the marina in time for Happy Hour and dinner at Zachary's Riverhouse.

    After cheese grits with blackened shrimp (moi), blackened mahi-mahi fish, and hush puppies (fried corn-bread balls), and greek salad with blackened shrimps (Lorraine) and a few local beers (GH and moi), we waddle back to the boat.

    Tomorrow will be different...    En savoir plus

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  • VoyageurAmericas Great Loop
    1

    Day 4: St Augustine to St Marys

    17 avril, Mexique ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

    7 hr 18 min. Today we cross the state border into Georgia. We depart the slip early, to get ahead of a couple of sailboats (that take longer to manoeuvre) at the work-of-art, 1920s double-leaf, bascule drawbridge called the Bridge of Lions (look it up!). The two catamarans that are following us turn left up the ICW, but we forge directly ahead, out into the Atlantic Ocean.

    To save some time (Preston is thinking about building a small buffer so we can spend a few days at historic Charleston, SC), we go straight out to sea through the St Augustine Inlet and turn left to sail up the coast. It means we miss Jacksonville, FL, but we also miss some same-same tedious bits of the ICW.

    There is a light rolling swell on the starboard bow into which 45 North pitches gently with absolutely no rolling motion, thanks to the stabilisers. We cruise along the coast in genteel fashion, encountering a few sailboats, a large barge under tow, a warship doing a crew change at sea, and a big, slab-sided car carrier. A Sea-Hawk chopper from the warship gives us a low-altitude once-over and then proceeds to do some exercises away to our starboard side.

    We relax, and kick back. 45 North runs due north under auto-pilot and we just have to make sure our track ahead is clear. Adhering to his normal engine management process, Preston takes the opportunity to open the engines out for a 15 minute burst at 2400 rpm. Whereas we'd normally cruise up the ICW at 1430 rpm, 9 mph, and 7.5 gal/hr fuel consumption, we now surge ahead to 14 mph and 35 gal/hr consumption. But it's only for a brief quarter of an hour and our range is scarcely affected. When the throttle is subsequently retarded, it feels as if we're standing still!

    Eventually, we turn into the St Marys entrance and follow the channel in a serpentine route across Cumberland Sound and on to the bucolic village of St Marys, and its small marina, which is a favourite of Preston.

    We tie up, and an ever-helpful dockhand offers to take us on a golfcart tour of the viillage. From this, we suss out where to have an off-boat breakfast tomorrow and we locate the excellent submariners museum, with an hour-and-a-half to spare. St Marys as a town serves the nearby US Naval Submarine Base of Kings Bay.

    We dine on the boat... prime rib steaks on the bbq courtesy of Preston, and a coleslaw, sweet potato and spuds with peas courtesy of Lorraine, and cleanup courtesy of Ferg.    En savoir plus

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  • VoyageurAmericas Great Loop
    21

    Day 3: New Smyrna Beach to St Augustine

    16 avril, Mexique ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    8 hrs. Today we run up the ICW from New Smyrna Beach to historic St Augustine, the 'oldest city' in North America. We tie up at the St Augustine Municipal Marina beside the historic 1920s Bridge of Lions, and right on the edge of town.

    We find that we're too late for the tourist trolleys, so go for a walk up the nearby tourist-trap mall, St George St, then around to the 'Saint' Italian restaurant on the historic St Augustine bayfront, where we score an excellent table on the balcony, overlooking the Matanzas Bay and the bridge. Here we celebrate Lorraine's birthday in suitable style.

    Thus replete, we wander off into the dusk to examine the nearby Castilo de San Marcos, a VERY old fort that is now a national monument. Look it up, and you'll know as much about it as we do.

    We don't have any daylight left to find the original (and famous) Flagler hotels, both now civic amenities. Back to the boat...    En savoir plus

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  • VoyageurAmericas Great Loop

    Day 2: Melbourne to New Smyrna Beach, FL

    15 avril, Mexique ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C

    8 hrs. A superb day dawns in Melbourne, and we are back on the ICW by 0830. It's breezy today, and Graeme and I--still learning how to handle the wheel--have our work cut out to maintain steadiness along the channel. Added to our challenge is that the wind, quartering from the NW, moves across the water and seems to make the surface 'move'. In turn, this makes one think the boat is turning when it is not, and the instinctive reaction is to steer it back. The solution? Stay on the screens.

