After a rocky night, like REALLY rocky night, we woke up to a beautiful new day. Fishing boats went by quite often at speed, particularly one at about 3:30 am that actually rolled Owen from his side of the bed to mine. We had big plans for the day, and we were eager to get … Continue reading Clearwater, FL, to Egmont Key to almost Sarasota, FL

It was a bit of an adventure, but we made "The Crossing." For the non-Loopers in the bunch, The Crossing is a much-anticipated, and occasionally feared, part of the loop. The issue is that the elbow of Florida that separates the panhandle from southern Florida is very shallow and full of crab pots. To go … Continue reading Apalachicola to Clearwater: The Crossing

The wind picked up over night and we swung all the way around with the tide change. At about 0400, the anchor alarm started blaring and we jumped up to check everything. Fortunately, everything was fine and I just didn't account for the swing when I set the alarm. We went back to bed until … Continue reading Shell Island to Apalachicola: Swamp Carnage

We enjoyed our time in Shalimar, including time spent at the Air Force Armament Museum (an Uber ride away), West Marine (3 miles), Publix (1 mile), and a few restaurants (.75 to 3 miles). This weekend, it was time to move on. Owen jumped out of bed* at 6:00 am ready to go, and he … Continue reading Shalimar, FL, to Shell Island Anchorage, Panama City, FL: Days Don’t Get Much Better Than This

As you might remember, we had to fix our fresh water pump a while ago. I managed to rebuild one with spare parts on board. Well... it lasted until this week. The water pump was pressurized, but then tripping the breaker. I changed the breaker hoping to get lucky, but no. It was the pump. … Continue reading Pump Fun

After Owen's adventure last night, we decided that we would spend the morning exploring the old fort and the rest of our surroundings. We woke up at sunrise, used the generator to heat up to normal body temperature, ate breakfast, and headed out to the dinghy. Owen rowed us over to the beach, where we … Continue reading Fort McRee Cove, FL, to Shalimar, FL: All the Things in One Morning

After spending 22 days at the Dog River Marina, we were read to get moving. Well, WE had been moving, but the boat had not. We spent the time traveling to Texas and Wisconsin for some college reunion fun and Thanksgiving with the family. We drove over 3,000 miles, but the boat moved about 200 … Continue reading Dog River to Ft. McRee Cove: Dolphins!

Since Our Dash is swimming in salt water for the first time, we needed to replace the anodes. We decided to have it pulled out so that we could also get a peek at the bottom. After over 1,800 miles down the Inland Rivers, through a couple of shallow areas, and perhaps over a log … Continue reading A Peek Under the Water Line

Thanks to the confluence of getting a little work done on Our Dash, weather, work, and the Thanksgiving Holiday, we are hunkered down in Dog River for longer than we had originally hoped. On the bright side, we were not about to let the opportunity to explore go to waste. With Veterans Day on our … Continue reading Exploring Mobile

We woke up at 0600 like usual to prepare for a dawn departure on the final 56 miles of the Inland Water segment of the Great Loop. It was a very peaceful night. The twinkling of the eight other anchor lights off our bow looked like grounded stars. It was cloudy and 48 degrees with … Continue reading Tensaw River, AL, to Mobile, AL: Well, that was different