Monday, May 3, 2010

Crossing our wake in Charleston - WE DID IT!!!

We had a very enjoyable and charming few days in Beaufort, SC before beginning our final few days on the trip.  We departed Beaufort on March 9th for an anchorage 30 miles south of Charleston.  It is appropriate that the last night of our journey was on anchor in a very secluded spot just off the intracoastal waterway.  This first picture was made in the early evening as the sun was setting and we were sitting on the aft deck reflecting on all we have seen and experienced in the last year.  We have been fortunate to have seen many, many peaceful settings like this!


We departed early the next morning for our final 30 miles on the most incredible journey we have ever experienced.  For the final 3 hours as we approached Charleston, Pia read recaps of some of the adventures captured in our daily journal and ship's log.  We will be happy to be home but will miss the challenges and rewards of being on the water. 

When we departed in April 09 from Charleston City Marina, we stopped for a moment to look at the bridge from Charleston to James Island (from the Charleston side) and wonder how it would feel to approach it from the other side when we complete the loop.  This next picture is the bridge coming through the Wapoo Cut approaching Charleston, about to cross our wake.  The other picture is us actually crossing our wake on the Ashley River as we approached the marina.  Quite an emotional experience for both of us.  WE DID IT! (the boat still floats, we have money in the checking account, and we are still married!)








At 11:00 AM on April 10th, 51 weeks after departing, Jack and Pia aboard "Still Busy" crossed our wake to complete The Great Loop.  We have traveled over 6000 miles, 2 countries, 17 states, 2 provinces, 140+ locks, and almost 40 waterways/rivers/canals/lakes/oceans etc.  As we pulled into the face dock at the Charleston City Marina, we were greeted by the same group of friends, holding a welcome home banner, that were in Charleston in 2009 to visit us before our departure.  Jack also hoisted our America's Great Loop Cruising Association GOLD BURGEE that we earned by completing this adventure.  



 Most of our fondest memories of this journey are of the great people we met along the way, many that we are still in contact with and will hopefully travel with in the future.  Seeing "The Crew" from Lake Norman with this banner as we approached the dock was equally great as they were here to help celebrate our success.  Coming home would not have been the same without them here. 

We continued our celebration with The Crew on Saturday afternoon followed by dinner at their rented house on Wild Dunes Saturday evening.  On Sunday, Brent, Tara, Garrett, and Grace joined us for the trip from the marina to the boatyard where "Still Busy" will be loaded on a truck for her return to Lake Norman.  After dinner with Brent and family, we spent Sunday evening preparing "Still Busy" to be lifted out of the water on Monday morning.  We are not only pleased that she made the journey without a major malfunction but the bottom and props were in excellent condition. 

As we have stated many times on this blog, The Great Loop has been a trip of a lifetime.  There are 3 parts to this journey; Planning, Doing, and Remembering.  We have great experiences to remember and talk about for years to come.  We have met some great people along the way and we have experience challenges that we were able to overcome. 

For the foreseeable future, we will be back in Cornelius with long overdue chores at home as well as preparing "Still Busy" for lake life. 

We look forward to our next adventure on the water and are already planning this event.  Stay tuned!!!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Titusville to Disney to Beaufort, SC

WOW - we had a great time with Joe, Jen, Olivia, and Stella at Disney!  We left "Still Busy" in Titusville and drove to Orlando to meet the kids.  Olivia was very excited about seeing a Princess while Stella was more exited about her next feeding.  Pictures below are a good recap of our 3 days at The Magic Kingdom, starting with Jen and family followed by Pia and Jack in front of the castle:








We really enjoyed the time we were able to spend with the kids over the next few days and tried to select a few more pictures that represents the good time had by all.  In order are, Stella, Jen and Olivia, Olivia, and Pops and Stella.



Friday, March 19, 2010

Key West to Titusville

We reluctantly departed Conch Harbor Marina in Key West for our trip north on a windy Saturday, March 6th, leaving behind the crews from “Brilliant” – Rich and Hildy- “Morningside” – Gerry, Joanne, and Hinckley – “Spey” – George and Kathy – all shown in this first picture taken at the entrance to the marina the morning we departed. Great people and fond memories!

Winds were on our bow for most of the trip causing a lot of spray so “Still Busy” and crew were pretty salty when we arrived at our anchorage destination in Long Key, 40+ miles from Key West. When we anchored, the winds had calmed somewhat (10mph) but really picked up after midnight (25+ MPH) so we rocked most of the night. However, we woke up on Sunday morning in the same spot without dragging anchor so we were much relieved. Late Sunday afternoon, we arrived in Key Largo tired after a couple of days of wind and salt spray so decided to spend two nights in this protected harbor. We both needed some respite from the wind and took this extra day for some much needed relaxing by the pool!






