Author: Tad Sheldon

One day, we were cruising on Selkie.    We went under a bridge, which was really a big culvert that Selkie somehow fit through.   A culvert is one of those big corrugated steel tubes that they put in the ground and pile dirt over to make a bridge cheaply. We went into a small […]

It’s an interesting feeling when you are close to reaching the end of a part of your life. Old Man Time doesn’t know how to stop. It’s an irresistible force that keeps pushing you to the edge of a cliff, and you pray it’s going to be a soft landing. Our feelings ran the gamut […]

We spent a little more time in Solomons, MD then we wanted to.  The first five days were a celebration of the completion of our Loop.  Family members who could come joined us.  We all enjoyed our time together reminiscing about being on the boat and our adventure.   We did a cocktail cruise. We […]

We crossed our wake yesterday!   We are now docked at the Solomons Island Yacht Club, and are ready to rest.  We started on May 17, 2022 and traveled 6,412 nautical miles (or 7,379 statute miles) to finish yesterday, August 28, 2025, exactly 1,200 days, nine hours and 50 minutes later.  To top it off, […]

We made it back to Selkie. It is going to be hard to not be emotional about this last little bit of our journey.  This is it. Ninety miles to go and we’re taking three days to do it. We have a reservation at the Solomon Island Yacht Club on 30 August and we have […]

By now, those of you who are connected with me on social media, know that we are putting Selkie up for sale. We’ve gone back and forth so many times during the Loop on what we would do with Selkie when we were done that I’ve been wearing a neck brace.  All the course corrections […]

After leaving Beaufort, we headed north up the ICW to Oriental, North Carolina. We brought my brother-in-law along who used to be a coxswain (pronounced COX-en) in the Coast Guard. A coxswain is the person who steers a boat and is in charge of its navigation and crew. In smaller boats, especially lifeboats or landing […]

We left Mile Hammock Bay at Camp Lejeune with less than a restful night’s sleep. See my previous post, “We’re About To Get Hit!” as to why. We motored along the intercoastal waterway and were having a nice morning when all of a sudden we heard this big WUMP. Libbie and I looked at each […]

We headed up to Myrtle Beach, where we docked at the Myrtle Beach Yacht Club for the evening.  I did some maintenance on Selkie so I didn’t have much time to see the Myrtle Beach area. It would have been nice to explore a bit, but we were back on a scheduled deadline to get […]

We arrived at Bohicket Marina on Seabrook Island. That would be our home for a week so Libbie could participate in her tennis tournament. We arrived at Bohicket without incident and met up with Libbie‘s tennis team. We had a great dinner at the restaurant there at the marina. The next day Libbie started her […]

We left Skidaway Island to make our three hour trip up to Hilton Head Island. I was starting to get into the routine of the trip, listening to the engine and just motoring along. That can put you into a little bit of a malaise if you’re not careful. I was starting to go down […]

We left Saint Augustine, Florida and crossed the border into Georgia. Our next destination was going to be Brunswick Georgia, but that was a two day trip for us. So we dropped anchor outside of Amelia Island and  spent the night. Once again it was an uneventful night of anchoring, just the way we like […]

After a good night sleep, we left the following morning and bid farewell to Cape Canaveral. As we headed north and turned east temporarily along the intercoastal waterway, we could see the launchpads and the infrastructure that NASA and space command had built up on Camp Canaveral to our south. We could also see what […]

For the last time, we came back to Selkie after taking a break from the Loop.  We were about to start our last leg of the Great American Loop. We have come to enjoy being on the boat, and also taking a break from her. It really is the best of both worlds.  However, this […]

We pulled our anchor and proceeded north on the Indian River. Our next destination was Vero Beach.  I had a very good friend living there. He is a member of my high school class, and he had invited us there to stay at his club which had some very nice docking facilities. We pulled into […]

Our next destination was Key Biscayne.  We had made a friend on the Loop on the river system 18 months prior.  He had been traveling with us on his boat.  Unfortunately his wife had just been diagnosed with a serious illness and she had to leave the boat before we met him to get treatment.  […]

It was time. We needed to turn Selkie to a new compass heading: North. The last time we were headed north it was across Lake Ontario to Canada. But when we turned the corner in the Florida Keys, we were heading north again. For this last part of our adventure, we would be heading up […]

We headed to Bahia Honda State Park for a few days.  A Looper friend had highly recommended a stop there.   The weather was forecast to be a little sporty outside the string of islands that make up the Keys. So Lib and I decided to accommodate a bridge that only had a 20 foot […]

We arrived in Little Pine Key for our first night in the Florida Keys.  The night was warm, humid and beautiful. It seemed like you could see the moisture evaporating from the ocean into the clouds.  We were anchored in about 12 feet of water, but we could clearly see the bottom.  There was a […]

It was time to finally head out for the Florida Keys. The next morning, we raised anchor in Russell Pass and headed south to the Little Shark River.  By now we were used to traveling in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico.   It’s a little unnerving at first traveling at full speed, […]

In my previous post, I mentioned that we had some tense moments coming into Everglade city.  The trip down from Naples to the Barron River entrance, the channel to Everglade City, was uneventful.  The navigation software and charts showed some very skinny water on the Barron River in the middle of the channel in a […]

We had a great night anchored at Cayo Costa’s Pelican Bay.   The next day we did some more work to put the finishing touches on Selkie.  We had to reassemble the bimini that protects Selkie’s fly bridge.  The fly bridge of a boat is the upper steering station, usually exposed and requiring some sun […]

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 […]