Just the numbers

As promised at the end of the last post this post is "just the numbers".  We are still in Kenosha, WI.  It has been a restful week for both of us and it has provided an opportunity to compile some summary information regarding our progress.

We traveled 11 of the last 18 days.  As the portion of the trip on the Great Lakes draws to a close, we have covered 603 nautical miles in just over 76 hours of travel time.  Tomorrow we will go approximately 45 more miles on Lake Michigan to Chicago where we will stay for the weekend.  Monday morning we will transition to the river portion of the trip.

For those of you not familiar with nautical vs. statute miles. A statute mile is 5,280 feet in length.

A nautical mile is 6,076.11549... feet in length.  To convert from statute to nautical miles a factor of 1.15 is generally used, even though it is not precise.  So 1 statute mile is roughly 1.15 nautical miles.  

Once Bert figured out the fuel tank usage / fuel line issue in Mackinaw City we are now able to better estimate our fuel usage.  We have traveled at a speed of just about 8 knots the entire trip, which provides us pretty economical travel.  The best estimate is that we use about 5.38 gallons of diesel fuel per hour.  Said another way, we can go about 1.5 nautical miles on a gallon of fuel.  The best price we've gotten for diesel is $3.93 per gallon and transient well fee for overnight stay is averaging just about $1.56 per foot.

Below is a more detailed spreadsheet of our daily progress so far:

			Nautical	Total		Engine	Total
Date	Start	End	Miles	Miles		Hours	Hours
20-Aug	Harrison Twp, MI	Port Huron, MI	48	48		6.75	6.75
21-Aug	Port Huron, MI	Harbor Beach, MI	54	102		7.35	14.1
22-Aug	Harbor Beach, MI	Harrisville, MI	66	168		8.1	22.2
23-Aug	Harrisville, MI	Presque Isle, MI	52	220		6.4	28.6
24-Aug	Presque Isle, MI	Mackinaw City, MI	61	281		7.7	36.3
27-Aug	Mackinaw City, MI	Leland, MI	81	362		9.9	46.2
28-Aug	Leland, MI	Frankfort, MI	43	405		4.9	51.1
29-Aug	Frankfort, MI	Sturgeon Bay, WI	49	454		6.6	57.7
31-Aug	Sturgeon Bay, WI	Sheboygan, WI	74	528		9	66.7
1-Sep	Sheboygan, WI	Port Washington, WI	25	553		3.4	70.1
3-Sep	Port Washington, WI	Kenosha, WI	50	603		6.6	76.7

Map of Our Route to Date

Once in the river system, all the guide books reference distances is statute miles so the rest of the mileage information in this post is in statute miles.  On Monday, the first thing we must do is pass through the Chicago Harbor Lock.  We'll travel through downtown Chicago using the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal which is about 40 miles.  This will require us to remove the radar mast and all the bridge canvas on Sunday night.  In order to take this route through downtown we need to be able to pass under the lowest bridge which is 17 feet.  Removing the mast and canvas will get us down to about 14 feet.  If we didn't remove it, we'd have to take an alternate route through the Cal-Sag Channel and need to make it under a bridge that is 19 feet.  Coincidentally, we are just about 19 feet with the radar mast and canvas in place.  We chose what we believe to be the more scenic of the two routes since we do have the ability to remove the top 5 feet of height off the boat.

Once through Chicago, we enter the Illinois River and travel just about 300 miles.  The Illinois River connects to the Upper Mississippi river which is about 217 miles.  From the Upper Mississippi we transition to the Ohio River and to upstream for 46 miles.  At that point we have a choice to take the Tennessee or Cumberland River route which we haven't decided on yet.  We estimate this next 600 miles will take us about 4-6 weeks.  Much longer than the initial 600 miles because there will be a lot of waiting on draw bridges and also on locks.  We will pass through just over a dozen locks in the next portion of the trip.

Chicago Weekend

We were not able to get reservations in DuSable Harbor next to Navy Pier in Chicago but we were able to get reservations in Burnham Harbor by Soldiers Field.  We've been warned that it will be quite lively around there on Sunday as there is a Bears game scheduled.  Chicago Bears vs. Indianapolis Colts.  Good times!

The 16th Annual Chicago half marathon is also scheduled for Sunday.  If time permits and there is still availability that might have to be on the to do list for Sunday.  The expo for in-person sign up is Friday at Navy Pier so more will be known tomorrow.