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Americas Great Loop

kwietnia - czerwca 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. Czytaj więcej
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  • PodróżnikAmericas Great Loop

    Day 26: Washington DC to Colonial Beach

    9 maja, Stany Zjednoczone ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C

    Graeme is on the lines, and we're off the slip at 0800 as planned, and--in light rain--we 'slip' off down the Washington Channel and out into the Potomac. Farewell DC. You gave us great temperatures and fair weather for our visit.

    Today we retrace our route to Colonial Beach as the cloud ceiling rises, but not far. It's cooler today; a portent of New York, perhaps. With the tide and river current favouring us, we slide downriver, sheltering in the wheelhouse from the fresh breeze, and arrive back at the same berth at the Boathouse Marina we left 4 days ago. In the process, we again pass Fort Washington, originally built to protect Washington DC from the Brits and later from the Confederacy. The surrounding vegetation makes it all but impossible to photograph from the river.

    Approaching the 'bridge-with-the-very-long-name' (but also, happily, known as the Route 301 Potomac River Bridge) we round the bend where a shoal is guarded by the Mathias Point light. Talk about shags on a rock! How about 100 shags on 100 rocks?

    Originally a ‘light station’, Mathias Point was placed at the edge of a shoal jutting out from this major bend in the Potomac River; the point considered as one of the most dangerous locations to navigation on the river. In 1873, the United States naval steamer Frolic went ashore, remained grounded for over two weeks, and cost $6,000 to refloat. Congress eventually appropriated funding, and plans were drawn up for a Light Station; the three-level design resembling a wedding cake. Commissioned in December 1876, the light station exhibited a fifth-order Fresnel lens (Wikipedia can explain this).

    The light was automated in 1951 and decommissioned in 1961, and dismantled in 1963. The current light is a steel tower on the original screwpile supports and displays a 44-foot high, 6-second flashing green light. Surrounding riprap dumped during the 1800s to protect the structure from ice floes provides a safe and convenient roost for seabirds.

    We tie up at 1500 with the help of a couple of locals who see us coming. The local brewery beckons, but I decide to exercise some restraint. Lorraine goes for a walk and finds some new reading material in a streetside Lilliput Library.

    We eat a fullsome meal aboard, and Preston goes to town to satisfy a temporary yen for Mexican cuisine.     Czytaj więcej

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  • PodróżnikAmericas Great Loop

    Day 25: Washington DC

    5 maja, Stany Zjednoczone ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    Another glassy morning on the Washington Channel. A duck and 6 ducklings say 'good morning'. Lorraine comments that you just wouldn't know that we were close to downtown. The jets at Reagan are all we hear.

    I hoof up to the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum, a 30-min stroll. The queue outside the door is already about 49 miles long, but I manage to secure a morning pass on my phone, and then I go baaaaack to the end of the line. It moves pretty soon and I'm IN! I won't go into how delightful the whole place is... technically brilliant! Please Google it if you'd like to know what it looks like, but I WILL show a few images that resonated with me. You can move on quickly if the subject matter is of no interest to you.

    After I'd satisfied myself--including coffee and a grossly overpriced toastie for breakfast--I departed for the nearby Metro station and the Silver Line train out to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, near Washington Dulles Intl Airport, about 1.5 hrs away by train and bus. This is WAY out of town and is the annex to the Air & Space Museum in DC. It's superb too! I choose to do the 2-hr guided tour. Our guide is an old navy aviator with a Biggles moustache. It suddenly occurs to me that there's probably two generations now who don't know who Biggles is/was (sigh...). I get a good orientation of the museum and an intensive description of some of the major exhibits (e.g. the SR71 Blackbird spy plane, the prototype Boeing 707 that test pilot Tex Johnston barrel-rolled--twice--in front of a crowd at Seattle two years after I was born, the B-29 Superfortress--the actual one--that dropped the first Atomic bomb on Japan, the actual Wright Flyer that made the first manned heavier-than=air flight, and numerous others). Our guide acknowledged that a NZ farmer may indeed have beaten the Wright brothers to that first flight, but stated--quite reasonably--that until there's verified evidence, then Orville and Wilbur have it.

