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The Great Loop Adventures

11/21/2015

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As we are marina bound in Belgium for winter while we finish our renovations on our barge, I thought I'd share some pictures of our Great Loop experience.

On our 33' sailing boat Mariah II, we spent a year traversing these fascinating waterways.... here's some of my memories..
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Approaching the Dismal Swamp! Another boat had cleared the way for us. It is so calm we could wash and dry our rugs and hang them over the boom. Obviously this was before we took our mast down.
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The Big Chute Marine Railway is a boat lift at lock 44 of the Trent-Severn Waterway in Ontario, Canada. It works on an inclined plane to carry boats in individual cradles over a change of height of about 60 feet (18 metres). It is the only marine railway (or canal inclined plane) of its kind in North America still in use, and is overseen by federally operated Parks Canada. You stay on board as you traverse the rocks and rattle and shake along with the boat! I gave a complete stranger the camera and they took these shots - thank you whoever you were! (Our mast had been taken down after New York - on the Hudson)
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Georgia, sailing beside our great buddies 'Tash and Den on board SV Frodo. Perfect sailing in flat waters!
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The mighty Frodo and Mariah - great times! We are towing our dinghy. This dinghy was built in a Barbados brothel by Den and Noel - it's a great story... all in Of Foreign Build (on Amazon).
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Now we're in Florida with my mum and dad. That's dad and me - we loved it when we stopped all the cars so the bridges could lift just for us!
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This looks like Canada to me - one of the prettiest countries...
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It wasn't always sunny. We rigged a tiller extension so we could see more easily where we were steering- I still sat in the rain!
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That bow has pushed through oceans all over the world...
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In a lock near the The Dismal Canal.
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A momentous occassion - fancy a little Aussie boat sailing into New York. We had a wonderful three days in the heart of the city.....
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I loved locking through - this is in Canada...
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A group are chatting to us here, 'you came all that way in THAT boat?' They couldn't quite believe it!
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One of my favourite pictures, Noel at the helm, puttering through the middle of Chicago! Wonderful!
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This is the Dismal Swamp. A beautiful canal with man-eating bugs! They really hurt when they bit! This canal is an alternate route along the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, connecting the Chesapeake Bay with the Albemarle Sound in North Carolina. The Dismal Swamp Canal is the oldest continually operating, hand-dug waterway in the United States.
I hope you enjoyed our brief journey along The Great Loop.

I have more pictures to share on a more recent journey from America to Australia via Easter Island, Pitcairn, the Gambiers etc., I'll be posting some short stories with them too...
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The Great Loop - Inland Waterways of America

11/13/2015

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While we are marina bound in Belgium I said I'd post pictures on our trip around the Great Loop in America. If you want to see where The Loop took us click here. Our journey took us over 5,000 miles and through twenty-four different states.

It was an amazing year of my life.
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Okay, this was a few years ago - I've eaten a lot more mussels since then! However, life on board was simple, easy and budget-run. So harvesting our own food was a great opportunity!
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The other end of the work-scale, boats need constant maintenance. This is me, not catching aliens but rubbing back a coating of poisonous anti-foul. Each day the lads in the yard would come up to me, laugh, and say 'you still rubbing that boat Miss Jackie' - we were in Alabama!
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Noel helped too of course. We are about to paint Mariah's bottom blue, and we found a few spots of water on top of the paint. This happened before and I came up with the smart idea of using a tampon (women's sanitary product) to soak up the water, while leaving the pain intact!
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Of course there is the money side of work - I had to keep earning by writing articles. The flat waterways allowed me to write while underway! This would be in South Carolina.
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Housework (boatwork?) and laundry still had to happen - this could've been anywhere (not an ocean voyage though).
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Castleton on Hudson. Getting ready to take the mast down to continue the journey under bridges!
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Work work work - topping up with water in Beaufort, South Carolina.
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Georgetown South Carolina. It's not all work, sometimes there's play. We spent sometime with our great friends from The Netherlands 'Tash and Den. They were on their sailboat called Frodo. Here, 'Tash and I had chatted up (or got chatted up) by the local tour boat, so they invited us along for a ride. They made us haul lines too!
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Noel and Den setting up our small TV on a glorious evening anchored near Cumberland Island, Georgia.
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Of course the girls had the most fun. That day the four of us trekked on the island, getting stuck in mud, getting acquainted with tics and having a jolly good time!
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Sigh - back to work. I loved being in Alabama, everyone was so polite and helpful... a different way of life. We were there out of season and so the marina car was more-or-less our own. A big American tank with country music blaring out - the shops felt too close sometimes!
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A taster for the next blog - I'll post pictures of us on the canals.
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France to Belgium by Boat - day 27

11/6/2015

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Time for a celebration? Sorry, no time!

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Waiting at a lift bridge.
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The canal from Veurne to Diksmuide is narrow and shallow, which slows us down. The lift bridge operators are brilliant and manually lift the bridges and then race to the next one.
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Our first sloping wall lock in Belgium
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But it is all so easy with jetty's to tie to.
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I love this design - friends can come stay and have their own house - you can meet in the middle!
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Near Diksmuide
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Our Women on Barges (FB group) flag is furled as it has some wind damage! We are about to arrive into Diksmuide and end this part of the voyage.
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Horaaay!
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We temporarily tied up at the visitors' dock, right next to our buddies Carole and Barrie on Silk Purse.
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On the way in we saw Iron Lady. Alison and Roger gave us a very warm welcome (Alison is a WOB too - Women on Barges - and other boats too!)
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Settled into our winter mooring. Here's our view on port (there's a boat tied next to us now - which is empty 90% of the time)
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Our view aft
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View on Starboard
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Our view forward! Pretty nice eh? I think we'll like it here.
While this journey ends another begins.

