Endorphin Voyager Crossed Our Wake!

                                         We crossed our wake!  We are now Gold Loopers!

Karl,  Mackie and Salty completed the Loop in Sandestin, Florida at Baytowne Marina

November 10, 2019

     We woke up this morning and looked at each other and said, "Let's go home!"  We traveled 90 miles from Orange Beach, Alabama to Sandestin, Florida to reach our home port at Baytowne Marina, on a beautiful, warm, sunny day.  We were filled with mixed emotions when we crossed under the bridge into the Choctawatchee Bay with only 10 miles to go!  We were proud of ourselves for accomplishing what we set out to do almost 11 months ago.  We traveled 5,511 miles, stayed in over 110 marinas, anchored in beautiful remote areas, weathered a few scary storms and fog, but more often enjoyed beautiful sunny days, watched so many gorgeous sunsets, sunrises and full moons, visited small towns and large cities and tried to do as much as we could to learn about those places by visiting their parks, museums, restaurants and walking tours!  We learned so much history of America by visiting forts, battlegrounds, southern plantations, Williamsburg, Charleston and Annapolis.

      We certainly improved our boating and navigation skills!  After crossing the open Gulf of Mexico, we traveled down the west coast of Florida, through the beautiful Keys, then proceeded up the East Coast of the United States.  We traveled mostly through the protected waters of the ICW, and stopped along the way in so many charming coastal towns. We loved the Carolinas, the Outer Banks and the Chesapeake Bay! A highlight of the trip was passing the Statue of Liberty in New York on our boat!  After spending a week in New York, we proceeded up the Hudson River, to the Erie Canal, crossed Lake Ontario, and traveled through the Trent-Severn Waterway, Georgian Bay and North Channel, spending 6 weeks in Canada. Anchoring out, fishing, swimming, hiking and paddle boarding in the beautiful, clear pristine waters and shores of Canada was amazing! We visited Mackinac Island, only accessible by boat! Then we continued through Lake Michigan to Chicago and headed down the Illinois River, Mississippi River, Ohio River to the Tennessee River at Paducah, Ky and Grand Rivers, Ky where we enjoyed seeing our family!  We loved being in our "home" state of Kentucky, where we grew up, via our own boat!  We then moved south through the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway all the way to Mobile, Alabama.  We negotiated through over 100 locks, and learned how to communicate with the Tow captains, pushing their huge barges on the river systems!  We effectively and luckily dodged the debris that was is in the river systems, due to the high flooding that has happened this year.  Seeing places and things from a boat gives you a different perspective!

We stopped at all these places!

     The best part of our adventure was meeting new friends along the way! By flying the AGLCA burgee,  boaters would recognize each other on the open water and in port!  Whenever we pulled up to a marina, fellow Loopers would jump out of their boats and help us tie up!  We enjoyed  their  company and sharing boat stories.  We would help each other by sharing our experiences and exchanging information and ideas with them. We really never felt alone!  Loopers know how to have fun!  We would often join each other for "docktail" parties and dinners!

       What will we miss about the Loop?  Getting up in the morning, drinking coffee and planning our day!  Reading about our destinations and studying the Guide books! Plotting our courses! Everyday was different and challenging!  What would our next port be like?  Will we have enough groceries before we find another market?  How long will we have to wait for a lock opening?  Coming into a new place and finding an interesting Farmer's Market, music, art or festival happening! Experiencing eating the local foods and soaking up their culture! The sense of adventure! Making new friends!

Sandestin Beach is so lovely!

Sandestin Beach 

      When we began this journey on January 5th, we asked ourselves, "Can we do this?"  And we did it, came full circle! We are blessed and thankful to have had this opportunity. It truly has been a trip of a lifetime!  But more that that, we learned so much about ourselves and our partnership together!   We are still happily married, I am pleased to report! We have been asked, what are you going to do for an encore?  For now, we are happy to be safely home!  But one thing we do know for sure, there will be plenty of boating experiences in our future!

Mary Ann welcomed us home at our Marina!

Celebrating our return to Sandestin with pizza dinner with Cliff and Terry!

Nice to be in our home port!

   

Spectacular Sunsets and Views from the Marina

    We saw a spectacular sunset the first night at the Wharf Marina!

Sunset in the Wharf Marina

Orange Beach, Alabama

Shrimp Boat in Mobile Bay

Sharing the Mobile Shipping Lane!  

11/4/19       Back in Salt Water!

     We traveled across Mobile Bay about 25 miles to enter the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.  We are finally back in salt water!  We saw dolphins jumping and shrimp boats with their casting nets out, a familiar and welcoming sight!  We happily pulled our boat right up to the dock of LuLu's Restaurant to eat lunch.  LuLu is Jimmy Buffet's sister and she has built up quite a famous place, including a restaurant, gift shop, several huge bars, a marina and a stage for Jimmy Buffet to entertain folks if you are lucky!  We  celebrated our arrival back on the ICW and being so close to home!  We stayed at The Wharf Marina, which is very nice.  It has condominiums, shops, a movie theater, restaurants, putt putt, pool, ferris wheel and even a zip line.  I am glad we are here in the off season, it is probably so crowded here in the summer months! There are many Loopers here, so we are catching up with friends.  This marina is quite a contrast to the ones we stopped at on the river systems!

