The 1997 Cruise

     We purchased M/V ILLUSIONS in June, 1997 in Mystic, CT.  The 1995 Carver 440 was destined for a berth in Houston, TX.  My wife, Angela, and I, with occasional help from family and a friend, moved the boat to Texas during July, August, and September in four separate trips.  The cruise covered over 3,500 miles through the Hudson River, the Erie Canal, the Great Lakes, the Illinois, Mississippi, and Atchafalaya Rivers, and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GICW, or ICW) from Morgan City, LA to Galveston Bay and Houston, TX.

     THE CRUISE was one of the great experiences of my life, and I want to share it with other boaters like myself.  This was a dream come true, a chance to plan and execute a long boat trip and see the beauty of nature from the water.  I wanted to offer the printed format for logs so they could be read and enjoyed at any time.  The photographs and videos provide much more than can be obtained from the internet site, and they can be read anytime.  The logs are nicely bound, and the set would make a nice present for anyone thinking of such a cruise, or for those like me who enjoy reading about cruising.


   THE LOGS were written daily enroute, usually one-half to one page each.  They reflect the pleasures and the problems encountered while on such an extended cruise.  The text consists of more than 70 pages and over 12,000 words; 82 color photographs and five maps are included.  Each set is bound with an attractive cover, and a summary of each trip is included before each of the detailed logs.  The bound volume is available for $20 including ground shipping.

     THE VIDEOS are basically home movies made with a Sony Handycam.  Considerable footage has been edited out.  Tapes 1, 2, and 3 are T-160 tapes and Tape 4 is a T-120 tape providing a total of almost 600 minutes of video.  Each tape is $20 including ground shipping.  The videos show almost every lock on the Erie Canal, the Welland Canal around Niagara Falls, the four major rivers and the ICW after that—over 50 locks in all.  Also shown, the beautiful Hudson River valley, the Great Lakes (all of them except Lake Superior), and parts of Georgian Bay and the North Channel.

     THE BOAT was a 1995 Carver 440 aft cabin flybridge motoryacht with two staterooms and twin diesel engines.  The previous owners sold it with china, linens, pots and pans, tools, etc.  This was our first boat with diesels and our first boat with electronics.  We had to learn a lot fast!  It was great to see from the water: New York City, Albany, Troy, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, St Louis, Memphis, Greenville, Vicksburg, Natchez, Morgan City, and others.  Although not a cruise guide, this set will inform and answer questions for the interested boater.

The1998 Cruise

     In 1998 we traveled 3,700 miles from May 23 through September 7.  We saw every mile of the Tenn-Tom Waterway and the Tennessee River.  We went to the upper limits of navigation on the Little Tennessee, the Tellico, the Emory, Clinch, and Hiwassee Rivers.  The scenery, locks, and experiences in the 1998 Cruise were as good or better than those in 1997.  Logs with maps and photographs are available for the 1998 Cruise, and a set of four videos is available, at the same prices as the 1997 Cruise, $20 each.  Please send an email telling me what you want and how you want me to ship it (UPS or US Mail).


The 1999 Cruise

     In 1999 we traveled from Houston to Florida covering 1,800 miles and including Hurricane Floyd.  Those printed logs are now available.  Each booklet with logs, maps, and color photos is $20.  Our charterboat cruise to the Virgin Islands in June, 1999 is included in this booklet, including logs, map, and color photographs.  (Actually there are 95 photographs, 5 maps, and 47 pages of text, plus the Carver spec sheet.)  Videos are available at $20 each.  Let me know which portion of the trip you are interested in, or if you are interested in the whole set.






Year 2000 Cruise

     In 2000 we traveled from Florida back to Houston via Canada.  We went to the Bahamas in January.  In March we began the journey up the east coast, meeting others from Houston in Baltimore and in New York City for the OpSail 2000 and July 4 celebrations.  Then we went though the Erie Canal, the Rideau Canal, and The Trent Severn Waterway and around Michigan to the Chicago area.  Traveling from the Chicago area to Houston brought us home after over 5,700 miles of inland cruising in the year 2000.

     The printed logs for the first half of the cruise, Part 1 of 2, include Trips 1 - 5 from Ft Lauderdale, FL to New York City, including the January trip to the Bahamas.  The booklet includes 149 pictures, 5 maps, the Carver Spec Sheet, and 52 pages of text.  Get it for yourself and/or a friend or relative who likes cruising stories.

