The Clausen's Boating
Summer of 2003

WELCOME ABOARD

The Summer of 2003
We bring the boat form Florida to the Bahamas, Rhode Island
and back to the Great Lakes.

Go to the 2003 E-mails

Summer: 2003

For 2003 we decided to go back from Florida to the best boating we found on the Great Loop, The Canadian Canals and the Great Lakes. We left St. Petersburg and cut through Florida's Okeechobee Waterway and set off across the Gulf Stream for the Bahamas. Why? Because it was still cold up north, and we had no desire to fight the weather up north, (freezing weather) when we could be in the Bahamas. A float plan is great but, well you know... So we waited in the Grand Bahama for the weather to warm, than ran across the Gulf Stream into Stuart Inlet, and up the ICW, just a little each day. We were moved toofar on one day and hit freezing temperatures just once, near Norfolk, VA. Up the Chesapeake and through the Delaware Canal on to Cape May, NJ. The west entrance to the Cape May Canal has always been a bugger to me, it silts in quickly and is poorly marked, the trick is to follow the ferrys in, or failing that, a boat bigger than you. Up the outside on the coast of New Jersey, into New York Harbor, East River through Hells Gate into Long Island Sound and over to Rhode Island, Sounds easy eh? A week or so in Newport, (our old home town, visiting with friends) and back to New York and up the Hudson River. Erie Canal over to our winter storage marina, Winter Harbor in Brewerton NY.

Just, 2,603.9 miles this summer. For a total of just under 10,000 miles.