Summer 2012
The crew of Island Hopper has been busy the last few months readying IH for her summer journeys. New enclosure and bimini, new bottom paint, complete wax job, 5 new batteries, 3 of those starting batteries for the diesels and the generator and two six volt golf cart batteries which were added to the existing 4 batteries for the house batteries. Now she has 700 amp-hours of capacity for powering lights, microwave, water pumps, etc without the need for running the generator. The diesel mechanic did his annual job of adjusting valves, replacing impellers, and tuning up the engines for I hope will be trouble free operation. We now have over 1400 hours on the engines but only 270 hours on the generator.
The plan is to leave Longboat Key Marina in early May and travel to Montreal, Quebec by early August, then return to winter base of Brewerton, NY (near Syracuse) by late August via Ottawa, Ontaria and the Rideau Canal to Kingston, across Lake Ontario to Oswego, NY and then down a canal to Brewerton. It will be heated inside storage so no winterizing the boat or snow to worry about.
In 2008/09 IH made the journey to the Chesapeake and returned to Longboat Key. This time we will revisit our favorite ports en route and then keep heading north via NYC Harbor, the Hudson River, Erie Canal, Oswego Canal, Lake Ontario, St Lawrence River/Seaway, Ottawa River and Rideau Canal.
Check back to our blog often for our adventures underway,.
