We just returned from a four-day trip up the Ottawa River which put 100 miles on the odometer over four days. We visited towns, beaches, bays, and parks
After 15 years of owning the X, I'm still learning.
The fam is growing up:
I learned a lot about the new DF90A fuel economy at cruising speed...it's not great.
We burned 43L of gas to travel 152km at 10km/hr on the Suzuki DF90A. (5.5mpg at 6mph). The Etec90 would have burned less than half of that for the same trip. However, for the ENTIRE trip except 5 minutes, the wind was directly on the nose. Like...directly, no exaggeration. The river funnelled the wind around corners, and switched itself up day-to-day to be ALWAYS on our nose. On the return trip wind was a sustained 20mph, gusting 30. So much so that we couldn't run at 6mph without catching air off of the waves (which of course were wind-against-current, steep and closely spaced). So the fuel mileage deserves a grain of salt: outbound trip wind at 7mph on the nose but also going up-current, on the return trip wind at 20mph on the nose.
That puts my worst-case range at 250km on the gas we carry in the main tanks, or 320 km with an additional 5-gallon tank. Important info for our upcoming Bahamas voyage.
Trip highlights:
Bear Hunt to the rescue: towed a 16ft open-deck about 4 miles back to their launch site.
Passed trough the locks at Carillon Power Station, a 65-ft single vertical lift, after passing through 45' high guillotine doors was awesome. The photo doesn't show the real scale of the locks:
Found an amazing anchorage in Voyageur Provincial Park, just off a beach with hiking tails. Half a mile up a weedy creek in 3 ft of water, we were the only BOAT, let alone sailboat, and several paddle-boarders passed by with questions.
On the return trip we went through the lock again, this time with a lone canoe. As we passed the canoe in the channel, I asked him where he was going and he said "Nova Scotia". About a minute later I did a U-turn and went back to ask more questions. He's my age, and started paddling in Tennessee, came up the Mississipi, through the great lakes, down the St. Lawrence River, and wasn't even sure where his final destination was. He had a sack of clothes, a bug screen, a cooler, and a 20W solar panel for his phone. No website, no blog, just the trip. He was taking a lot of photos, and appreciated the cold drinks we gave him, and the advice on where to take shelter for the upcoming storm (the tail end of Debbie, which dumped over 6 inches of rain on us in one day...I know, nothing to complain about in comparison). Very interesting person to talk to, and I wish we could have stayed to talk more, but we were under time pressure to get back before the storm.
The X can sure take a beating. 20mph sustained on the nose had everything that wasn't strapped down catching air off the waves, with the splashes whipping back through the cockpit. The wide dodger is great for 1 person to find a sheltered spot.
Oh, and AutoPilot. What an amazing add. It probably belongs in a thread "Best mod for the MOST money", but worth every penny. It really enables long-distance cruising; I couldn't imagine hand-steering for 50 miles on a single day.
so no playtime today…. Maybe Friday? 