    Preston returns tonight and we're intending to catch tomorrow's ebb-tide around 0800. It is sad to be leaving, but we can't hang in one place forever. DC has done pretty well for us, but we have to move on.

    G&L were unsuccessful in their attempt to get into and up the Washington Memorial. They're about a fortnight too late. Next time!

    We eschew the numerous nearby eateries, and have lamb chops, coleslaw, and spuds on board.

    Goodnight Irene...     Czytaj więcej

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  • PodróżnikAmericas Great Loop

    Day 24: Washington DC

    5 maja, Stany Zjednoczone ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    A quieter day. I had a sleep-in, walked uptown for a haircut, and a very late lunch at the Bistro du Jour here on the waterfront (which included a Colette's Punch cocktail... mango-infused vodka, Rhubarb Liqueur, Cassis, lemon, and bubbles 😄).

    G&L walked up to the Mall and visited the White House Visitor Centre (for a WH tour, there's a 4-week waiting list and you have to undergo a security vetting which includes being 'recommended' by your own embassy, so that was the end of that) then went to the Museum of American History. After all our various perambulations, we were plumb tuckered out, so we hung out onboard. Tomorrow's another day.     Czytaj więcej

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  • PodróżnikAmericas Great Loop

    Day 23: Washington DC

    5 maja, Stany Zjednoczone ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    We're having a ball in DC, and we're now used to the jets coming and going over the river at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Our HO/HO bus tour yesterday was a great start and we want to finish the circuit today AND alight at Arlington National Cemetary. Graeme and Lorraine are contributing some great photographic material for the blog and for their Fb page, so I mostly concentrate on just looking at Washington DC. The various famous places in this city (e.g. White House, U.S. Capitol, Supreme Court Building, National Mall, Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, and Washington Monument) are fairly well-known and easily able to be looked up online, so it's not my intention to provide all of that in the blog; more to provide a record of our experiences here.

    We have lunch at Washington's Union Station (in the process, locating the Claytor Concourse; see the photo included here and the document attached back at the Day 3 Footprint) and reboard the BigBus, on which we arrive at Arlington (along with about 20 tour-coach loads of school kids) and find that we're in time to take a guided tour that will enable us to see a changing of the guard at the Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier. Also, for me to locate George Westinghouse's grave (Sect 2, grave 3418). This tour is really a 'must-do', and you should look up the Changing of the Guard ceremony on YouTube. In summer (now) they change every 30 min and in the rest of the year it's every hour. The spectacle is pure Americana... part solemn and reverential and part theatrical. It really should not be missed. The tour includes Arlington House, with its history and view over the city.

    We conclude at Arlington, and take the Metro subway from the nearby station back into and through town. We have to change from the Blue to the Green line at L'enfant Plaza and do so, only to find there's a delay caused by 'someone on the road' (meaning track). The rush hour is piling onto the platform, so we take a quick vote and scarper up to the street, where I call up an Uber. Lorraine has previously secured three seats at the Nationals Park Baseball Stadium, as there's a week of major-league games in DC at the moment. We're going to see the Washington Nationals v The Cleveland Guardians (used to be The Indians). We arrive in time to hear--and see on a big screen--the presentation of The Star-Spangled Banner by DC Washington (no, really! Dwight Clyde Washington has been singing the National Anthem at American sports arenas for years), but we just miss the The Gay Men's Chorus singing America the Beautiful, Mayor Muriel Bowser announcing "play ball", and the First Pitch. Still, we get food and drink and find our seats (great seats!) no trouble.

    We enjoy the game, even though the home team is trounced, and I am nearly (like, 6 inches away!) bonked by a high ball that comes back behind the batsman, bounces off the fascia of a level behind us, then bounces off the stairway railing right beside my noggin. Someone grabs the ball and has a great souvenir of the game, but sadly, it's not me.

