Now that our Loop is done, we head back up the familiar ICW to Norfolk VA to undergo a five week boat and human upkeep period. But the trip is not without some boating drama.
From Ft. Pierce, we planned for a sprint of near-daily travel to get us the final couple hundred miles to our Loop Finish Line in St. Augustine. The route takes us through Eau Gallie, Titusville, Daytona, and Palm Coast before we arrive back where our Loop started, thus crossing our wake. It seemed straightforward, but of course Mother Nature laughs in the face of even the best laid voyage plan.
We start up the east coast of Florida, beginning with crossing Biscayne Bay to get back onto the ICW. Making our way past ridiculously extravagant homes and boats, we stop in Ft. Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, and Stuart before arriving for a month long stay in Ft. Pierce. There we completely slow down, enjoying just living and visits from friends.
We leave the Florida mainland behind and cross over to the Keys, visiting Key West and Bahia Honda before an extended stay in Marathon. Finally, we wrap up our island hopping in Key Largo as we start making our way back to Florida’s east coast.
Now that we’ve slowed our travel pace quite a bit, I have more time to write about some aspects of ‘cruising life.’ No pictures in
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Continuing south down the west coast on the way to the Florida Keys, we start hitting the big cities of classic warm-winter Florida: Clearwater, St. Petersburg, Sarasota, Punta Gorda, and Naples. We wrap up the west coast of Florida by traveling back in time in Everglades City and keeping an eye out for crocodiles at an anchorage in Everglades NP.
Having completed the Inland Rivers, we slow waaayyy down as we enter the Gulf of Mexico starting with a stint in the boatyard ‘on the
Started the Inland Rivers leg of The Great Loop from Chicago on Oct 4. Part 1: Illinois River to Alton IL… starboard engine problem limiting
Part 1 recap: We traveled down the Illinois River, discovering along the way that our starboard engine had a problem and so were limited in