Here's the plan...

We had so much fun cruising on Craunological II last summer that we quickly decided to do it again, only on different waters. Last year we took her from Naples all the way up the east coast to Eastport, Maine. This year we are going to do the Great Lakes, where John grew up boating. We will start in Chicago and end up in New York Harbor and spend time in all five of the Great Lakes -- plus the Erie Canal, the St. Lawrence Seaway and Lake Champlain -- with some extended breaks on shore along the way. It should be great fun!

In last year's cruise we covered just over 2,900 miles in 61 days. This year we expect to travel somewhere between 2,700 and 2,850 miles in 71 days, so the overall plan seems very doable. However, cruising up the east coast in the Intracoastal Waterway meant we were in protected water for the first 1,700 miles (counting Chesapeake Bay, which isn't quite right for its lower reaches) while much of our cruising in the Great Lakes will be on open water and hence more vulnerable to weather delays. We think we have enough cushion in the schedule to allow for that, but we'll see. 

The plan at this point has four stages, separated by significant land breaks. They are:

> Stage One -- May 23 to June 14 -- Chicago to Sault Ste. Marie -- 900 to 1,000 miles depending how far we go into the eastern end of Lake Superior -- the boat will be trailered up to Chicago by Capt. Dan, the same guy who hauled her back from Salem, MA at the end of our travels last year

Land Break in New York City to see the kids and grandkids

> Stage Two -- June 21 to July 3 -- Sault Ste. Marie to Vermilion, Ohio -- about 600 miles -- Vermilion is where John boated when he was a kid

Land Break in Northern Ohio and Maxinkuckee, Indiana to see friends and family

> Stage Three -- approx. July 17 to August 11 -- Vermilion, OH to Burlington, VT -- 900 to 950 miles via Erie Canal, Oswego Canal, east end of Lake Ontario, St. Lawrence Seaway, and Richelieu Canal to Lake Champlain -- plus some time cruising the Lake Erie islands before we head east

Land Break for our usual week in a cottage on MacMahan Island, Maine and seeing some New England friends

> Stage Four -- August 28 to September 5 -- Burlington, VT to South Amboy, NJ -- 300 miles all in protected water -- Capt. Dan will pick up the boat in NJ for her haul back to Naples

John is looking forward to seeing old cruising grounds again (especially the north end of Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, the North Channel, the Lake Erie islands and the Erie Canal) and the runs from Vermilion up to Montreal and Montreal to NYC. Janet has only been on Lake Erie and Lake Michigan so she'll see some new sights. We may have to learn some basic nautical French for our time in Quebec!

The map below may help illustrate our plan. It is an old placemat that my Dad took from a restaurant somewhere sometime long ago (and I can see why!) and then used to record the various long cruises that he made on the Lakes. I of course kept this when I went through his things after he died. I was on all of those cruises with him (or for much of the way at least) except for the 1991 cruise through the Trent-Severn Waterway and the Erie Canal (although I did the Erie Canal with friends and family in 2010 when I took Dad's old boat from Marblehead, Ohio to Beverly, Massachusetts). Unfortunately, the restaurant people cut off the eastern end of this map when they made their placements, because the original says it shows Lake Champlain, which would illustrate our planned stages three and four. The interested reader will just have to consult Google Maps -- or an atlas. 

A nice feature of this map is that it shows the watershed divide for the Great Lakes -- the black squiggly line that encompasses them. Notice how close it comes to Lake Michigan in the Chicago area, and also around Erie, PA.