During Looper visits in 2023, I was told that Crisfield wasn’t really such a great place and in fact, Tangiers with the passing of Mr. Parks had fallen into disrepair.

Since I had a trip planned for Wallops Island VA, I thought I’d take a quick detour off to Crisfield to check it out.

Crisfield is on the Eastern Shore of Maryland at the MD/VA border. It was famous for it’s fishing, crabbing and oyster fleets. Sadly with Covid the fishing and crabbing have dwindled. As like most of Virginia, Maryland Oystermen are working on the large number of projects to rebuild the oyster beds. It’s paying off, they have planted over 10 billion oysters in a large number of beds across the bay. So the number of oysters will grow, and some will switch back to the harvest side.

When I was there I had brunch at the Water’s Edge Cafe. I had my goto Sausage Gravy on a waffle. The waffle was very crispy and the sausage gravy was loaded with meat. Total cost was $10 with a 20% tip.

I checked out the waterfront area. There are ferry boats that run 7 days a week weather permitting to Smith and Tangier Island. With Tangier marina facilities on the decline, these ferry’s may be the best way to see the islands.

The Captains I talked to said that there was a decent flow with people that live on the islands, but as of now ( mid-June 2023) tourist traffic was light. They were hopeful that with schools being closed for the summer that there would be more activity.

In Crisfield the place to stay is Somers Cove Marina. It’s a large facility with pump out, a nice bath house docks are in amazing shape. Downside is it’s about 8 block to the restaurants in town that are open.

On my way out of town, I got a crabcake from the Fisherman’s grill. It was very good, very little filler. They are closed Monday and Tuesdays (lack of help and not many Monday / Tuesday tourists) but have good hours the rest of the week.

Other than the small (4 block) shopping district at the entrance to Somers Cove there isn’t much else to see or do. I’d still recommend it as a 2 day stop with riding the ferry to the other two Islands in the middle.

One of our favorite trips is to go to Delaware City (at the eastern end of the C&D canal) for Delaware City Day.

We walked the 2 blocks from the Delaware City Marina

This year the 4th of July fell on a Tuesday so there was lots of opportunities to see fireworks.

We got the Granddaughter on Friday to have her for Friday and Saturday. As always it’s fun to do stuff with her like Lego (we have both the Duplo and regular Lego, playing with the cars and train.

We went down to our marina on Saturday afternoon where we were met by more of the kids. After a great chicken dinner on the boat we headed out into the Bohemia River to pick our anchorage.

I could see the firework barge along the shore by the winery. We pulled about 500 yards and got set. The kids and granddaughter went for a quick swim to cool off.

After some showers it was time for fireworks. The fire boat pulled up to us and asked us to move upriver about 300′. we did so and the then pushed the barge to where we had been sitting. So we had a front row view of the fireworks.

They were very cool, about a 15 min show. Lots of roman candles (my favorite) and some big star bursts. The show ended and we slowly made our way back to the marina. Everyone was pleased with their first fireworks of the year!

The Director of the AGLCA posted this note recently:

I’m often asked how many boats complete the Great Loop each year, and it’s always been right around 100, give or take. But, we’ve been able to pull more specific numbers from our database. Here are the specific number of boats that reported completion to us for recent years:

2010 – 92 completions
2011 – 97 completions
2012 – 87 completions
2013 – 71 completions
2014 – 86 completions
2015 – 76 completions

So just over 500 for the last 6 years. So it is a pretty small group that make this trip.

This is our fifth summer at Bohemia Bay Yacht Harbor. We love this place. It has a great location on the river, nice docks, great pool, skilled mechanics on site, etc. Marina management is by Ken, who is always on top of things. Colleen runs the fuel dock and keeps things flowing there.

BBYH is a condominium, most of the people own their slips. For the last few years the board has been setting aside money to do events. For instance there is a BBQ, a few ice cream socials, movie nights, etc.

Today was their big charity day. They open up the marina to kids that have Downes Syndrome and their families. About 75 kids came with the total crowd of about 210. Everyone can play on the beach, swim in the pool, eat at the BBQ and get a boat ride.