LuLu's Restaurant with Endorphin Voyager 

Karl at LuLu's

The Wharf Marina

Shops, Restaurants, AMC Movie theater, even a Ferris Wheel

Dog River Marina, Alabama

11/3/19

    We are staying at Dog River Marina  for the weekend.  This marina is kind of isolated and it is really more of a boat yard where you leave your boat to get work done.   It was nice to relax over the weekend.   We ate a delicious meal at the Mobile Yacht Club.

Heron

The Marina

Karl watching the FSU football game.  He looks so excited!

Red Sky in morning, sailor take warning!  We knew we were staying put.
It turned out to be a very windy day!

Mobile Bay

Mobile is a large shipping area

11/1/19  Friday

     We traveled through the Mobile shipping lane for a few miles until we reached the Mobile Bay.  The weather was very chilly, in the 40's and still windy.  Mobile Bay is a mixture of fresh water from the river system and salt water from the Gulf.  We parted ways with Southern Cross today, as they were going on to Orange Beach to stay, and we had reservations at Dog River Marina.  This was a short trip of about 15 miles.  Mobile Bay is fairly large and shallow.  The waves can build up quickly in windy conditions.  We managed pretty well and arrived safely at Dog River.  We have been a little disappointed in the condition of the marina.  We had been in contact with this marina weeks in advance in hopes of getting some repairs done.  As it turns out, there are still many boats ahead of us scheduled for repairs.  We decided to stay for the week-end, but then move on to the Wharf Marina on Monday, not worrying too much about repair work yet.

Unhappy Halloween tricks on the Tombigbee and Mobile River!

Foggy Halloween Morning!

10/31/19  Thursday,  Happy Halloween!  Our friends were certainly on the tricked side!

     We woke up to a rainy morning in our anchorage.  We held firmly through the night.  We got a call first thing from Penny on Southern Cross, saying that their dinghy was gone!  They always drag it behind them so they can take their dog to shore to take care of her business.  They thought it had been stolen and called the local police and coast guard.  Karl and I got our dinghy off our boat to go over to Southern Cross to help in the search and to take the dog to shore!  Karl and Dave cruised up and down the creek to look for the missing dinghy, not finding it.  They were understandably upset, it was a new dinghy bought for the Loop trip.  After reporting it missing and worrying that it had been stolen, and much chatter on the radio, they got a call from a fellow boater.  They had just passed a dinghy about 5 miles downriver that was trapped on the side of the river bank!  Hoping that it was theirs, we quickly brought up our anchors and headed that way.  In the meantime, it had started to storm and really downpour rain!

Dinghy recovery adventure!

      We spotted the dinghy on the side of the shore, but there happened to be two huge tows and barges in the immediate area,  so we passed on by to find a good spot to stop out of their way.  Dave hopped on our dinghy, and worked his way back to the spot where we had seen his dinghy.  Southern Cross and Endorphin Voyager had to hover in the channel of the river to wait in the poring rain with 2 tows in the area, not knowing what was really happening.  It was taking Dave a long time to recover the dinghy and bring it back to the mother ship!  What was going on?  After much worry, we finally spotted 2 little dinghys slowly making their way back to us, in the poring rain!  It amazingly was his dinghy!  He was pulling our dinghy behind him!  The story does not quite end yet!  We found out why it took him so long.  It was because our dinghy had sprung a huge leak!  He had to stop and bale every few minutes to make it to shore for the recovery!  Thank goodness it did not sink!  And thank goodness Dave was a Navy man!  He is a Naval Academy graduate and spent 25 years in the service!

       Karl and Dave spent another good 30 minutes or so, trying to bail enough water out of our dinghy so we could lift it safely with the davit to get it back on board!   All in the pouring down rain and they were soaked through and through and chilled to the bone!  Good news is, they were able to complete "the mission," and we were all thankful to have found their dinghy.  We think someone had stolen it and then abandoned it for some reason, maybe teenagers playing a Halloween prank?
We may never know for sure!

     This all took several hours, but we finally got on our way again.  We followed Southern Cross to Mobile and the rain eventually cleared!  We planned to stop at the Mobile Convention Center, a convenient stop right before we had to enter the Mobile Bay.  This place had no services, no electric, water, etc.  It was just a wall to tie up to, but we were exhausted and ready to be done with the day!

      The adventure continues....The weather was still playing tricks on us, with winds up to 20-25 miles per hour and a river current of about 4 to 5 knots!   Karl had to turn into the wind and current to dock us and it was the hardest dockage he has ever tried!  Fortunately, there was a security guard on duty and he helped catch our lines after many attempts to make it to the wall.  Once he got the lines, we started to quickly go into the dock.  I heard a loud crack, just hoping we hadn't damaged the boat.  It was a harrowing experience!  We tied up, but then had to move our boat back about 50 feet so Southern Cross could get in front of us.  They are a 62 foot Ocean Alexander.  We got secured finally and jumped out in the wind to help them tie up.  They experienced the same awful conditions, and successfully turned into the wind and current and made it safely to the wall!  Both our boats were secured with many fenders and were not damaged!   We were still bouncing around a lot.

