LAST CALL CROSSES HER WAKE

Today, 8-16-2017, is a monumental day for us.  We completed our Great Loop trip by crossing our wake at the mouth of the Muskegon River. We were surprised by friends Bob and Vicki Rehkopf standing by the Welcome to Muskegon sign. We were honored to have them there at this special moment. We were met by our old faithful dockmaster Jerry when we arrived at the marina.  Friends Dave and Mary took time to come out and bring our car.  We went to dinner to celebrate. Feels good to be back home with friends. What a thrill this whole trip has been. We enjoyed it so much we are going to do “life” for a week and head back out to do it all over again.

The experiences on this trip were amazing. We saw many historical places, which taught us more about history than any class can ever do.  We learned so much about boating in different situations, from freshwater no tides, to saltwater 9’ tides.  We have docked at every imaginable type of dock in calm, wind and current. Captain Scott did an amazing job docking therefore we had no damage. We never dinged a prop, at least on the big boat.  The dinghy prop has a few chunks missing.  Our dinghy was our most valuable item on the trip.  It took us to far reaching little places that we never would have seen if not for our ever-faithful dinghy. We learned about many new animals and birds that we may never have seen if not for this trip. Our family has all been supportive.  No one told us we were crazy, at least to our faces. We kept up on our blog through thick and thin of spotty internet access. We had so many friends both new and old follow and support us.  We are very blessed to have been able to spend a whole year on our boat with essentially no issues.

Here are some statistics from our trip (both relevant and trivial):

We crossed our wake on National Rum Day!

Started September 3, 2016 and ended August 16, 2017 =349 days.

7000miles at approximately 8mph

2365 Gallons of diesel

$6258.68 Total cost of diesel

2.3 gallons per hour (Average)

2.9 miles per gallon (Average)

1019 Total engine hours

167 nights at anchor

1 night on the Gulf of Mexico

23 nights on a mooring ball

4 nights on paid walls

21 nights on free walls

130 nights in marinas

Totals:  192 free nights, 157 paid nights

110 Locks

3 countries:  USA, Bahamas, Canada

3 Great Lakes: Michigan, Ontario and Huron

16 Cays in the Bahamas

17 Sharks

3 Chain Restaurants. The rest were non-chains. 1 McDonalds, 1 Papa John’s Pizza and 1 PF Changs.

3 rental cars

185 Boat Cards collected

3 log books

TNTC (Too Numerous to Count) Friends and wonderful people we met along the way.

This is the final blog for this trip, but stay tuned as we start all over again.  Thank you for reading and supporting us along the way.

Scott and Karen