Category Archives: Destinations

Cool Places

Carolyn Ann

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Hello Andy and All our fellow GHTA Friends, 

We (“Carolyn Ann”) have spent the winter again in St Petersburg, Florida at the Treasure Island Club along with “Lazy Dolphin” (Barb and Randy Semper). 

 Our Son lives in St Petersburg and has our only grandchild.

 Soooo, St Petersburg is an attractive nuisance for us.  We’ve been doing the “Tour D’ Doctors” while here to get our tune ups for the upcoming cruising season as well as many boat projects.

Last year’s cruising was spent on the Western Erie Canal and finger lakes which was a great relaxing cruise.   Hurricane Irene forced us to make a second loop after shutting down the Mohawk River section of the Erie Canal route to the Hudson River.  We left Watkins Glen on Lake Seneca and travelled  through Buffalo September 9th crossed Lake Erie, up  Lake Heron via the Detroit River, down Lake Michigan, down the Illinois, Mississippi, Ten Tom to the Gulf  and crossed to St Petersburg from Carrabelle.

While not our planned route it was a good cruise and afforded us the opportunity to visit many new places and a few we skipped on out first loop such as Charlevoix, Mi with it’s charming Earl Young designed boulders homes.

and Door County Wisconsin.

   We also took this opportunity to visit Joe’s amazing 90 year old Aunt who lives on the family farm west of Peoria. 

 We and a couple of other GHTA’rs are planning an unusual cruise this year to the Point at Three Rivers Pittsburg, Pa..  The Ohio River is a blue collar river deeply embedded in our country’s history with it’s own interesting scenery, towns and cities to visit.  We have been busy collecting Ohio River information for this cruise.  Feel free to contact us if you are interested in a cruise up the Ohio River.    We hope to cross wakes with all of you sometime soon.  

Until then Cruise without Drama but have fun!

Joe and Punk

Pipe Dream II

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On Wednesday 3-14-12 PIPEDREAM left St. Andrews Marina in Panama City, FL bound for Tarpon Springs. The 230 mile trip would take us 31-1/2 hours to complete. We started out in Fog and had to listen to the foghorn for over four hours. But the fog lifted around noon to reveal a really great day. Seas were approximately 2-4’ for the first 6 hours, then laid down handsomely to under 1 foot. The night was clear and cool and the crossing uneventful (thankfully). There is no substitution for good planning and good maintenance.

We arrived off Anclote Key to the standard mine field of crab traps and had to be very diligent all the way into the marked channel. Along the way, we gave thanks for the strong heavy construction of the GH47 and the roomy and comfortable confines of our boat. The Yanmar engines performed flawlessly.

 

We are now docked at Turtle Cove Marina in Tarpon Springs and have eaten our weight in Greek Food. The marina has new floating docks and is spotlessly maintained. It is only a two block walk to the sponge docks and we have had a wonderful time.

 

Now we are back in Atlanta for 10 days and will return to make our way to the east coast. We would love to know if anyone is going around the horn to Key West before starting North up the ICW. We will probably stop in Jacksonville for a while. But mostly, we don’t know what we are going to do and don’t care. We are just enjoying the boat, the scenery, the food and the boaters that we meet along the way.

 

Fair Seas All

Bill and Betsy Buckland

PIPEDREAM II

Managing the Waterway:ICW

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There are several guides that assist in navigating the ICW.  I think this is one of the best.  Read on:
Hi Andrew,
Our son is going off to college and Mark and I have moved back aboard full-time.
Unfortunately, we’re in Virginia and our fulfillment house in Minnesota is relocating. We need to move our inventory out the door rather than paying other people to move heavy boxes of books for us.
So we decided to throw a “wild and wacky warehouse bonanza sale!”
We’re offering all of our cruising guides, chart guides, books and charts at the following discounted rates …
$15.00 Managing the Waterway: ICW (regularly $24.95)
$15.00 MTW: Florida Keys (reg. $24.95)
$30.00 MTW: Chicago to Paducah Inland Waterway ChartGuide (reg. $49.95)
$15.00 Electronic Chart and Nautical Reference Library (2-DVD Set) (reg. $39.95)
$15.00 Get Onboard With E-Charting (reg. $34.95)
… with FREE SHIPPING by USPS Media Mail to the United States. (International orders please email us for a shipping quote.)
These short-term sale prices aren’t compatible with our web shopping cart, so if you are interested please reply to this email with your order and a mailing address. I’ll reply with options for payment and confirmation of your order.
You can view sample pages and descriptions of each title at: www.managingthewaterway.com.
So please give us a hand here and help us “lighten up”!
And as everyone knows, they make great gifts for other boaters!   <hint hint>
Fair winds,
Diana