    We catch a taxi from the game back to the marina. What a day!     Czytaj więcej

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  • PodróżnikAmericas Great Loop

    Day 22: Colonial Bch to Washington DC

    5 maja, Stany Zjednoczone ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

    Today, we depart the State named for the English 'Virgin Queen' and enter a State named after an English baron's wife (well, we actually entered Maryland yesterday but then we left it again to enter Colonial Beach). The city of Washington sits in a 'federal district' landlocked within the State of Maryland, of course, just as Canberra in Australia sits landlocked in the Australian Capital Territory within New South Wales. We'll go about 70 miles today. For the last several days we've been traversing territory very familiar to our captain, who spent some years as a railroad manager in these parts, specifically Virginia's Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula.'

    We pick our way out of Monroe Creek, again dodging around crab-pot lines, and take up a northerly course out into the Potomac... still broad at this point. It will not remain so as we venture further towards Washington D.C. and our marina located in the Washington Channel, just south of the city centre.

    The narrowing of the Potomac commences as we pass beneath the 2.7 km long Potomac River Bridge (officially--take a deep breath--the 'Governor Harry W. Nice Memorial/Senator Thomas "Mac" Middleton Bridge'). The deactivated Morgantown thermal power station chimney stacks are a feature as we pass. 'Narrower', but still between 3 and 5 miles at this point.

    As we have, all the way, we see a lot of waterfowl and other birdlife. The Potomac River here is still very much a tidal estuary. Fantastic.

    We slide past George Washington's home on the hill at Mt Vernon, beneath the President Wilson Woodrow drawbridge (you have to give 12 hrs notice of the need to raise it and they will only do it between midnight and 0500), and past the Washington National (Ronald Reagan) Airport. Our passage up into the Washington Channel includes passing over the wreckage site of the utterly tragic crash that occurred on 29 January after a collision between an airliner that was on final approach to the airport and a military helicopter.

    We had benefitted from a following tidal current on our run up the Potomac, and--unexpectedly early--were tied up at the Capital Yacht Club Marina before 3.00 pm. We three thus hastened to get off the boat, leaving Preston to wash it down, and headed a block away to catch a BigBus Hop-On/Hop-Off while there was still time. Our tour around DC included being stopped at an intersection for a Secret Service cavalcade headed for the White House; about 10 motorcycles with sireens wailing and blue-and-reds flashing, followed by a couple of black police Chev Surbitons (the ones you see on CIA movies) and a further anonymous 6 or 8 Surbitons and two police cars. No, it wouldn't have been POTUS (travelling by road through DC), but could have been the Vice-Pres or one of the favoured new departmental heads (Rubio/Bessent/RFK Jnr et al). We were all so entranced that we quite forgot to get our cameras out 😖.

    We had purchased 48-hr BigBus tickets, so we'll return tomorrow for the bit we missed when the tour abruptly finished at knock-off time outside Union Station. We have three full days here... it'll be a blast.

    We have dinner on-board tonight.     Czytaj więcej

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  • PodróżnikAmericas Great Loop

    Day 21: Reedville to Colonial Beach

    4 maja, Stany Zjednoczone ⋅ 🌧 20 °C

    Preston fries the remainder of the 'hot' sausage and makes corn muffins for the crew. I fry my last-night left-over meatloaf from the restaurant. A rainy front passes and we wait for an hour. We untie as the rain subsides, and are under way by around 0915.

    It’ll be another day of ‘broadwater cruising’. Our course is back out into Chesapeake Bay with a left turn after Fleeton Point to take us up the 'coast' toward Smith Point before another left turn will admit us into the broad mouth of the Potomac River.

    It's worth considering some dimensions of Chesapeake Bay. It is the largest estuary in the US. Its drainage basin (166,534 sq km) covers portions of six states. Its width ranges from 4.5 to 30 km. Its 11,601 sq km of water are bordered by 18,804 km of shoreline, including tributaries.

    From the Smith Point lighthouse (now un-staffed, of course), which is about 3 miles offshore, we will run almost 50 miles up the Potomac to reach our tie-up for the night.