About 11:15 my first passengers arrived, 6 kids and 5 adults. All the kids had life jackets and as the parents went by on their way to the pilot house, I pointed out where spare jackets were.

With the Captain of Blue Moon and the Admiral from Summer Days, helping crew we headed out into the Bohemia. Once we cleared the docks, I asked “Who wants to drive?”. Lot of takers and pretty soon we had the first kid settled in the upper helm. After 5 minutes the timer went off and we swapped drivers. Or second driver was more interested in driving in circles, with a pretty empty river (2 crab boats and 7 other boats giving rides) it wasn’t a big deal. They really liked it when the Quo Vadimus crossed her own wake.

Third driver gets in place. I point, “can you see that white boat.” “No.” “Can you see the closer brown boat?” “No.” “Can you see the other white boat?” “No.” Then his Mom says “He’s legally blind. Oh. “What can you see?” “This blue thing” as he points to the compass. “Can you see the numbers?”. “Yep it says 270″. “All right then, that’s the compass, that’s how I steer, can you keep it on 270?” “Yes!” And he does. It would waver some and he would correct course. “Nicely done!” I said as the timer went off, “You can drive for me any time”. I got a huge smile in return.

As the other kids too turns I talked with the parents about the boat and that we had done a 6,000 mile trip, yes we did live on it, it was a little cramped, but we loved it.

They talked about how the kids love this event and it was something they looked forward to.

Pretty soon our hour was up and with all the kids having a chance at the wheel (some went twice) and we were back at the dock.

We unloaded, got something to eat and then loaded up our next set of passengers this time 8 kids and 5 adults. Lots more kid driving, and farther out another set of donuts. I’m sure that the Captain of the “Green Bay” automobile carrier was wondering what was going on. Not often you see a 45′ Bayliner doing donuts at 8 knots off your starboard. (Yes, we were far enough away that we were not a hazard.)

We docked after our hour and unloaded. We got released from duty, everyone that wanted a ride had gotten one.

It was a great day, over 25 people from BBYH helped out, the kids had a wonderful time. My special thanks to the crew that helped me out. We were busy the entire time swapping drivers, keeping an eye out for other boats, making sure nobody fell overboard, gawking at the Green Bay, etc. Very pleased that there were three of us.

Nice job Bohemia Bay Yacht Harbor, happy to call this place home!

The river is shallow, about 6′ at low tide. The marina is on the north (port) side as you are coming up the river. Look for the light house at the end of the fairway. Rates are 1 per foot.

If you want to anchor out, there is a “no wake zone” about 1 mile past the Bohemia Bay Yacht Harbor. It covers the one mile section before the bridge (AKA the Rt 213 Bridge) There are good anchorages along the north (port) shore. If you go under the bridge there are good anchorages on either the Big or Little Bohemia. The basin just past the bridge is a popular water skiing location on the weekends, but to the right and up some it’s very calm.

We can meet you at our marina with a loaner car, or if you anchor out, the marina just under the Scotchman’s Creek Bridge is Richmond’s Marina, we can meet you there.

Marine parts stores, mechanics at both Bohemia Bay and Richmonds. Grocery, produce, beverages 15 mins by car.

We will be on the water on the 21 June celebrating the solstice.

We will be in North East MD(a 5 mile trip to the upper, upper end of the bay) on Friday 3 July and will be anchoring out after the fireworks.

Come see us!

The Quo Vadimus crossed her wake today (30 May 2015) 398 calendar days since our departure on 27 April 2015. If we don’t count the days having a wonderful time in Tavernier on our winter break we were on the loop 300 days. We covered 5,167 nautical miles which works out to be 5,942 statute miles across 154 travel days. (Yea I know, should have done some extra circles to get it up to 6,000 miles)

I want to thank Susan for going on this trip with me. She was great getting us docked or anchored at the 154 places we stayed and locked through the 105 locks we did. She made lots of fabulous meals and made sure we got fed even when we were too tired to think or eat. Susan was right there when there were problems like at Mill Lake, coming into unknown locations at dark and helping navigation in scary waters. She also did an amazing job with finding places to eat and visit. All this keeping a sense of humor and doling out the snark.