First we had to dash to the UK and we couldn't explore Belgium for three weeks!
We are making up for that now and just love it here. Belgians are the friendliest people we've met so far.

So, what's the next journey? Well, there are plenty of projects occurring on board. Noel is fitting a fireplace and I am busy writing. My next manuscript is almost ready for the editor. That book is about our adventure flying to America (from Australia) to buy a sailboat and sail it back to Aussie via Easter Island and Pitcairn. You can see we don't sit still very long - for our other adventures, take a look here.

As for this blog, it's going to be pretty boring to show you what we do during winter (work!) however, I've an idea. In the last few days I've posted some pictures of our journey around The Great Loop in America. I will post some photos and stories of that trip - it was a few years ago, but one of the most wonderful experiences of my life.

It's been a pleasure to have you on board....... here's a quick taster of that loop trip...
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Puttering through the middle of Chicago!
There'll be events in Belgium to write about - so stick around, I'll do my best to bring Belgium to your laptop! :-)
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France to Belgium by Boat - day 26

11/4/2015

6 Comments

 
After recovering from our unplanned adventure. We cycled up to the locks (in the pouring rain to initially sort out internet - now don't start me there!)

Breathe

So, we stopped at the first lock and it appeared to be in working order. The lock-keeper understood my shamefully scant french and confirmed that all the locks were fine!


We left the next day.
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Yay! Belgium here we come!
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Puttering through Dunkerque
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There were a few twists and turns. (They weren't noted on our charts, but our friends on board MV Silk Purse had warned us of them.) That's the great thing about being part of a fantastic Facebook Group called Women on Barges (and any other boats too!)
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This lock didn't look like it had been used in a while! We were supposed to nose up to the wall and find a piece of string to pull - however, it opened automatically.
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Press here for Belgium! Beam me up Scottie! lol!
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The last part of our France journey.
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Welcome to Flanders! We are now in Belgium.
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Taken across the paddocks - see the map below to gain context on how close we are to the sea. From 1914 to 1918 Flanders Fields was a major battle theatre in the First World War. A million soldiers from more than 50 different countries were wounded, missing or killed in action here. Entire cities and villages were destroyed, their population on the run. Ypres and Passchendaele became worldwide symbols for the senselessness of war. Today, the peaceful region still bears witness to this history in monuments, museums, cemeteries and the countless individual stories that link it with the world.
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This is where we were when we took the shot above (red circle).
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Heading for Veurne
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It's here we checked in and you can see our course in green. Hairpins on canals!
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There are plenty of lift bridges here.
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On the Lokanaal the lift-bridge operator told us about this spot for the night. Perfect!
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Almost half way between Veurne and Diksmuide where we will spend the winter.
Will we see Diksmuide tomorrow?
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From France to Belgium by Boat - day 25

11/1/2015

4 Comments

 

Stuck - Lost - 9/11 - and Dreams!

We're still at Dunkerque!
Our friends on the commercial barge gleefully told us that the two locks (two routes) from Dunkerque to Belgium were closed for maintenance.

Usually, we'd just shrug our shoulders and wait patiently. However, I'd just received a personal call that meant our travel plans to the UK (in two weeks time) had to be brought forward urgently.

So we did what any self-respecting people do - we drank beer!

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Our first day in Dunkerque coincided with a massive street garage sale. We purchased lots of great gear (for Noel's up and coming motorbike purchase) and this hat for me. In the UK, as well as catching up with family, I was attending horse events to promote my latest book. I needed to stand out, so checked shirts and cow-girl hats were the order of the day!
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While we enjoyed a cool one we dreamed about our next boat....
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.... which caused us to have another beer!
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The beer was our excuse to try and find a fish and chip shop we had visited on our last foray into the European canals. It's an interesting story, we didn't have TV or Radio on board (and still don't!). When we arrived into Dunkerque (on our last boat), it was raining and we sought sanctuary in a Fish and Chip Shop. This is where we first heard about 9/11 - it had occurred 5 days earlier and we hadn't known about it!
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After the 'markets' and a quick visit around town we cycled off to find the port. Things had changed since we were last here in 2001.
We reminisced how simple life was then - then realised, actually, it was still pretty simple... boat.. canal... water... bicycles...freedom.
By now we had been cycling and walking all day, traversing about twenty kilometres. Then we made a big mistake and followed the wrong canal-off-shoot... and got lost!

Luckily we found two kindly gentlemen with an Atlas (yes, it was that bad) and they asked us where we were trying to get to.
'Erm, our boat.'
'But where is your boat?'
'On a canal, we think it is that one.' Pointing embarrassingly to a bit of blue on the map.
'Don't you know where you are?'
'Erm, not really'
We've done this before. We jump on our bikes and take off and don't bother to note which suburb we are in. All quite amusing until you've been cycling for another two hours.
With some guess-work and lots of help, (and many more miles) we finally cycled over a bridge and spotted Rouge Corsair.... the relief was immense!
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