    The showers have stopped, the sky is clearer, and the wind has subsided as we make our way from the broad Potomac along the channel, dodging lobster pots, and into the super-sheltered Monroe Creek, where we tie up (with the aid of a couple of boaties who have noticed our arrival) at The Boathouse Marina.

    Graeme and Lorraine decide to foray into the town to see what's what, while I (deciding that I already know what 'towns' look like) walk a few blocks along the creek waterfront to the local craft brewery for a tasting rack and a bar meal.

    G & L have found a Thai restaurant while Preston is eating on the boat. I join him in the cockpit as the ducks and herons say goodnight. We'll be back here in 5 days' time.     Czytaj więcej

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  • PodróżnikAmericas Great Loop
    1

    Day 20: Norfolk, VA, to Reedville, VA

    3 maja, Stany Zjednoczone ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C

    W're off the dock around 0750, and head out into Norfolk Harbour, closely tailed by an outbound container vessel. Preston says, "He'll go faster than us. I'll let him go by and cross his wake." The Norfolk pilot on board talks to an inbound warship, also with a Norfolk pilot and the two of them discuss how they're going to do the cross (the warship waits for the box-ship to pass). We're soon clear of the harbour, and with Newport News away to our left, we're soon crossing above the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnels, where a construction project is installing a further two tubes.

    By 0900 we're pointing out into the vast Chesapeake Bay, and soon thereafter we turn left and start a long traverse north up the bay, destination Ingram Bay then Reedville on Cockrell Creek. Preston has decided, due to forecast winds later in the evening, that we'll be better off docking rather than anchoring out, which we were going to do. Reedville is a convenient 'jumping off' point for our two-day voyage up the Potomac to Washington DC.

    Apart from the house-fly-sized black flies (you can't see how they manage to be away out here over the water) who are enjoying the benign conditions of our following breeze, we see a couple of distant bLoopers going our way and numerous ocean-going ships heading up or down, presumably to or from Baltimore. We follow the bay coastline, around 4 or 5 miles off to our port side, but off to starboard there is nothing but the horizon.

    Eventually, we're able to turn left and motor into Ingram Bay then Cockrell Creek and finally into the Fairport Marina, across the creek from Reedville. Reedville is and has been (since 1874) a fish-oil processing port, processing an oily fish called 'menhaden'. There used to be several processing plants but now only one remains. The town was even known, during one early era, as the wealthiest town per-capita in the US.

    We dock, have a beer and a shower, and make our way off the jetty to the rustic little restaurant nearby.

    To say this was a 'downhome' country America experience would be an understatement. We made friends with the staff and had an enjoyable and relaxing evening until eventually we were the only patrons left..

    Tonight, there may be a storm out on the bay, but it shouldn't affect us in our sheltered mooring. Tomorrow, we commence our voyage up the Potomac to Washington DC.     Czytaj więcej

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  • PodróżnikAmericas Great Loop

    Interim: Our route for PHASE ONE

    2 maja, Stany Zjednoczone ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    Here's our route, departing Loblolly Marina, Hobe Sound FL, on 14 April 25 to arrival at the Norfolk Yacht & Country Club on the Lafayette River, Norfolk, VA, on 1 May 25.

    Details for Day 19 will be posted (for those with patience) when I've got sufficient energy! Czytaj więcej

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  • PodróżnikAmericas Great Loop
    1

    Day 19: At Norfolk, VA

    1 maja, Stany Zjednoczone ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    We leave the marina and Uber out to a nearby car rental agency. We're intent on a trip out of town to Colonial Williamsburg and perhaps Yorktown. It is not to be... there are no cars available. We later find that naval personnel and dockyard workers are a BIG customer of the smaller agencies. We could go out to the airport and get one of the big names (and probably some Frequent Flyer or AAdvantage points for Ferg), but we decide it's too far. We may have dodged a bullet, as the highways are said to have been very busy.