I’d like to thank the US Coast Guard, Canadian Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, Parks Canada, Parks Ontario and the NY State Canal system. Thanks to all the marina’s that gave us safe places to stay during storms, finding a mechanic on short notice, loaning us cars (all with check engine lights on ?!?) and showing us warmth and local hospitality. Without all of you there wouldn’t be a Great Loop to travel.

There were lots of Loopers on the way from our very first Loopers, Barb and Tom on “Toba“ that we met the second day out. “Serenity” with John and Kathy organized the first Docktails we had in Perry Sound. Roger and Wendy, the crew of “Le Hooker” showing that not just big fat trawlers do the loop. Stories from “Nuclear Fishin” by John and Susan about how sometimes bad things happen but you’ll get by it. “Reunion” gave us a ton of places to stop in Door County, Dennis and Carol then hooked us up with Kringle in Racine.

“Moondance” skippered by Berwick and Alexis led the “Looper Flotilla” down the Mississippi, Ohio, and into Green Turtle Bay, mostly on one engine. All the Loopers in the Flotilla became friends, a special thanks to all of you because we all watched over “Diablo” and kudos to “Roxanne” in becoming the little “Tug That Could” for towing a flotilla member out of our last lock. Sonny and Phyllis on “Corkscrew” – we’ll see you next year. The thrill of meeting Looper legends like the crews of “Carolyn Ann”, “Beach House”, “Sanctuary” and the master weather forecaster Tom and wife Patsy on “True North”. We also met Steve from the AGLCA, we’ll meet up with Janice and Kim another time.

Mark and Becky on “Mara Beel” for making the Ten-Tom a great ride. To all the Loopers that spent so much time in Apalachicola. Mary and Roger on “Ta Ta” putting together a Thanksgiving Dinner that couldn’t be beat for 22 people. And all the boats that went across the next day, I think it set a crossing record. “Pier Pressure” with Eric and Pam and “Prime Interest” with Lester and Irene were in my group that made our crossing go smoothly. Robert and Linda on “Errante” were a help on a number of times cross checking my course plans.

After our winter break with soon to be Loopers “Lake Effect” with Peggy and Dan we started meeting up with Loopers we had met before. We hung out on a few legs with “Seahorse” with Dan and Angie and the new Loopers of Charlie and Kay on “Plane 2 Sea”.

But Loopers were not the only boaters we met, and we were impressed on how many really nice people we met. For example as I ate my weigh in Canada in butter tarts, lots of people shared home made ones with me (they are much better than store bought).

The crew of “Akasha” and “KatyaLookin” made our first nights in the Georgian Bay special. “KatyaLooking” gave us the first inkling on how we should not stick to just the cruising guides by sharing Hope Island with us. The group at Wright’s marina were nice, but “our best friend Pierre” gave Susan his 5 best fishing locations and she caught a 33” Northern Pike. And no, those GPS locations are not available. “See Y’all” (Alan and ‘Dammit Sheri’) helped out when I earned my North Channel boater stripes. Or the boat earned the stripes as it may be, but it was all good. Because we were close, we did the far North Channel to Sault Ste Marie and I earned my “boated in all the Great Lakes Badge” We met amazing people, saw great places and had a great experience.

Susan’s bucket list included Mackinac Island. While there we got a tip from “Lollygagger” to go to Beaver Island. It was a good idea as we headed through the fog. I had practice runs with the radar, but this was our first time trying to miss boats in the dense fog. A little scary to just make out the Mackinac Bridge as it goes overhead.

We made Beaver Island and met a boater there and got sucked fully into doing the “Western Shore of Lake Michigan” Did Manistique, a great town and a great winery. Went to Fayette and the Snail Shell and met more people. Then Bay d’Noc to fish. Or I should say to catch. We have a big thumbs UP for the Upper Peninsula.

