Planning Philosophy and Resources

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's) planning and preparation for cruising the Great Loop, and once on the water, our cruising adventures! 

OUR PLANNING PHILOSOPHY

We will be doing at least part of the Loop with Flint and Leslie Firestone, owners of the C-Dory Venture 26 Grace Full. Flint and I were discussing planning the trip a few days ago. The Firestones have done the Loop previously on a large trawler. Flint remarked "I'm just going to wing it." Of course, not all who wander are lost!

Grace Full - See the Family Resmblance to Daydream?

I'm not a "wing it" kind of guy! We're going to plan a bit, but we will not have a set itinerary or a day-by-day schedule. We'll decide each night how far we want to go the following day and where we want to spend the night. We will make a lot of stops to "smell the roses." We will have folding bikes, and will explore the many towns along the way that strike our fancy. If we like some place, we might decide to stay a day or a week.

In a nutshell, we are planning so we will know where we want to go, what lies along the way, and what the best anchorages and marinas are. We are planning to be prepared to cope with hazards and challenges, such as big open water crossings, weather, swift currents in some locations, shoaling (as Kitty Nicolai said on the America's Great Loop Cruisers Association forum she found that "there is actually no water in the Gulf of Mexico and along Florida's west coast - it's all an optical illusion") and even alligators (everyone says alligators are not a problem, but I am not so sure).

OUR ROUTE AND GENERAL TIMETABLE

From the planning done to date (and there is a lot more to do!), we have chosen our route and general timetable. The red line on the map below graphically illustrates our route (map from The Great Circle Route by Skipper Bob Publications, used with permission). 

We'll start in Florida at the Caloosahatchee River near Ft. Myers and cross the Okeechobee Waterway. Then we'll proceed up the Atlantic ICW to the Chesapeake Bay. Then we'll cruise up the Chesapeake Bay to the C&D Canal to Delaware Bay, and the Delaware River down to Cape May, N.J.

From Cape May, we'll take the New Jersey ICW to Manasquan, going out into the ocean there to reach New York Harbor and the Hudson River. We'll go up the Hudson River to the Erie Canal, across the eastern half of the Erie Canal and up the Oswego Canal to Lake Ontario. We'll hopscotch around the eastern end of Lake Ontario, and work our way to Trenton, Ontario, to start the Trent-Severn Waterway. We'll cross the Trent-Severn Waterway to Georgian Bay, then take the North Channel to Village de Tour, where we will re-enter the U.S.

We'll go to Mackinac Island and to Lake Michigan. We'll cruise the eastern shore of Lake Michigan to Chicago. Then we will head from Chicago to Mobile, AL, via the inland river system, including the Illinois River, the Mississippi River, the Ohio River, the Cumberland River, the Tennessee River, the Tenn-Tom Waterway and the Tombigbee River. Finally, we will return to Florida via the Gulf ICW, cross the Gulf of Mexico, and "cross our wake" at the Caloosahatchee River where we started. There are a number of alternate routes, but this is a pretty standard route.

How long will it this take? We don't know. We have decided not to do the Loop in "legs" but rather to do it all at one time. We have given ourselves eight months. Some do it faster, others do it slower, but we are pretty sure eight months should be adequate.

If you assume an average of 50 miles cruising per day (no, we are not planning to go exactly 50 miles per day!), this route would take about 120 days of cruising. We have given ourselves about twice that much time. Some of that time will be spent exploring on our bikes. Some of it will be waiting for good weather. Our only schedule imperative is to be headed back to Washington State by December 1 for Christmas with our kids and grandkids in a lodge we have rented in Skykomish, a little town on Highway 2 just before the start of the Stevens Pass

Our route and general timetable also take into account the sort of general seasonal imperatives for the Loop ("Spring up, Fall down"). There are some more specific guidelines most Loopers try to follow, but not slavishly. Start from Florida in April. Cruise the Chesapeake Bay the second half of May. Start the Erie Canal around the middle of June (it isn't open before that). Be at the northern end of Lake Michigan in mid-August. Be off the Great Lakes and departing Chicago the first week of September (remember the Edmund Fitzgerald?). Get to Mobile by the last week in October. Finally be back in Florida in early December. If we are a little ahead of this general timetable or little behind, it won't matter much except we need to be on the road to get home by Christmas.

PLANNING RESOURCES

Our friend Dr. Bob Austin from Pensacola, who has also done the Loop, sent me a boxload of older (2006-2009 vintage) cruising guides and other books. I have read through them enough to know mostly the route we want to take. I have since purchased updated cruising guides but more is the same than different! There are a lot of planning resources, but here are the ones I am using (hint: the last one is THE indispensable resource!).

Capt. John's website provides an excellent overview and covers a lot of territory. You can just click from page to page using the "Next" and "Back" buttons at the bottom of each page, or choose specific topics from the menu at the top. This is really more about getting motivated to move from "interested" to "committed"! 

