The Great Loop is Complete

The Alpha and the Omega. The beginning and the end. Here we are with the previous owners of ITHAKA at the Looper rendezvous in Joe Wheeler State Park in October 2012. This is when we signed a contract to buy Bob White and Cathryn Rice's boat NEXT TO ME, before they had even finished their Loop. They would become great friends and mentors.

Fast forward to March 28, 2015 and Sara and I proudly unfurl our Gold Looper Flag at Ft. Pierce, Florida after doing one quick loop into and out of Harbor Isle Marina to officially cross our starting point before moving over to the Ft. Pierce City Marina to take advantage of their greater facilities.

This is for all the number crunchers out there, like me, who enjoy the statistics of a trip such as this, so bear with me.

We spent 375 days on the water, traveling 6,169 miles and spending 702 hours and 23 minutes at the helm. That gave us an average speed of 8.8 MPH.

We crossed or traveled on 46 rivers.

We transited through 16 states and 1 foreign country.

We crossed 3 of the Great Lakes

We traveled on the Atlantic Ocean for three days.

We crossed 200 miles of the Gulf of Mexico, at night, in dense fog, in 22 hours and 15 minutes.

We crossed 12 large lakes.

We crossed 13 bays/sounds and harbors.

We transited 7 canals or waterways.

We transited through 108 locks.

Our longest mileage day was 121 SM 

Our longest day in hours was 11 hours

Our shortest mileage day was 4 SM

Our shortest day in time was 45 minutes

The most locks transited in one day was 12

The picture below depicts the 48 publications, charts, maps, cruising guides and reference books we used throughout this year long journey. Taken together, they weigh 82 pounds.

Sara at the helm practicing docking ITHAKA 

At the helm, keeping an eye on things.

At the chart table with the ever present paper charts and the iPad that never failed us, with the "little brown line" that helped keep us on course.

Sara's favorite place, the "Holy Place", the engine room. Luckily, her many other duties kept her out of here.

Handling the lines while locking through or docking, she became an expert at this as well.

Taking a break to watch a parade.

Resupplying the boat with provisions was always a challenge without a rental car or courtesy car from the marina.

A new boat owner and a new Captain! Life is good!

The "seasoned" Captain at the helm.

Taking my turn at the chart table.

The "sea dog" sitting at the table in the salon. This was my work place, reading place inside.

All dressed up in my BC glasses and ITHAKA hat.

A real Indian and a real Canadian Mounted Policewoman. It doesn't get any better than that.

Good friends and fun times along the Loop. Sara and Anne from ASSISTED LIVING.

A street festival in Canada ......

..........with our friends Rob and Linda 

One of the many highlights of the trip was spending several days in New York City with Sara's daughter and grandkids, Erin, John, Ben and Katie, here at the 911 memorial.

The KIDS with the skyline of NY

A little relaxation for Erin on the sundeck

We got to spend a great day and night with my cousin Cindy and her husband Mark enjoying the sundeck then dinner and a play in the Big Apple.

Just a little Sunday afternoon cruise in our own private golf cart on the island of Boca Grande, Florida.

On Top of the Rock in NYC

The new skyline of NYC with the almost complete One World Trade Center. It will never be the same without the Twin Towers!

Coming in from the Atlantic Ocean and passing the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, in our own boat, will be a memory that will last a lifetime.

The beautiful NYC skyline at night, as seen from our sundeck.

ITHAKA coming out of the lock and headed for Joe Wheeler, all powered up!

ITHAKA leaving "paradise" after ten weeks in Key West.

And the sun sets on our once in a lifetime trip and adventure.........

.............until the next adventure.

ITHAKA Crosses Her Wake (Technically)

Since the work we had done on ITHAKA at the River Forest Yacht Center (RFYC) in Stuart was complete, we pulled out of there for our last 43 mile run back to Ft. Pierce and our actual starting point for the Great Loop. When we stored the boat at RFYC, in June 2013, we had Chris Caldwell accompany us down the ICW to the Center because we were really inexperienced and thought it would be beneficial for one last training session, before striking out on our own. However, when Sara and I retrieved ITHAKA from her six month storage in November 2013, we brought her back to Ft. Pierce by ourselves. So, "technically" we have crossed our wake and closed our loop at the RFYC, even though the actual end to our trip will be our arrival at Ft. Pierce.

Just so we could have the Gold Looper Flag flying while underway, we took our white flag down and proudly replaced it with the Gold flag, signifying we were now members of a small, elite group of boaters that had completed The Great Loop.

The Gold AGLCA Flag looks great flying in the breeze as ITHAKA starts for Ft Pierce and her last day of the trip.

Seminole Inn, Indiantown, FL

Since ITHAKA is "on the hard" (in nautical terms) at RFYC having some work done, we needed to find a place to stay for a few days. Since this is spring break time and the snowbirds are still coming south, every hotel we called close to RFYC was full. We finally found an inn located 15 miles west of RFYC that had one room remaining, so we took it, sight unseen. It turns out that it is a rather historic inn, called Seminole Inn located in Indiantown, FL.

The Inn was built in the 1920's by a Baltimore banker named S. Davies Warfield who planned to make the Inn the center of his new planned community and the headquarters of his Seaboard Airline Railroad that ran from Central Florida to West Palm Beach. The Inn is situated on land settled by the Seminole Indians early in the nineteenth century and most of the residents of Indiantown today are full blooded descendants of the original settlers. Mr. Warfield was the uncle of Wallis Warfield who was to become the Duchess of Windsor when King George of England  abdicated his throne to marry her. She attended the gala opening of the Inn and visited many times after. Pictures of her and the former King adorn many of the walls of the Inn.

Today it is a quaint inn that still harbors some of the grandeur of the old south with it's wide porches.......

lush gardens......

.........and tiny rooms. It has been a long time since we've slept in just a double bed!

......there is still a nice lounge area to relax, read, play games or work jigsaw puzzles.

One of the wonderful side benefits of sometimes staying at unique, out of the way places is having the opportunity to attend very special events. Such was the case today when Sara picked up a flyer in the lobby of the Inn announcing a presentation by the son of world renown author Patrick Smith. Patrick Smith, a multi-Pulitzer prize nominee is most famous for his book "A Land Remembered", a historic fiction novel covering the history of Florida from approximately 1850 to 1960 as told through the trials and tribulations of the MacIvey family. Prior to Mr. Smith's presentation, a local "wilderness woman" gave a brief presentation on some aspects of early pioneer life in Florida.

Patrick Smith's son Rick gave a superb video presentation and talk explaining his father's many books and his life and style of writing. Though his father passed on a few years ago, Rick's videos included many recorded appearances of his father and his wonderful story telling ability.

It was an afternoon to remember!