Then it was the West Coast of Lake Michigan. Fish Boil? Boiled fish “Is that some weird British dish? “ Wow they are cool. We had three on our trip. We went to Sister’s Bay, Devil’s Door and we saw Sputnik stuff. Door County was a blast, who would of though Cherry Salsa would be so good? Milwaukee was our favorite big city.

We met of other boats that were not on the loop and we tried to drag them over “Hey We are doing the loop, We Have Cookies!”. We got some to join, and others said they would think of it for their golden years. We created lots of new Docktail friends.

As a Bayliner owner, I’m on the Bayliner forum. I ask questions and get good answers. “If do the loop and spend 25-30 days in Canada, what will I see?. Your chart plotter.” So I ask about options and I get a 60 day plan to see Canada. I meet Terry who gives us a great tour of all the smaller spots in Perry Sound. Later on we meet Doug and Mona who consider Baie Fine home. We get fishing lessons, fish cooking lessons and most importantly how you can live on the Canadian waters for almost free. So much to do, so much to see, so many places in Canada for not a huge cost. And we did everything suggested. I also met Bayliner Members all along my trip, it was great to match names with userID.

The Bayline Board was also a help with mechanical questions that I had on the way. It’s always great to get help when you are in remote locations.

Once you reach Florida after starting on the East Coast, things should slow, but for us they sped up. The great times on the panhandle, doing “the crossing!”, the Florida West Coast and then meeting our new family in Tavernier. Tavernier was a never ending series of Docktails, smoked meats, the conch shell marching band, lots of good conversation and stories. Jeff you were right was very, very hard to leave in March; had we stayed another few days and we would still be there.

Our last months have been just as much fun as the first were. Coming up the ICW and visiting all the small towns. Taking the Dismal Swamp Route and going back in time. Up and back the Potomac to get a huge dose of US History.

Lots of Looper support with places to go, things to see, and so on. The harbor hosts we have found were super special they made our lives easier. Congrats to Freya Petersen and Don Bennett for winning the Harbor Host of the year award, you made your part of Canada very special to us. Ron thanks for your help in both Illinois and in Florida. The on-line Loopers that post about things they have done and a huge amount of details has been great. I was happy to be able to contribute back. It was great to meet some of them, but I’m not getting off the water, so there is still time. (Look for the boat with the hughe orange lock balls and gold Looper flag.)

If I’ve missed mentioning you, sorry about that, but I’m going to bet there is a post about you and pictures of your boat on our site.

We’ve lost two key people in our lives, Susan’s father and my favorite aunt, Aunt Hazel, passed away while we were gone.

Last but not least, kudo’s to my little buddy the autopilot. You steered for most of the miles and you did a great job. Sorry about dumping the wrench bag next to you and then whining about your skills until I moved it back. But you made the trip really easy to do, I can’t imagine driving 6,000 miles.

Buy a boat, get rid of half your possessions, put the other half on the boat, sail away with a person who is as crazy as you are, drive the boat 6,000 miles, visit over 160 different places that you have to dock at or anchor at, traverse over 100 locks, put up with wind, rain and the dark. Have your friends and family say that you are on vacation but you find yourself in a different job of 7AM to 5PM of trying to manage your new lifestyle. That’s the easy part.

Meeting and remembering 100′s of new people and places; being on the go so you don’t miss anything in the towns, cities or vast amount of open nature that is out there. Eating 3,000 calories a day of the freshest food and finest deserts (yay Butter Tarts) that you can get in 15 states and Ontario. That’s the hard part.

While we are arriving home without our beloved cat Belle, we’ve come home with 100′s of new friends, thousands of memories (and the pictures to go with them) and the sense of accomplishment for achieving a long time goal (40 years in the making!)

I like it when a plan comes together. I’ve been watching (now) tropical storm Ana since we were in Myrtle Beach on 1 May. It had started out as a tropical depression and took it’s time forming.

