Selkie

One of the things Libbie and I have discovered about doing the Loop is that it is much more fun to do it on your own terms, rather than thinking the Loop dictates a schedule. We have completed 4,700 miles of our journey, and Selkie has served us well. But with all our other things […]

As we move along the Florida coast, we’ve seen a different personality develop based on the area. The rustic part, with its quaint villages along the Big Bend from Appalachicola to Tarpon Springs has a backwater charm with a diverse set of wildlife. The Tampa Bay and Fort Meyers regions have a ton of high […]

During the past two weeks, we’ve been exploring two very different islands right next to each other: Gasparilla to the north, with the town of Boca Grande, and Cayo Costa to the south. One is an island almost fully developed with little buildable land remaining. The other is an uninhabited state park. Both are very […]

After being in Florida off and on for the past few months, the Real Florida has finally appeared with sunny skies and high temperatures in the 80s. It’s not that we need this weather all the time but it’s nice to see it when it does show up and by all accounts, the weather should […]

We woke up in Tarpon Springs. It was pretty cold. In fact the fabled sunny and warm Florida was nowhere to be found. El Niño has been making a lot of weather trouble so far. Everyone has been a little grumpy about it, including me. When it’s colder in Florida than it is in Tahoe […]

2023 ended very well for us. We were able to spend our first Christmas with our daughters’ families including our grandchildren. It was pretty epic. Santa brought a trampoline for Christmas for our two older grandsons and they haven’t been off it since. It took some engineering skill to put it together. Luckily the assembly […]

The Big Bend is the West Coast of Florida between the Florida Panhandle to the north and the Tampa Bay Area to the south. It is not as remote as the Everglades but it is still not traveled as much as the central and eastern part of Florida. The coast is populated with long stretches […]

We had a wonderful three day visit with our good friends at a nice place next to Seaside Florida. It was good to be off of Selkie for a few days to take a break from the push to get to our ultimate destination of Clearwater, Florida. We are parking Selkie there for a few […]

It’s been 18 months since Selkie last saw Salt Water, and I have an observation to make:. The Gulf of Mexico is certainly much different than the river system. That’s a silly statement because it’s so obvious. But having lived the river system for the past five weeks, with the push to get down it, […]

It’s always fascinating to see how the geography changes along the way on the River System of the US. The Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway, known by many as the “Tenn Tom”, is a 234-mile artificial U.S. waterway completed in 1984. It flows from the Tennessee River to the junction of the Black Warrior-Tombigbee Riversystem near Demopolis, Alabama. […]

When you’re on the loop you have the opportunity to visit many places along the way. It probably explains why the record for doing a loop is over 30 times. Thats more than 3 decades living on the Loop. There’s really just too many to visit on one loop. However, there was one place that […]

The Tennessee River is unique in many ways. Its watershed drains from seven states, starting in the Appalachia Mountains to the east. Interestingly, even though the waters of the Tennessee flows southwest for much of its length, it flows northward more than any river in North America except the Mackenzie River that flows to Hudson […]

It was a cold and miserable day when we left Green Turtle Bay. It was 35 degrees F and blowing about 20 knots when we left early in the morning. Did I say it was cold? It was cold. We traveled up Lake Barkley past the Barkley Lock and Dam we had come through a […]

It was our last day on the Mississippi River We picked up anchor from our wingdam anchorage and headed out to the main current of the Mississippi. Several towboats with large sets of barges came by our anchorage overnight going in the direction we were going, and as we were faster, we had to maneuver […]

Mississippi is a different animal then the Illinois river. As we entered the Mississippi from the Illinois, we passed Grafton on the way and stopped at Alton. We could not get into Grafton because it was the weekend of their annual Witches Festival. Those who were able to dock at Grafton told us later that […]

The Illinois River turned into a quite a pretty passage. We saw high limestone bluffs with mostly green trees, but some fall colors started to appear in red and browns and yellows Life is a little bit different here than it is on the Great Lakes. We don’t need to worry about big waves and […]

It’s interesting going through the Illinois river. According to prehistoric history aficionados , back a few ice ages ago it was part of the original track for the Mississippi river. Back then, one of the glaciers in the area blocked the flow of the Mississippi and rerouted the Mississippi to its current location. A lake […]

In my last post, I mentioned some rough weather that was going to be coming on the Great Lakes. All the flotillas except a few boats were hanging in the Hammond, Indiana Marina just across the border from Illinois waiting to go down the Calumet River. The weather reports indicated precipitation and gale force north […]

We are back. We had a fun and thankfully uneventful break from Selkie while we were waiting for the Illinois Locks to open. Because of some issues with the recommissioning of one of the locks, the American Great Loop Cruising Association (AGLCA) asked all the boats to delay their departure by five days, so we […]

I’m seeing some comments from people and also meeting with friends who have been reading the blogs. There’s been a few requests that say that I need to include a geographical reference in all my blogs. Fair enough. Now that I am not on Selkie and have time to do a few other things, I […]

We’ve put a bunch of miles behind us this past week, and are taking a break to head back to Tahoe. We won’t be in the Lake Tahoe area much this winter, so we need to prepare the house for another 700″ of snow while we are not there. We also plan to return through […]

We left Mackinac Island on a calm bright morning. We crossed underneath the Mackinac Bridge and headed west to Manistique Michigan, which was a nine hour run. The run was thankfully uneventful. Everything seems to be working just fine on Selkie. The waters were calm enough that I did not have to turn on the […]

We’ve been meeting a bunch of fellow Loopers as we are all starting to congregate at the north end of Lake Michigan. Most are choosing to go down at least part of the Michigan side. Some are going to work their way down the Wisconsin side. We are in that latter group. I’ve done Michigan […]

Our focus for the past few days had been to head westbound through the north channel to the United States. We estimated we needed to be in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan to pass through Customs by the 29th or 30th of August. We needed to stay on track with our goal to be in Waukegan […]

After weathering the storm at Croker Island, we headed southwest to Gore Bay. Gore Bay is one of two incorporated towns on the island, which will give you an idea of the population of the island. Gore Bay is also the government seat of the island. It is a small town, incorporated in 1890 and […]

It was now time to focus on heading back to the USA to continue the Loop. That didn’t mean our time in the North Channel was over. We still had some great opportunities to explore this area of Lake Huron that we’ve grown to love. But we did need to make sure we were headed […]

That title is a direct quote by Libbie. The Bad River area definitely left a mark, but in a good way. Continuing on with our journey after Fox Bay, we headed to the Bustard Islands where we had spent a night last year on our way through to Mackinaw. The Bustards are south of several […]

This year, we’ve been doing a portion of the Loop in reverse. The downside perhaps is that we’ve been getting some quizzical looks from other Loopers as we steam by in the wrong direction. An upside is that we’ve seen a lot of Loopers! We last left you with the goodbyes from the cousins. It […]

With Libbie and I out at anchor for seven or eight days, it meant that we were running low on food. We were joking that we were down to jam sandwiches for at least one meal a day. We also needed to be rid of garbage. Clean clothing was also getting low. It was time […]

At the Heywood Island Anchorage, we woke to a nice morning with calm winds and blue skies. The forecast was going to be for winds to build during the day and rain and thunderstorms in the afternoon. We messed around on Selkie until about 11 o’clock and then picked up anchor and headed towards Snug […]