The Countdown Continues

The book that started it all

     I have been staring at the countdown clock in my office for about 2 years now. The countdown started in my head in 2007 when a friend of mine gave me a book entitled  "Honey, Let's Get a Boat"

    It's a very entertaining book about [by] Ron and Eva Stob published in 1999. With virtually no long range boating/cruising experience, they set out to complete the 6000+ mile journey in a 40' trawler. 

    Even though the Great Loop was reportedly first done by 18 year old Ken Ransom and three of his high school buddies in 1899 in a hand made 30' wood sailboat, and again in 1906 by a boat builder Scott Mathews and his family, this book was arguably the tale that started it all.

    I thought, "We could do that". We talked about it for years, trying to decide how we would be able to do this with our two youngest daughter, a dog, a cat and all the other things that tether us to land and one location. Well time has a way of chipping away at dreams until they are just fun things to talk about. But I never could get it out of my head. 

    Fast forward to 2020. We began to get serious about doing this trip. Not sure how we were going to tackle this thing but feeling that it was possible, we do what any sane couple would do. We started looking for boats. 

    We have owned numerous boats mostly for fishing but also with the ability to sleep in them. We would take overnight excursions from our home dock in Crystal River to Cedar Key or Tarpon Springs and points south. The longest trip we had ever done was from Crystal River to Key West and back, two weeks.

    The internet searches were endless and so were the sometimes "heated" discussions about what boat would work best. With just the two of us, the choices were easier. I purchased a book called "The Looper's Companion Guide" by a fellow named Captain John. It is an excellent book that gave us loads of information and details about virtually everything we needed to consider to do the trip. We poured over the book. It had lists of what to bring and what to do, how to choose a boat and even a 140 day sample itinerary for the trip. The line that stood out to us was, "It's the voyage and not the boat". We realized this didn't have to be a large cruiser with a washer and dryer and an ice maker (damn, an ice maker would be nice!).

    We posted our question about boat ideas on Americas Great Loop Cruisers' Association which we had joined a few months earlier. The question was answered by someone saying "take a look at the Camano Troll". Troll? Sounds appealing (said no one ever).  We searched the internet and Beth's first thought was "that thing is ugly". But like any stray dog, they start to look cute. It checked all the boxes. It was not huge, single diesel (it was fuel efficient) and a must have for us, a flybridge! How else could we possibly see the Statue of Liberty unless it was from "up top"?

    We wanted to see one in person and found one in Punta Gorda. We loved the boat, instantly but we passed on this one, we weren't ready to "pull the trigger" and it had a few issues we didn't want to deal with. Then someone messaged me saying he knew there was a couple that had one for sale and it seemed like a reasonable price. I did some internet sleuthing and was able to track it down. It wasn't officially listed and the owners lived in the UK and were stranded by COVID. Best of all, it was in dry storage in Placida, a mere 2 1/2 hour drive from us. 

    Its a fun story for "docktails" (drinking a cocktail with friends after a day of cruising), filled with COVID scares and wiring money overseas and wondering if we just got scammed, but the short answer is...fast forward to January 2023. I'm sitting in one of our rental houses, planning my day because we only have one older vehicle to share and looking at the countdown clock.

    In 6 days, 2 hours, 12 minutes and 3 seconds....we cram a whole lot of stuff we think we will need into a space just large enough to move us 6000 miles through 150 locks. 

    Technically we have done the first 3 days and 128 miles of the trip last August. Read about The "Official - Unofficial" Start of our Great Loop Adventure and follow us and see if we can actually do this thing.