We left Key Largo early on Tuesday and arrived in Miami late afternoon, found a marina in Coconut Grove (with a Fresh Market close by), went shopping, and had dinner on the boat. We are now out of the keys and look forward to getting back into the protected Intracoastal Waterway as the wind continues to be a challenge. Our next destination, Ft Lauderdale was everything we had anticipated – big homes with even bigger boats! Our plans were to be at Bahia Mar Marina at Ft Lauderdale Beach a couple of days but Mother Nature once again dictated our agenda – heavy rains and winds on our expected travel day so we stayed an extra night, forcing us to travel on Saturday. We had hoped to avoid travel in this area on a weekend due to the number of local boaters that would be on the water. If anyone ever gets a chance to travel the ICW in south Florida try to avoid weekend travel. Local boaters do not slow down and are belligerent when asked to reduce their wake – we were rocked all day on Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday evening, we stopped in Del Ray Beach and joined former neighbors Kristin and Ryan from Lake Norman that now live close to here, for a late lunch at a restaurant on the beach and drinks and desert back on the boat. Really good to see them both again.


Leaving Del Ray beach, we stayed at a marina in Hobie Sound (tried to anchor but the strong winds and the crowded anchorage forced us to look for a marina at the last moment) and Vero Beach before arriving in Titusville on Tuesday evening, March 16th – one day ahead of schedule. Wednesday was devoted to cleaning and minor maintenance on “Still Busy” in preparation for our final leg. Yesterday we spent the entire day at the Kennedy Space Center and will drive to Orlando this weekend to meet kids and grandkids at Disney. We will return to the boat on March 25th and depart the following day for our final 400 mile journey to Charleston with a planned arrival on April 10th where we will be met by the crew from Lake Norman that were there to see us off almost one year ago.








As most of you know, Pia has spent a lot of time on the trip documenting our journey via paintings. This last picture was taken in her “studio” on the bridge. When Pia is not driving the boat, she is usually painting and has completed over 20 paintings so far.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Our Southernmost Point - Key West

We have been in Key West at Conch Harbor Marina since February 1st and are having a great time enjoying the weather (a few cool days in the low 60’s but a lot of days in the 70’s), the plethora of shops/restaurants/bars/etc., and, most of all, the people and local characters. When (or IF) we ever leave here, we will head up the east coast with plans to meet Jenn, Joe, Olivia, and Stella at Disney mid March.

At our last posting – well over a month ago – we had arrived at Marco Island. We departed Marco Island on January 26th and reconnected with George and Kathy from “Spey” whom we met in Canada and have traveled with on and off since last summer. On our first night out of Marco, we anchored in Little Shark River in The Everglades, dropped the dingy to do some exploring before joining Kathy and George for appetizers aboard “Spey”. These first 2 pictures were taken at our Everglades anchorage. We anticipated staying in The Everglades for a couple of days but, due to predicted winds and weather, decided to continue our trip to Marathon to find a safe harbor to wait out the winds. We enjoyed the experience of anchoring in the Everglades, we were disappointed, however, that we have yet to see any alligators. Due to the coming winds, the mooring balls and marinas in Marathon were full but we were fortunate to find slips in a marina (actually tied to a brick wall) and stayed for 5 nights. Nothing really exciting in Marathon while we waited for a good weather window – the highlight of our time spent there was on bikes riding to the grocery store down a busy highway (US1), in the dingy to the beach, and visiting Fred (minus Linda) on “Young America”. Some of the Loopers we have met along the way are now in Marathon for the winter.

On February 1st, along with “Spey”, we departed Marathon for Key West, a distance of ~50 miles, in light rain that turned to heavy rain storms by late morning but with minimal winds. We have finally arrived at the most Southern point of our journey – Conch Harbor Marina in Key West – and look forward to our “vacation from our vacation” over the next month. At this marina, we joined Gerry and Joanne aboard “Morningside”, another Looper we have traveled with and Rich and Hildy aboard “Brilliant”. Over the next few weeks, we had good times with all. This is the longest period we have stayed in one spot without returning home and our days have been nothing short of busy. We committed to walking every morning (3+miles) - have met this commitment so far – while most afternoons are spent leisurely walking around Key West to visit many of the recommended sights – Sunset at Mallory Square, Ernest Hemmingway House, Key West Light House, ALL of Duval Street, Truman’s Little White House, Southern Most Point, dingy rides through the mangroves (pictured above), and more bars than I can remember! Jack was very involved with some due maintenance on the boat while Pia took this time to catch up on her paintings.
Pictures below are of a number of sights we have seen in Key West - including our arrival at Mallory Square, lunch at Margaritaville, Hemmingway House, a picture made of a grave marker in the town cemetary, and sunset at Mallory Square.






