O00: Prelude to a Trip

 

First things first:  What is the Great Loop (“G/L”)?   In a nutshell, it is a trip that circumnavigates the Eastern third of the United States via water.   Here is a nice FAQ on the G/L: https://www.greatloop.org/great-loop-information/great-loop-faqs.html

 

The first time I ever heard about this trip was from a retired judge who was serving as a mediator in a lawsuit.  The company I was working for was suing an HMO (health maintenance organization) for doing what HMO’s do best: refuse payment for services rendered.   We were meeting with him in his office, and the mediator had a picture of his boat, a Grand Banks trawler, behind his desk.  As a “boater” I was naturally curious, and he told me that he was doing this thing called the Great Loop trip.   In his case, he was “looping” six weeks on, then parking the boat at a marina and doing the “mediation/arbitration gig” back home for six weeks.    (Note to readers:  there is no one way to do the G/L, kind of like the Appalachian Trail:  do it over time in segments, do it all at once, do it clockwise or counterclockwise (preferred way due to inland river currents), etc.  Your trip, your choice.)

 

Disappointed that we left the mediation without a settlement (even though the retired judge told the HMO that it was going to lose the case, which was eventually settled after I left the company), I nonetheless was inspired to learn more about this thing called the Great Loop.   I fired up the google search engine and found the afore referenced www.greatloop.org website which is the site of an organization called the “America’s Great Loop Cruisers Association” (“AGLCA”) run by the indomitable Kim Russo and started my research.

 

In 2015 we bought a Ranger Tug 25 trawler after most recently being part owner of an Ericson 25 sailboat and we finally had a boat that we thought we could safely do the G/L.  (More info on Ranger Tugs in “The Boat” link).  On a rainy miserable winter day in 2016, I went to a seminar on the G/L presented by Kim.   I left the seminar with a definite attitude of “we can do this” and two new friends: Ron and Libby Johnson.    (Ron and Libby completed a half-loop in 2017/2018 before life got in their way but have served as an inspiration to us nonetheless.)

 

In 2017 we upgraded to the larger Ranger Tug 29S, buying it in Seattle and keeping it out west that summer.   We (Dave and Nancy) began dipping our toes more deeply in the cruising lifestyle doing a two-week trip into British Columbia, and one week trip to the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound.   Subsequent years found us doing a ten-day trip from Chicago to Charlevoix, Michigan, another ten-day trip circumnavigating Door County, Wisconsin, and finally two-week trip up to Door County and over to Traverse City, Michigan.     (Not my only boating experience.  During my college years I raced a Hobie Cat 14 all over the Midwest, and then post-college had a series of boats that were kept in Chicago harbors:  MacGregor 24, Herreshoff H-28 and a 28-foot Chris Cavalier.  The H-28 is pictured here as owning that boat has given me the ability to say with all due smugness, “Back in the day, I sailed a wooden ketch back and forth across Lake Michigan with only a compass and VHF radio.  No GPS, no autopilot, no chart plotter, no cell phones, no bow/stern thrusters, and no radar."   Of course, all things that would be tough to live without today.)

 

During this time, I dived more deeply into the world of the Great Loop, reading blogs. Watching you-tube videos and reading a few reference books, most prominently “The Loopers Companion” by Captain John.   I joined the AGLCA as well and began devouring back issues of their monthly electronic magazine.  My Covid pandemic activity was to get a basic Coast Guard Captain’s License.  Specifically, my ratings are 1) Operator of Uninspected Passenger Vessels, 2) Ordinary Seaman, 3) Wiper, and 4) Steward’s Department.  So, I have that going for me, which is nice.   The FB troll community will tell you it is a useless license, and I’ll probably in fact never actually use it, but the education to get it is very valuable IMHO. On that topic,  I did not join any Great Loop Facebook groups until very late, because if you have ever been on a large FB Group (+100k) you know that half the stuff posted is bollocks, a good percentage is just trolls, and few people actually read original post and are just peacocking their specific knowledge rather than being helpful to answer the question asked.

 

In 2018 my best friend died of colon cancer at 58 years old.  A few months later a brother-in-law died unexpectedly of a dissected aorta.  2019 brough the deaths of two college fraternity brothers/roommates.   I decided that I didn’t want to “leave it at the office” and began planning to retire early and set the date for March 31, 2023, just after I turned 63.   And retire I did, well kind-of-sort-of.   I did “remain on the payroll” part time through September 30, 2023, as the company I worked for wanted me to finish up a few projects.    The last week of May 2023 found my wife Nancy and I moving onto our boat RT29 “Hygge” having sold our house and gotten rid, one way or another, of our possessions except the boat, our cars, and what would fit in a 10’ by 10’ storage locker. 

 

The picture below shows the state of the dock in Racine, Wisconsin after we launched Hygge and unloaded several car trips worth of gear.  Believe it or not, but most of that gear and then some were all stored away neatly in or rather small, for G/L boats, R29S.    Once loaded we headed up to Sturgeon Bay in Door County, Wisconsin for the summer.

 

  Dave