So I kind of have a plan and could really use some direction.

[Gerrit Coetzee]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Welcome aboard CF, Huckleberry! I reckon that your plan could work just fine if you are up to it.

Jim

Like the Huckleberry conotations. Never thought about it, until know. At school, on few occasions that I felf depressed, I would skip school (at the immense fear that if my dad found out, it would be mahem), went to the Kliprivier river in Ladysmith RSA, and spend the day basking in the sun, playing in the river, and chasing elusive dragonflies.
(My wife has a recollection of these stories - as recently as yesterday - that I would caught them and stripped their wings. As much as I am trying to convince her that I never ever caught one, she stick to her guns as being the truth )

These are fond memories of me growing up - especially because by some miracle I was never caught out

I don't like camping or roughing it, but I realized today that not only was Huckleberry a childhood loved storybook, boating is my way of living it.

[Buzzman]

Go to You Tube and type in "mississippi shanty boat" and you will be amazed.

The whole 'shanty boat thing' is definitely a "thing".....

Joy.

[GrowleyMonster]

One more thing for you to plan... a graceful exit. You want your waterborne conveyance to be one that is easy to sell quick or at least give away at the end of your journey. You don't just bail overboard and let it continue out to sea, and you don't just tie it up to a tree and split. Trucking your boat home could be expensive. A true raft built of logs and fully biodegradeable wood for your cabin or shanty you could abandon, maybe. A drum raft you could disassemble and scrap. A sailboat you could re-step the mast and continue across the eastern Gulf to FL and across FL to the Atlantic, then proceed North via the Gulf Stream or up the ICW, inland via the St Lawrence, and continue to close the loop. Or buy an old pickup and trailer at journey's end, and drive home.


On second thought, a true raft might not work so well. I forgot about locks and dams.

[ranger58sb]

Some direction? Easy. Whichever way the current flows!

Learn COLREGs (and take a copy along). You'll need a clue what other boats will expect you to be doing.

Handheld VHF radio, good. Recharging... may be an issue. A small Honda (or similar) genset might not hurt for that, but it'd take gas... and you'll want to be conserving gas for your outboard... so maybe just a good stash of decent batteries, replenished whenever you get the chance, would be fine.

Fashion a good sweep in the stern, so you can get through the fuel-less bits using just the current. In fact, you could do a lot of the trip using just the current, only use the outboard when you need it.

Stash of bug juice.

Enjoy! And check in here from time to time.

-Chris