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The boat in Lake Huron, Baie Fine (Bay Fin) at the Pool
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15,000+ miles down, how many more to go?
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MV Summer School |
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The Clausen's Boating
Home Page
WELCOME ABOARD
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The boat in Lake Huron, Baie Fine (Bay Fin) at the Pool
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15,000+ miles down, how many more to go?
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The Summer of 2004
We do a 2400+ mile cruise, traveling across four of the Great Lakes.
We've been out cruising in our boat, not too unusual you might say, and that's true. Although I've owned 12 boats and boated for over 25 years before I started "cruising." Cruising takes you to ports that you have never entered before. That means no local knowledge of the water, you've never seen the marina, anchorage or wall you happen upon, and the ever present questions lingers, is their diesel fuel pump working? No car to jump into, and surprises aplenty every day. We began cruising in 2000 with a journey that took us (2) Summers to complete, we did the Great Loop, and took in 6335 miles of our nations waterways. We started in Florida and went North up the Intercoastal Waterway to Rhode Island our old stomping grounds, then back across the Long Island Sound to New York and up the Hudson River to Albany. Are you comfortable? Need a cup of coffee, now may be the time. Enter the Erie Canal to the Oswego Canal, down to Lake Ontario, across Ontario to Canada and the Rideau Canal, up to Ottawa, down the Ottawa River to Montreal, up the St. Laurence Seaway to the Thousand Islands and back up the Oswego to the Erie Canal to Brewerton NY and put the boat to sleep for the winter in indoor heated storage, and that was just for 2000.
Click below to follow our story:
| Year 2000, Great loop, part one: |
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| Year 2001, Great Loop, part two: |
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| Year 2002, Boating with a different twist: |
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| Year 2003, Up the ICW again, to RI and the Lakes: |
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| Year 2004, 2400 miles on the Great Lakes: |
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Year 2005, Illness keeps us at home.
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We, being Patti my wife, our four children, and of course Captain James, that's me. The boat's name is "Summer School", the joke is our four kids were bad, and they MUST attend Summer School. I wish I was punished like this when I was growing up. We completed the first half of our trip in the Summer of 2000 and finished the loop back to Florida in 2001. We have an E-mail list of, "Clausen Followers" if you would like to be added to it just ask.
The following are links to our logs and articles, (stories actually) enjoy.
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Compass
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Using the VHF radio
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Our boat draws 4' of water and needs 17' 6" of space above the waterline. This limits us in where we can and can't go. The water level on the Great Lakes was down a bit in 2000 and 2001 but not as bad as 1999, (two winters without much snow). 2004 brought the water back up to a more normal level. So were hoping for more than a few whopper snow storms for the Great Lakes area during the Winter to insure high water levels, sorry if you live there.
We have a log of where we have been and when. Having stops planned out in advance even if we didn't know exactly when we would get there was a tremendous benefit, thank you Jan and Bill Haueisen. We like to stop off and stick around a while if we're having fun, we have no set time schedule. We also are at the whim of the weather and the boat. It was interesting, and were not done yet.
As our trip progresses we will try to post some additional information and photographs as well as some Internet links.
If you would like to be on our E-mail list please send your request to me, BilleGates@aol.com
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Just so we don't get lost, here's around $1,200.00 worth of charts. I was debating some of them until I realized they were the price of a single propeller. Then they became essential. |
There is no "camping" onboard.
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