Got a good briefing by Hank at Southport two days later. The depression was still taking it’s time to pull together, nearest estimate was landfall about 6 May.

We got to River Dunes on the 6th, it was a depression on the 6th, and made Tropical Storm status on the 7th. Most of the Loopers we were with were thinking to wait out the storm there. Mine was to continue to head north.

The storm was on a very slow NW/NNW path at between 3-5 miles per hour. It was out to sea about 230 miles, so landfall would be the morning of the 10th (2AM to 8AM was the spread). It looked like it would land about the SC/NC boarder and then turn north. The farther inland and north it goes, the more it dissipates the storm intensity. Being north would be good, less storm to deal with.

I decided on the 8th that we would move north. There were rain bands in the area and I almost didn’t go because it was raining. It cleared off and we were gone by 7:30AM.

We traveled to Belhaven the first day and Columbia the second day. We are at dock looking at at a blue partly cloudy skies.

I just got done reading the 2PM forecast on 9 May. Center of the storm will hit the SC/NC boarder about 8AM on Sunday. So that is close to my 48 hours to landfall guess. We are presently 250 miles NNE of the estimated landfall point. The storm at 2PM was 85 miles SSE of Myrtle Beach, or about 300 miles due south of us.

We will leave Columbia about 7AM and travel to Elizabeth City, we should be there about 10AM. To the south Ana will have turned north and be heading about 10 MPH towards me. Winds only extend out about 150 miles from the storm center, so I’m still looking at 10-15 knot winds for the trip

Ana will arrive in River Dunes will be about 8PM on Sunday. There will be heavy rains an the winds will be 60 MPH.

Arrival time in Elizabeth is about 8AM on Monday (well after I’m in port on Sunday).

Winds by then should reach tropical depression status, about 35 MPH, but we will still get lots of rain. I’m good with rain, it’s the high winds that bother me, no matter where you are, the winds still move the boat around.

By Tuesday morning the tropical depression will be off NYC, and the rain should have cleared, that will let us have a great trip through the Dismal Swamp.

One year on the water as of today!

With no shore power we ran the generator for about 30 mins to get coffee and breakfast going this morning. Having the generator has been great. It was good to run it from a maintenance stand point, the last time it ran was over a month ago.

We had a 50 mile run to do today so we pushed off the dock at B & B Seafood a little after 7AM. We had the tide with us for the first 10 miles so that went pretty quickly, but then we crossed over the sound and for the next 3 hours we chugged along a little over 7 knots.

We did see a number of dolphins on the way, but as with the ones recently they are not into interacting with the boat and Susan, it’s more about feeding.

Near Yonges Island we came to the Stevens Towing Shipyard. I was impressed with the number of big boats they had on their wall. They also had two railway system for getting bigger vessels out of the water. They had two of the large fuel barges up on land to work on. It’s been pretty tricky in this part of the ICW, not sure how they manage to easily move them down the river.

Since it was a bright sunny day in Charleston, there were lots of boaters out and about. After the mess in Ft. Lauderdale Susan had said we should hide out in marina’s on the weekend. I’m thing she may be right. But we managed to be nice and not swamp anybody and give the few sailboats clean, slow bell passes.

Docking in the Charleston Marine Center harbor was interesting. Wind off the dock and we were in a corner in front of a huge Krogen (hope they are gone by Tuesday) Got the bow to the dock and the dock hand tied us off and I was able to pivot into the slip. After a year our docking skills have gotten better, but I’m still surprised about some of the places we get into. (And fret getting out of them)

I checked in and walked down to “Seahorse”, love the Looper flags, I’m getting better at spotting them from a distance We had Thanksgiving dinner with them in Apalachicola, part of the huge group of 24. They also crossed over to the West Coast when we did. They were not there, but I left a boat card (another great Looper item).

Early afternoon was taken up by planning our stay, making reservations, etc. Around 4PM the crew from “Seahorse” showed up to visit. We had a good chat catching up on their trip since Thanksgiving (longer on the West Coast of Florida, and across the middle) and where to go and see while we are here.

