Change of plans. No Loop afterall.....

Today we cruised up the placid, beautiful, and empty Hudson River to West Point. We saw the flock of swans fly by in the photo. I'd never seen a flock of them flying like that before. When I first awoke, a swan was right next to the boat and sort of begged from me. We had a swan-human conversation about American Idol, and then he went off to find some donuts.

At West Point, we anchored carefully since the shallow part next to shore quickly dropped to over 100 ft. We walked up the long hill in 90-degree heat and walked around the lower campus - the dorms, the Parade, Trophy Hill (see photo of Bruce at Trophy Hill overlooking the Hudson to the north). We then hiked uphill to the chapel, and then went back to the boat. I was familiar with the campus since Annette and I had been there three yrs ago for the graduation - to watch Peter Zink achieve his rank!

We then slowly cruised on up the river to Marlboro, where we are tonight. We're almost to Hyde Park where we hope to tour tomorrow.

The title of this posting is really why I wanted to post just one day since my last. Due to the oil spill in the Gulf, I have made the difficult decision to abandon the Great Loop route. If I continue down to Mobile, AL and have to end there, I don't see it as favorable a route as the new one I am planning:

Turn back after Mackinac Island at the top of Lake Michigan, and go back to the Chesapeake Bay on a different route as much as possible. That means down to Detroit, on to Lake Erie, east to the Erie Canal, and back into Lake Ontario. At that point, I would have completed all of the Erie Canal, but in two halves. Once in Lake Ontario, I'll head east into the St. Lawrence Seaway to Montreal, and then down to Lake Champlain. If we (Rick and I) have time, we'll take the Rideau Canal from Lake Ontario to Ottawa, and down the Ottawa River to Montreal.

Once we get back to Albany, I'll repeat my course down the Hudson and New Jersey and back into the Chesapeake Bay. By then it would likely be the end of the boating season that far north - about early Nov. I would then need to leave the boat in dry dock until the spring boating season starts again in early April. From there I would like to see the lower Chesapeake Bay including Washington, D.C. After that I'm not sure whether I'd head south on the Intracoastal Waterway, or head north to the New England coast up to Maine and perhaps Nova Scotia. I'm leaning toward the latter.

Abandoning the Great Loop is monumental given my 15 years of dreaming about it and planning it, but the revised adventure is just as exciting to think about and will be incredible as well.