We are now about 750 miles from crossing our wake in Charleston.  This final leg of our journey will take a little over 4 weeks including the time we will spend in Orlando.

Monday, January 25, 2010

SW Florida - Punta Gorda to Marco Island

After a month at home for the holidays, we were happy to be back in Florida even though the weather here was cold by Florida standards. However, after experiencing the below normal weather in NC while home, anything above freezing was an improvement.


We flew back to Sarasota on January 9th, was picked up by Ron and Marji at the airport, spent the next few days at their beautiful home in Punta Gorda and was joined by another Looper boat – Rick and Betsy aboard “Rick and Roll” – that we have traveled on and off with since Canada. We have really enjoyed Ron and Marji’s hospitality and friendship but we needed to continue our journey south. We departed Punta Gorda on January 13th and traveled a short distance to one of the most beautiful anchorages we have experienced in Pelican Bay. The weather finally warmed and we spent an enjoyable afternoon on the beach and was able to capture these pictures of the sunset.

From Pelican Bay, we traveled to Ft Myers Beach for the weekend, where we walked the beach, shops, and took in a Motorcycle fundraiser “Bikers for Babies”. On the 18th, we moved to Naples where we stayed on a mooring ball for 4 nights. We enjoyed the shopping in Naples, did a lot of walking, took in the boat show, and just relaxed! From Naples, we made the short trip to our current location on Marco Island. Here we took out our bikes, and traversed the island to the “lagoon”, the beach and shopping. The marina has wonderful facilities, including a pool, which we enjoyed on one of the hotter days.

We continue to be amazed by the playful dolphins as they "frolic" in our wake.

Tomorrow we will continue our travels south in search of warmer weather - we are only 80 miles from Key West and plan to make a few stops on the way at Everglades City, Little Shark River, and Marathon before arriving at Conch Marina next weekend. For the entire month of February, we will become honorary Conch Republic citizens before heading north closer back to reality.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Home for the Holidays!

It is hard to believe that our last posting was over a month ago in late November.  At the last posting, we were in Clearwater for Thanksgiving after crossing The Gulf and were preparing to travel to Ron and Marji's house in Punta Gorda and travel home for the holidays.  Below is a recap of this voyage.


Some of our most favorite pictures since leaving Charleston in April have been of the dolphins and how playful they can be as they swim beside the boat.  This picture has to be one of our most favorite of the entire trip taken as we traveled down the Gulf Intracostal Waterway south of Clearwater.  This one dolphin was swimming alongside "Still Busy" for a few miles as Pia took many pictures.  Finally, the dolphin came out of the water for this pose.  Neither of us realized how good the picture was until we downloaded pictures later that evening.  One more reason we enjoy being in Florida!



Our first stop since leaving Clearwater was the downtown marina in St. Petersburg where, for the first time on the trip, we were boarded by the US Coast Guard for an inspection.  As Jack was going through the safety checklist with the "Coastes", Pia took this picture(she was quite impressed with these Guards?).  Fortunately all was in order and we were on our way quickly.




Leaving St Pete, we next traveled to Brandenton Beach on a near perfect weather day to spend a few days on the beach and discovered this sand sculpture of Christmas cartoon characters.  As the sun was setting over the Gulf, this next picture was also made on Brandenton Beach.


From Brandenton, we traveled to Marina Jack's in Sarasota to a great marina downtown within walking distance of many sights and restaurants.  As part of our sightseeing adventures, we visited the Ringling Mansion, a beautiful home and museum built by the founders of the Ringling Circus.  This picture was taken from the patio that overlooks the bay - yes that is Jack on his Blackberry!



We continued our trip south and, after a one night stop in Venice Beach, arrived at Palm Island Marina, just north of Charlotte Harbor, in a hard rain that "trapped" us for two days.  Although the weather was wet and cool, Pia took the opportunity to clean "Still Busy" from the dingy.  It is not always "wine and cheese"!!!!

So, we departed Clearwater on November 29th, traveled down the Gulf Intracoastal to St Pete/Sarasota/etc. and arrived in Punta Gorda on December 6th.  We spent the next few days with Ron and Marji (shown here beside their pool) at their beautiful home,which included a dinner party with friends by the pool, before flying home on December 9th to Charlotte for the holidays.  While home, we celebrated Christmas and New Years Eve with family and friends and will travel back to Florida this Saturday on January 9th.  The final 2 pictures below are Pia and Stella on Stella's first Christmas and "The Crew" at our home for a New Years Eve party.  Although we have really enjoyed our time at home, we are ready to get back on the water and continue our journey.  Our plans are to depart Punta Gorda next week, take 2 weeks to travel to Key West with plans to spend the entire month of February in the Keys (in search of warmer weather).  We will keep everyone updated on our adventures via the blog over the final 3 months of our trip and look forward to hearing from you.