2024 Wrap Up and 2025 Plans

 So the last few weeks of our 2024 trip were a bit less interesting than the first 3/4 of it. With the Covid delay we ended up traveling a bit less than anticipated. Upon leaving Trenton, ON we only had 3 more travel days till our return to winter storage. Our insurance company also wanted a survey prior to renewing our policy for 2025 so we were in a bit of a rush to return and have that done. Good news on that was that we have no issues to report. Before we left we went to the fuel dock to top off and the local Harbor Host got a nice picture of us that looked like we were continuing north!

We went a bit of a different route by leaving Trenton via the Murray Canal and running across Lake Ontario to Rochester NY. We spent an extra day there to check out the town since we've never been and managed to find a couple of breweries including one I remember from long ago.

Genesee River

Two more travel days brought us back to Brewerton NY and our winter storage location. After a few days cleaning and packing up the boat it was time for one last cocktail on the front deck before heading home to Florida.

Totals for 2024 travels were right around 943 miles and a whopping 99 locks! That's like one lock every 10 miles as Jill pointed out!

Once back at the house we got to dodge a couple of late season hurricanes before Jill was able to get her second knee replacement. She's better than new now so we'll be doing some mountain climbing here soon! Well...maybe a bit of hiking.

2025 plans...

This year is finally going to be the trip we've been planning for 3 years, The Down East Circle Loop! The original plan had been to do the trip in 2024 but we decided to wait for Jill to get the 2nd knee done so she is able to enjoy the adventure pain free. Instead of trying to describe the trip I'll just direct you to an article in Passagemaker magazine from a few years ago that gives a nice overview as well as a map. The trip is around 3000 (statute) miles and the most adventurous we've ever done on Chasing 80. Much of the mid part of the trip is in fairly remote parts of Quebec where English is most definitely not their first language. Marinas and repair facilities are also few and far between until we get to Nova Scotia or back to the US in Maine. Needless to say we both have a bit of apprehension going into the trip but are really looking forward to it. We hope to see whales along the way as well as the occasional iceberg....

Jill got me a drone for Christmas 2 years ago and I've finally been practicing with it here at the house. Hopefully it will get some good use on this trip and I can keep it out of the water!

Well, that's about it for now. I promise to try and get updates out in a timely manner this summer. We will be getting back to the boat after Memorial Day and will be moving in early June. As always, the In Reach (Locate us link) and NEBO (search Chasing 80 on the app) will be live whenever we are underway. The Locate Us link is on the right in the web version but doesn't show up on a mobile device without switching to web version...hopefully that makes sense....