     The second volume, Part 2 of 2, covers Trips 6 & 7, or New York to Houston through the Rideau Canal and the Trent-Severn Waterway.  It has over 100 pages, including 257 photos plus maps and text.  It is much larger and heavier than the others, due to the heavy paper we used for printing all those photographs.  The colors are outstanding, really brilliant.  Part 2 is $25, while the others are priced at $20, which is basically what they cost me in materials only.  Know anyone who loves to read about cruising stories?  I do; I buy any of these stories I can find.





The 2001 Cruise

     Our plan was to cruise to Pittsburgh, PA and then to Morgantown and Fairmont, WV, or as far up the Ohio River and its tributaries as we could go.  We accomplished all of those goals in Trips 1 and 2.  In Trip 3 we descended the Ohio River to the Tennessee River, where we connected with the Cumberland River.  We went up the Cumberland River to the upper limits of navigation, and then we took the dinghy 7 miles further.  We came back down the Cumberland River and got a slip on Old Hickory Lake.  Trip 4 was 2 days cruising plus six days by car to E. Tennessee and W. North Carolina and back to Old Hickory Lake, and trying to return home during the Attack on America on September 11.  In Trip 5 we brought the boat downstream on the Cumberland River and then the Tennessee River, with Fall colors in the trees, down the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the Atchafalaya Rivers, and west on the GICW back to Houston.  Our mileage was 5,731 miles, just eleven less than the Year 2000 Cruise; and the scenery was great.  The booklet contains 276 photos, 5 maps, and complete logs for the cruise, and cost $20 for each volume including ground freight. 

The 2002 Cruise

     For a variety of reasons, we decided not make a long cruise in 2002.  I had wanted to go up the Mississippi River as far as you can go, and catch the Arkansas River in the Fall on the return trip.  We did not do that in 2002, but we planned to do it in 2003.  In 2002 we stayed close to home, visited with relatives, including some of Angela's relatives from Paraguay, and made some local cruises here and there.  We also made a trip to Cozumel (by plane) with Lakewood Yacht Club, and we took a three-week cruise through the Panama Canal on Holland America's M/S AMSTERDAM.  Regional cruises included a cruise to Corpus Christi, TX and another to Lake Charles, LA.  On our own boat we only traveled about 1200 miles.  Our booklet of cruises for the year includes the Cozumel and Panama Canal cruises and runs to 104 pages.  It is available for $20 including postage or UPS delivery.





The 2003 Cruises

     In 2003 we bought a new boat and began the process of selling the Carver 440.  In March we brought the new boat to Texas and created the FL to TX Cruise Logs covering 1300 statute miles.  Then we went to the Twin Cities Area in MN (Minneapolis and St. Paul) and back to Texas covering 4000 miles.  The Upper Mississippi River was beautiful with high rocky bluffs on both sides of the river almost all the way to St. Paul, MN.  Due to my need to have back surgery, we did not cruise the Arkansas River as we had hoped to do, but instead we saved it for another year.  I considered cruising the Missouri River, but I have been told there are unmarked wing dams on both sides of that river.  So, I plan to give it a miss after our problems with wing dams on the Upper Mississippi River.  The booklet for the year is one of our largest, with 142 pages and over 460 photographs.  The booklet is available for $25 including delivery.  We've pretty much stopped producing video tapes; it seems most people would rather read the logs and see the photos than take the time to see a video.  Our experience with cameras wasn't great, either.  We've worn out two of them so far since we began cruising.

 

Earlier Cruises 1992 - 1996

     In 2003 we published the booklet for the Earlier Cruises from 1992 - 1996.  These were regional cruises in the original M/V ILLUSIONS, the 1990 Carver 38' Aft Cabin.  We went in that boat to New Orleans, LA; Pensacola, FL; Corpus Christi, TX twice; Lake Charles, LA; Galveston, TX numerous times; and many other spots in and around Galveston Bay, the Trinity River, Double Bayou, Cedar Bayou, and Clear Lake (near Houston, TX).  We were younger and thinner back then.  The 57-page booklet is available at $15 each including postage.




















The 2004 Cruise

     Our friends, Jack and Nickie, who have a similar boat to ours, spent the summer of 2003 on the TN River.  Their experiences sounded so good, they said they thought they would do it again in 2004; and we wanted to do the same.  Although their plans later changed, we made plans to go up the Tenn-Tom Waterway and the Tennessee River.  We wanted to try some slower cruising, with fewer deadlines, although I was still working pretty much full-time.

       Trip 1 was undertaken with a trade show in mind.  We took the boat to Louisiana and docked it on the Tchefuncte River; the mailing address there was Covington, LA.  Other well-known names to boaters in that area are Madisonville, where the river meets Lake Ponchartrain, and Manderville, at the northern end of the Lake Ponchartrain Causeway.  Out of 12 days in the trip, including three and a half at the trade show, we used the boat on 5 days in beautiful weather.  Spring blossoms were abundant everywhere we looked, and the humidity and temperature were ideal.

