In this blog, we travel down the west coast of Florida, stopping in Sarasota, Cape Haze, Captiva Island, Fort Myers Beach (where we see the destruction from Hurricane Ian), and Marco Island. We then make a big hop to Marathon in the Florida Keys, where we will stay for two weeks.

We make our Gulf Crossing in two hops, then start down the west coast of Florida. We vist Steinhatchee, Tarpon Springs, Clearwater Beach with a side trip to Dunedin, and end up in Gulfport.

We spend a week in Apalachicola waiting for a weather window to cross the Gulf of Mexico. When it comes, we move up to Carrabelle, the jumping-off spot for our crossing to Steinhatchee, and wait for weather again!

We spend a week in Gulf Shores at LuLu’s waiting for our friends on Brand New Day to return and their boat to be fixed. We are also waiting out some rough weather. We then make a stop in Shalimar, FL, where we catch up with Wandering Winnie. Then, it’s on to Apalachicola, FL, where we get adopted!

After returning from our trip home for a few days, we did a bit of sightseeing around Mobile, then cast off and hung a right at the Gulf of Mexico, heading west toward New Orleans for Christmas.

After finishing our visit to New Orleans, we stop again in Gulfport, MS, for an overnight stay and some cheap fuel. Then, we cross Mobile Bay and dock at Lulu’s in Gulf Shores, Alabama, on New Year’s Eve.

In this edition, we finish the rivers and arrive in Mobile, Alabama, at the Gulf of Mexico! On the way, we stopped in Demopolis, AL, for Thanksgiving with our boating friends. On our way down, we passed 25+ tows, and the last two nights before Mobile, we anchored out in the Alabama Swamps.

We move onto the southbound portion of our trip from Kentucky Lakes to Mobile, Alabama. In this We move onto the southbound portion of our trip from Kentucky Lakes to Mobile, Alabama. In this edition of the Blog, we visit Kentucky, and Tennessee, touch Alabama, and then stop in Mississippi. We arrive at Aqua Yacht Harbor in Iuka, MS, for a reunion with our friends Charlie and Robin from our first Loop. We also finally caught back up with our buddy boat, Indigo, at least for a few days. We wait two days in Iuka for our friends on Brand New Day to get repairs, then continue down the Tenn-Tom Waterway to New Site, Mississippi.

After spending a couple of days in Alton, IL, we cruise down the Mississippi River and turn up the Ohio River to the Tennessee River. We anchor out for a couple of nights (rare for us!) and reach Green Turtle Bay, Kentucky, on the Ten-Tom (Tenessee-Tombigbe Waterway), where we are taking a break for a few days. It’s time for another oil change, checking and replacing zincs, and getting overdue haircuts which we took care of care of while at Green Turtle Bay.

In this blog, we finally escape from Lake Michigan and enter the river system with our flotilla to go through the locks. We navigate 300 miles down the Illinois River, reach the Mighty Mississippi, and reward ourselves with a visit to Fast Eddie’s in Alton, Illinois. This is a near-real-time update as we are in Alton as of this posting!