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The Great Loop

AGLCA map used with their permission

Click here for more information about the Great Loop and the America's Great Loop Cruisers Association.

 The grey line on the map on the left illustrates the "Great Loop" showing a few of the side routes commonly taken by cruisers who wish to add to the basic adventure of the 5,000 plus mile basic loop.

We have chosen not to cruise the entire Great Loop as a circular experience; rather, we are traveling along routes to areas that we wish to visit, some of which just happen to be part of the Great Loop!

The red line indicates where our two Sanderlings have traveled since 2001, including the Dry Tortugas, Florida's St. Johns River, New England, New Brunswick (Canada), and inland Canada as of October 2011.

In 2013 we again headed north from Florida and into Lake Ontario via the Erie Canal (with few stops other than weather-delays), then to Trenton, Ontario, where we entered the Trent-Several Canal. That canal took us to Georgian Bay; then we proceeded through Georgian Bay stopping at many beautiful spots along the way, and then westward along the North Channel where we re-entered the United States at Drummond, Michigan. The dark-read line on the Great Loop Cruise Route to the left basically shows the areas we covered. We cruised down the eastern side of Lake Michigan, through downtown Chicago, then the Illinois River to the Mississippi River to Cairo, Illinois, and the Ohio River to the Cumberland River. We cruised the Cumberland River to Nashville, Tennessee, then backtracked to the Tennessee River; down the Tennessee River to the Tenn-Tom Bigbee Waterway to Mobile, Alabama. We departed the Mobile area on Thanksgiving Day, 2013, and headed east along the Gulf Coast Intracoastal Waterway to Carabelle, Florida, where we kept Sanderling in a marina for three months waiting for the winter winds to die down and for warm weather to return. On March 7, 2014, we resumed our cruise heading easterly and then south along the coast of Florida's Big Bend, south to Ft. Myers and the Okeechobee Waterway across Florida to St. Lucie on the east coast of Florida and the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. Then it was a day and a half cruise to our home marina where we arrived on March 21, 2014.

See Adventures on and off the loop, below.

Our adventures on and off the loop include:
    2007 Bought DeFever 41 aft cabin trawler and renamed her Sanderling
    2008 Cruise from Florida to the St. John River in New Brunswick, Canada, via the Bay of Fundy Read more at Sanderling Log 2008>
    2009 Cruise from Florida to Chesapeake Bay and spend the summer in Baltimore with short side trips in the middle and upper Chesapeake Bay Read more at Sanderling Log 2009
    2010 Cruise the navigable waters of Florida's St. Johns River from it's mouth near Mayport, Florida, to Sanford (approximately 180 miles) Read more at Sanderling Log 2010
    2011 Cruise from Florida to the Hudson River, then north to Waterford, New York and start the "mini-loop"; west on the Erie Canal to the Oswego Canal and into Lake Ontario; the Thousand Islands of both the US and Canada in the mouth of the St. Lawrence River; west along the northern coast of Lake Ontario to Kingston and then through the Rideau Canal to Ottawa; the Ottawa River and St. Lawrence Seaway to Montreal; the St. Lawrence River to Sorel-Tracy, Quebec; the Richeleau River and Chambly Canal to Lake Champlain; the Champlain Canal back to the Hudson River at Waterford Read more at Sanderling Log 2011
    2013 The entire Great Loop from Florida through Canada, Lake Michigan, the Illinois, Mississippi, Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, the Tenn-Tom Bigbee Waterway, Florida's west coast to Ft. Myers, and then again across the Okeechobee Waterway to Florida's east coast and back home.
    2015 Florida to Maine and return