     Trip 2 took us from Louisiana to Iuka, MS, where we had to leave the boat and fly back to Houston on business.  Shortly thereafter we left Iuka and went up the Tennessee River to Knoxville with our friends from Florida, Dick and Carolyn.  Trip 4 was what the year was supposed to be all about - anchoring 10 nights in 7 different locations, moving an hour or so a day, or less, using the dinghy a lot, and sleeping late.  In Trip 5 we made an easy cruise from Knoxville to Chattanooga, also anchoring a lot; and in Trip 6 we went back to Iuka, MS, where the boat spent the the winter of 2004 - 2005.  Our 2004 Cruise logbook is available now for $25 including delivery via US mail or UPS in the USA.  It has 119 pages, 424 photographs, 8 maps, and logs, statistics, and our plans and experiences on the TN cruise and also the Lakewood Yacht Club cruise to Alaska.

     While the larger boat was in MS, our Carver looked inviting; so we began to use it again in the local area.  We enjoyed the boat and the many happy memories of the experiences we have had while aboard. 

The 2005 Cruise

     We spent 2004 on the Tennessee River and really enjoyed some slower cruising with a lot of anchoring out.  I wanted to go back to Canada in 2005, so we decided to leave the boat in Iuka, MS for the winter.  The mechanics at Aqua Yacht Harbor had worked on our boats before; they were capable and fair and very pleasant to deal with.  So we parked the boat at the end of October 2004 and retrieved it April 28, 2005.  

     Our 2005 plans included traveling to Canada and leaving the boat in New York in dry storage for the winter, which would put us in position to cruise the Canadian canals in the summer of 2006.  Along the way we were invited to go on a cruise to St. Petersburg, Russia through the Baltic Sea; and we decided to include that cruise in our plans for 2005.

     We made 4 trips of about two weeks each, spending most of our time in Canada.  We enjoyed Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa, and Montreal; and I especially liked the Rideau Canal and Ottawa.  We traveled less distance and used less fuel than on previous cruises, and we ended the year with the boat on the Erie Canal in New York.



The 2006 Cruise

     We retrieved the boat in New York and cruised to Canada, going first one way through the Trent Severn Waterway and then back again for a round trip.  We also cruise the Georgian By and visited Kilarney and Bay Fine, two of our favorite places, and Midland, Ontario, where we had not stopped before.  We went past the Thousand Islands area on the St Lawrence Seaway, went down the Seaway to Montreal, Quebec, and on to the Gulf of St Lawrence, stopping in the Saguenay River for a night.  We saw plenty of whales at the junction of those two rivers.

     We visited New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island and the Bras D'Or Lake area, then came around Nova Scotia to Bar Harbor, Maine and then to Portland, ME.  We stopped there for repairs and were held up there for a couple of months.  The yard in Portland, ME did not know how to install the stabilizers, and Wesmar, who put us in there, was not helpful in resolving the problems which plagued us for more than a year.  Then we went to Boston, New York City, Atlantic City, and Portsmouth, VA, where we left the boat for the winter.





The 2007 Cruise

     We wanted to cruise Chesapeake Bay, and we did.  But we had some unexpected maintenance on the engines that curtailed our cruising.  In fact, in 2007 we experienced the lowest number of miles and running hours of any year we'd had that boat.  We did see Washington, DC; Baltimore, MD; Cambridge, MD and surrounding Eastern Shore communities.  We visited museums and toured Williamsburg and Jamestown.  We met some new friends and spent some time with some older friends.  We think we got our problems with the  stabilizers fixed, and we do not recommend Wesmar or Gowen Marine in Portland, ME for installation of stabilizers.  We did anchor out as well as stayed in marinas.  We saw a good deal, and we could have done more except for the maintenance.  In 2008 we will see a little more of the Chesapeake Bay and then go back up into Canada.  Eventually I would like to get the boat back into Texas.

      

     Sixteen years of cruising have totaled over 40,000 miles since 1991. 

     TO ORDER, we don't have a fancy shopping cart or credit card system.  Please send an email to David@inlandcruising.com  describing the items you want, or print this page and mail it to me with your check (to David Magill) for the proper amount. Provide your mail or UPS address, and tell me which you prefer.  Our address is 15822 Sylvan Lake Drive, Houston, TX 77062.  I believe you will enjoy these logs and videos, and I welcome your feedback as well.  Send your comments to the same email address.  Let me know to whom to address the comments, and I will "personalize" the Cruise Reports for you or yours.

     David Magill