    So, we call up another Uber and head downtown to the Visitor's Centre for some local advice. They're excellent, and so is the centre. We're directed a short stroll to the Nauticus Museum and the battleship USS Wisconson. We leave the Visitor's Centre, and stop five doors down at a D'Egg diner where we have what was supposed to be 'smoko', but turned into an early lunch due to the extended time for the orders to arrive at the table, then another block to the Nauticus Museum. The interpretive displays and activities in this museum are simply incredible. No wonder there are school parties being bussed in. We are able to fit in a too-brief look around the Wisconson before we have to make our way over to the nearby wharf to embark upon a 2-hr harbour cruise. This concentrates on the military history of this fascinating naval town, and we see and learn about many vessels currently in port, and some of the shipyard maintenance processes. The size and scale of the USN footprint here is breathtaking.

    We grab some grocery items at a convenience store downtown, call an Uber, and head back to the marina.     Czytaj więcej

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  • PodróżnikAmericas Great Loop

    Day 18: Coinjock, NC, to Norfolk, VA

    1 maja, Stany Zjednoczone ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    WE awaken to yet another bright, calm morning, but our alarm clock is someone beside the wharf with a lawn mower! Good on them!

    We're off the dock by 0730. Graeme's on the lines while Preston inches the boat forward for him, and I set about chammying things down after last night's thunder storm and downpour.

    We motor up the short remainder of the North Carolina Cut and into Coinjock Bay from where the channel soon leads us into Currituck Sound and the North Landing River. The ICW takes us through North Landing River in a narrow channel, belied by the visual breadth of the river. The river presents as a sound at this location. depth in the channel is around 13 ft and around us in the 'bay', 3, 4, or 5 ft. You could walk across this wide river at this point. We talk to a southbound tug... he wants us to pass on his 'One', ie port-to-port. Preston moves across for him and we briefly see 8 and 9 ft of water beneath us.

    At 30 statute miles (yes, we only have 30 miles of the Atlantic ICW to negotiate), we're into the sinuous North Landing River proper and heading up to the Albemarle & Chesapeake Canal that will lead us up to the Great Bridge Lock (the first for us on this voyage) thence into the southern branch of the Elizabeth River and finally the Lafayette River at Norfolk.

    The Great Bridge Lock isn't really a 'lift-you-up-or-down' arrangement. Rather, it's to control the salinity level in the North Landing River and thus also Currituck Sound by limiting tidewater from the Elizabeth River flowing back down the canal to the North Landing River. Graeme and I hold the lines on our port side but the boat doesn't get any lower, before the gates ahead open and we pull in our lines and lead our procession of about 15 other vessels (that have gathered behind us since we left Coinjock, and are probably mostly 'bLoopers') out into the Elizabeth River.

    Our voyage towards Norfolk--about 12 miles distant--is delayed several times as we wait for bridges to open and, in one case, a tug holding a barge against a dock while a massive crane is walked onto it.

    A coal train crossing a bridge holds us up at one bridge as does a caboose hop at another as we arrive into industrial (and naval) Norfolk. Some of the bLoopers behind us peel off and head for the Waterside Hotel and its marina. The American Great Loop Cruisers Assn is holding its annual Rendezvous here at the moment.

    Preston's brother-in-law, who dined with us at Coinjock last night, meets us on the dock at the Norfolk Yacht & Country Club just into the Lafayette River, and PHASE ONE of our great journey is done.

    Having started from near West Palm Beach rather than down in Key West, we've negotiated about 90% of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and what an experience it's been! Graeme and I crack a beer while Preston and Sam take 5 oil samples from the engines.

    PHASE TWO will take us from here to Waterford, NY, where the Mohawk River meets the Hudson River., PHASE THREE will take us through about half of what is known as the 'Erie Canal' (more correctly, the New York State Barge Canal) to Oswego on Lake Ontario, and PHASE FOUR will be the Great Lakes from Oswego via the Welland Ship Canal, Cleveland, and Detroit to Traverse City, Michigan.

    We three walk to the yacht club restaurant for a celebratory dinner. Tomorrow, we'll shop and then explore some of Virginia's history.

    Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......     Czytaj więcej

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