America's Great Loop Cruisers' Association (AGLCA) is a membership organization, and most of its resources are only available to members, but there is a fair amount of information available to the general public as well. The public interactive map is especially interesting, as it very nicely illustrates the alternate routes. But for me the single most useful resource AGLCA offers is the Forum. The wealth of knowledge shared on the Forum is pretty amazing to me. I receive Forum posts as a daily digest, but frequently go to the online Forum to find some specific information, to post a question, or just browse topics. Flying the AGLCA burgee gets members discounts at some marinas. There are just so many other resources and benefits that an AGLCA membership should be considered pretty much essential.

Google Earth (the computer program, versions for Windows, Mac and Linux) has proven extremely useful for planning when I want to see exactly what a particular place looks like. Bear with, this is a bit of an epistle!

One example: Derrick Baan, author of America's Great Loop, Aussie Style, chartered Grace Full from the Firestones to do the Loop. On the one long stretch of the Mississippi River without a marina or fuel stop, Derrick figured out a way to obtain fuel in Cape Girardeau, MO, which is within the range of a C-Dory from the prior fuel stop in Kimmswick, MO.

Derrick contacted an AGLCA member in Cape Girardeau, Bob Williamson, who told him about the Farmer's Co-op driver, Roy, who will deliver fuel to the Red Star Access Boat Ramp on the north end of Cape Girardeau provided prior arrangements are made. Derrick told me about Roy and the Red Star Access Boat Ramp, but I wanted to see exactly what this boat ramp looks like and how it would work, so I fired up Google Earth and searched for Cape Girardeau. I found the Red Star Access Boat Ramp, and captured the satellite image above from Google Earth. This is right on the main channel of the Mississippi, exposed to the wakes of passing tugs with their huge rafts of barges in tow. Derrick had to stand in the water near the shore to hold Gracie (as they affectionately called her) off the ramp and shore, but they did get fuel, about 40 gallons, which allowed them to reach the next fuel stop.

Google Earth view of Red Star Access Boat Ramp

Standing in the river holding the boat off the ramp and shore does not seem not very appealing. I started exploring the surrounding area with Google Earth, and it appears there is a potentially better place at the south end of Cape Girardeau on the Diversion Channel. There is a boat ramp some distance up the Diversion Channel, which is out of the main channel of the Mississippi, and would not be subject to wakes.

Google Earth view of Diversion Channel and Boat Ramp

I emailed Bob Williamson, who did not think this would be a good spot because the channel is so shallow and the boat ramp is used only by jon boats, but C-Dorys have less than a two foot draft, and I am reasonably sure that a C-Dory can go any place a jon boat can! Bob's other concern was that Roy's tanker truck could manoeuver better at the Red Star Access Boat Ramp than at the ramp on the Diversion Channel. Once again, Google Earth shows me exactly what this would involve. I dropped pins at the entrance to the Diversion Channel and the boat ramp. We'll find out when we get close to Cape Girardeau whether it will be Red Star Acces Boat Ramp or the Diversion Channel!

Google Earth shows me the lat/lon co-ordinates of these places, which become marks in my navigation software (more about that in the next installment of this blog). Most importantly, though, Google Earth allows me to have a good look at any place on the planet, in a way that the text in a cruising guide really cannot. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and a clear satellite image is worth even more!

However, the absolutely indispensable planning resource is Skipper Bob's The Great Circle Route that covers the whole Loop, including the various alternate routes, and the other Skipper Bob books that cover specific areas of the Loop. Collectively, the Skipper Bob books contain the detailed information needed to comfortably and safely cruise the Loop in all its variations. These are very inexpensive thin black and white comb-bound books that contain only cruising information without any advertising. Although there are a number of other excellent cruising guides, such as the Waterway Guides, the Skipper Bob books are the ones that we will carry on-board. The Great Circle Route and the specific book for the area in which we are cruising will be at the helm and will be consulted daily.
The other books in the series that I have purchased are Cruising the Gulf Coast, Anchorages Along the Intracoastal Way, Marinas Along the Intracoastal Waterway, Cruising the New York Canal System, Cruising the Trent-Severn Waterway, Georgian Bay and North Channel, and Cruising from Chicago to Mobile. The Great Circle Route connects all the dots and covers areas for which there is no specific book, for example, getting from the Erie Canal to the Trent-Severn Waterway via Lake Ontario and cruising Lake Michigan from the North Channel to Chicago.

One oddity, however, is that although The Great Circle Route, and virtually every other guide, recommends doing the Loop in a counterclockwise direction in order to cruise with the current on the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, and Loopers therefore proceed from Florida to New York along the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, the Anchorages and Marina books are organized from New York down to Florida! I suppose a Looper could read these books from back to front, but it would be much more useful to Loopers if these books were reorganized to follow the same counterclockwise direction, so they would start in Florida and end in New York! This suggestion has been passed along to Skipper Bob Publications!

Here is the biography of the late Skipper Bob. The Skipper Bob books now continue under the editorship of Ted Stehle as part of the Waterway Guides family.