    We are accompanied at times by dolphins and, from time to time, get glimpses of the elusive manatee. We are now out of the 'boring' and broad parts of the Indian River and into a more confined waterway. Sometimes we even have to navigate the boat around corners.

    We arrive at the marina and are moored around 1630, in time to crack a stubbie and get some snacks onto the table in the cockpit. We crank up the grill (bbq) for some superior sausagian cuisine, but it's up on the flybridge and the wind blows the gas flame out, so Graeme repairs to the galley and breaks out the frying pan. Lorraine has made a nice coleslaw.    En savoir plus

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  • VoyageurAmericas Great Loop

    Day 1: Hobe Sound, FL, to Melbourne, FL

    14 avril, États Unis ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

    8 hrs. This will be our first day on the 'Loop' (Florida-to-Michigan). I don't intend to write a long narrative for each day, but thought I'd register a few thoughts and observations on these first couple of days, as we settle into the daily routine and as various experiences begin to become routine. Also, I'll endeavour to include some trip-log detail from the Nebo software that Preston runs.

    We depart the private and anonymous Loblolly Bay Marina into Peck Lake on the Indian River. 'Loblolly' comes from the name of a genus of pine tree that is common to this southern climate, and I think there's a less complimentary local usage of the word, as well. But the marina is part of a private gated community (and the residents want to keep it that way, no admittance to riff-raff!). We sign in with the gate-guard, and thereafter display a certificate on our rental car dashboard to facilitate our regular coming-and-going.

    This is the beginning of the long navigation up the Indian River that Preston finds 'boring'... so Graeme and I will get to run the boat over lengthy portions while Preston attends to documentation and paper work below. He will be keeping one of his dolphin's weather eyes on whomever is steering though, to make sure we're 'in the channel' at all times.

    We run about 80 miles and eventually slide into the Melbourne Harbor Marina in the late afternoon. I've been to Melbourne, FL, three times over the past couple of decades, so we three go uptown (which is nearby) to see if I remember anything of the main drag. I don't, so we stop at Meg O'Malley's Restaurant & Irish Pub for dinner. We negotiate the double track of the Florida East Coast Railroad, which carries freight trains between Jacksonville and Miami, some of them doing 80 km/h through the centre of town (with MUCHO lusty blowing of the horn, it has to be said). Lorraine thinks the 5-chime locomotive airhorns sound as good as the whistle on US Sugar's ol' 148. I do not disagree.

    I'll add some images. Any videos you can speed up while playing.    En savoir plus

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  • VoyageurAmericas Great Loop

    Hobe Sound

    10–14 avr., États Unis ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

    Hobe (rhymes with 'robe') Sound is part of the AICW up the coast from Miami, and is a smidge north of West Palm Beach. This is where Captain Preston winters '45 North' and it's where we'll board the vessel on 10th and get ready for our departure north on 14 April. We take the 'Brightline' up to the West Palm Beach stop (an 80-min ride at up to 130 km/h between stations) where Preston meets us. He has some stuff to do so hands us his rental car for a couple of days. We drop him off and proceed to the Henry Flagler Museum ('Whitehall') to learn about the man who did the most to create Florida as a destination, by building a massive hotel at St Augustine and then by building a railroad mostly over the sea to Key West.En savoir plus

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  • VoyageurAmericas Great Loop

    Miami

    5–10 avr., États Unis ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C

    Miami is worth the effort. We're staying on the beachfront in South Beach and anyone who's familiar with art deco Napier in NZ will instantly see that this whole precinct is Napier on steroids. Whereas Napier's art deco rebuild originated from a deadly earthquake, Miami's originated from a deadly hurricane. Ocean Dve, where we stayed, was wall-to-wall art-deco hotels all built in that era. We visited the Art Deco Museum for fantastic images of the history of the district.

    We've enjoyed the Hop-on/Hop-off bus tour and a harbour cruise... and we've experienced the expansive beach and warm Atlantic Gulfstream waters. The H0p-On/Off bus is the usual excellent way to get an early sense of a city. We also rode the driverless MetroMover--for its whole route(s)--which provides another, this time elevated, view of part of downtown Miami. Not to be missed! I videoed the whole route (through the leading windscreen)... but only for those who might like that sort of thing. Although guided, it runs on rubber tyres. The harbour cruise takes you around the various man-made islands proximate to the Venetian and MacArthur Causeways, past numerous billionaire residences and the mind-boggling ocean cruise terminal.    En savoir plus

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