After that we headed up to the Beirgarden, a craft brew pub. Nice setup outside with games to play (corn hole, giant size Jenga, etc.) They have about 40 brews on tap. One of the cool things is a series of self service taps. You buy a pre-paid card, slide it into the tap and get exactly how much you want. They have a wall of 6 special beers that change every week. There are community tables that have 4 taps in the center and about 10-12 chairs around. The perfect thing for a group of friends. Thirsty? Just help yourself.

We had a pimento cheese stick that had been dipped in panko flakes and deep fried. It came with an awesome bacon jam. Just order the sticks to get the jam. We did two flights of 4 beers and the cheese sticks for $20. Not a bad deal. Oh yes, we cleverly drank all of the credit on the card, so we don’t need to rush back.

A short hike downtown and we were at the Lowcountry Bistro to celebrate our year on the water. We had she-crab soup, shimp and grits and Frogmore stew, (shrimp, sausages, tomato, onion and fingerling potatoes. ) The sausage had the right amount of spice for the dish. There was a fried green tomato layered on the grits to give it even more of a Southern flair.

We walked down Market Street and picked up three kinds of fudge. The old buy two get one free trick when you really only wanted one kind, works every time. Downside of the free deal is they put it into a bag that all of the tour operators know. Holy Bat-signal, now they know I’m a visitor.

On the way back we picked out about a half dozen places to eat on Monday, have to watch the weather, we may get forced to spend an extra day here.

One store had old time candy like Moon Pies, pop rocks and fizzies. I loved fizzies as a child and my children love them too. I got a box to send onto the grand baby, she will love them too!

During dinner we talked about all the great things that we’ve seen and done and ways that we have changed. This has been a great adventure, glad that we are on it. Now on to the Second Year!

Slow cruise out of Thunderbolt (the town outside Savanna that we stayed at) around 8:15 in the morning. I was trying to find the status of the shaft delivery and it’s easier to call when we are not moving and I’m trying to drive. The shaft was delivered at 1:30 yesterday, so I know it’s somewhere on Hilton Head, just need to narrow it to a 200 ft circle.

Lots of boats on the water. About 9:20 we said goodbye to Georgia and Hello South Carolina. We noticed right away that the markers are ½ size from the ones we are used to so far. Don’t know why, but they are a pain to figure out since they are so low to the water.

On the way up the river we heard friends on “Sea Horse” on the radio. I called them and we chatted for awhile. We had met them up on the river system and again in West Florida. They are poking their way along north, we’ll see if we can meet up for docktails.

A minor problem getting into the marina. I had picked a place in what looked to be a downtown area of Hilton Head but copied the phone number of Windmill Marina. It was a little confusing when I asked for directions but once I figured out what I had done we were good.

The entrance to the marina is controlled by a lock. So the water in the marina basin stays at a fixed height (about the mid tide height). Pretty cool, so we added another lock to our count.

The marina is in the center of a gated community of mega-homes. The surprising thing was the transient rate was one of the best we’ve had on the trip. On the property is the South Carolina Yacht Club. We had lunch there and it was pretty good. We were a little under dressed, but they put us in the really nice bar area and it was good.

There is a neat fan system. Mounted on the ceiling were a series of palm fans. They were driven by a crank system to move them back and forth. The eight fans were driven by a single motor that did both sides of the corner bar. The waitress said the system was from the early 1900′s.

We got picked up by Susan’s sister to go track down my shaft. On the way she gave us a tour of Hilton Head. It’s a very nice place but everything is spread out. They have a collection of strip malls, but they are all hidden from the road by large shrubs and trees. So it keeps up the Island Retreat Facade pretty well.

With the shaft in the car (love those cutouts in the back seat!) we got back to the marina in time for an afternoon nap.

For dinner we with with Susan’s sister and her friend to a nearby Mexican place. It was authentic food, and very good. We hadn’t had good Mexican food for awhile so it was a real treat. For dessert we had fresh strawberry in a Mexican creama. The sweet cream was a nice companion to the berries.