     The end of the story....We took the dogs for a walk and Penny and Dave asked us to join them for dinner on their boat!  We had a lovely time, good fellowship, sipping some wine and talking about the events of the day over a delicious barbecue rib dinner cooked in their crock pot!  Good ending to a stressful day and certainly a Halloween to remember!

 


   

Tombigbee Waterway in Alabama

Bobby's Fish Camp

10/29/19   Tuesday

     We traveled on the Tombigbee River 97 miles downstream from Demopolis, Alabama to Bobby's Fish Camp,  a popular spot for Loopers.  It was a very long, tough day.  It was cloudy, but no rain.  We arrived to our destination, but unfortunately the restaurant was closed that evening, so no fried catfish for us!  We ate a lovely dinner with Dave and Penny on Southern Cross and made plans for the next day.

Rain, Rain and more Rain all day!

10/30/19  Wednesday

     We woke up to cloudy, rainy weather, but decided to go on.  We got through our last lock, Coffeeville Lock!  We were very excited to be through this lock, we have gone through over 100 locks on this trip!  We did a little celebration dance!

      Our vision was very poor through the Isenglass at the helm, so we followed Southern Cross for 66 miles, dodging logs and debris, passing several tows and barges, passing an area that was being dredged, all through a steady stream of rain!  We anchored for the evening up a narrow creek, called the Alabama Cut-Off.  It started really storming while we were putting the ancho down and getting settled.  It was pretty miserable, but we were thankful to have the miles behind us.  We cooked on the boat and watched the last few episodes of Yellowstone.  Thank goodness we had WiFi thanks to the MoFi!

Dredger

   

Alabama

10/27/19  Sunday

     We woke up early, still unsure if we were going or staying!  We are in Columbus, Mississippi.  About 7:45 am, Karl announced, "Let's go!"  I knew he was getting antsy, so I was prepared and we quickly got off and underway to make that first lock opening at 8:00 am.  We were traveling with 5 boats, so locking through was not as difficult.  We went through 3 locks and traveled 70 miles.  The rain held off, but it was a cloudy, dismal day.  We anchored in a beautiful, quiet cove, along with Aquaman (Andy and Cindy).  We were able to get out the paddle boards and go to shore to walk the dog and run.  We enjoyed a peaceful evening, listening to the birds and water sounds.  We absolutely loved it.

Aquaman at anchor

We were having to dodge big logs, like this one 

10/28/19  Monday

    We were up early and ready to fall in line with the other boats to make our way to Demopolis, Alabama.  We were among 5 boats and traveled 54 miles to Demopolis Marina.  We went through 2 locks and I am happy to report all went smoothly.  We were captivated by the beautiful wildlife.  White egrets and blue herons gracefully flew in front of our boat from one side of the river to the other.  We were the lead boat again and Karl did an excellent job of dodging the logs and debris in the river.  The white cliffs were very pretty.  We pulled safely into the marina and Salty was just as happy as we were to be in port.  We heard that nine other Looper boats were due to arrive later this evening!  We had another decision to make, either to travel tomorrow or stay, knowing that rainy weather was forecasted for Wednesday and Thursday (Halloween!)  Our plan was to go early the next day, traveling with Southern Cross.

Southern Cross 

Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway

Halloween Greetings at MidwayMarina!

Jamie Whitten Lock, 84 foot drop

10/22/19  Tuesday
     Our adventure continued on the "Tenn-Tom" Waterway, which was built to connect the Tennessee River to the Tombigbee River so boat traffic could get through.   Next stop was Fulton, Mississippi at the Midway Marina.  We traveled through four locks to get to our destination.  The first lock was the Jamie Whitten Lock and it was by far the highest lock we have been through.  It is 84 feet!  This lock was closed for several weeks in September, due to an oil discharge accident involving a damaged oil barge.  Thankfully, the spill was contained in the lock and did not spread into the river, but I imagine that the clean-up must have been very difficult and costly.  It delayed a lot of Loopers as well.

Scary at Midway Marina

She actually is holding a fishing pole

Sunset

     The marina was very nice and we enjoyed getting to know some fellow Loopers who docked along with us.  The restaurant was great.  Karl and I decided to stay an extra day and the day was delightful with perfect sunny weather.


10/24/19  Thursday

    We traveled 60 miles today, along with 12 other Looper boats!  We all navigated through 4 locks together, which proved doable, but was time consuming!  Some boats rafted up with other boats and the dock master was very busy instructing us of the order in which we could enter, etc.  It was kind of interesting, but when we finally reached our destination in Columbus, Mississippi, it was getting dark and we were worn out.  Karl led most of the way and he did a great job.  There were a lot of logs, trees and debris in the river, so we traveled slowly and carefully, dodging the potential prop busters along the way!  We bumped at least twice on something, but amazingly the props came through ok.

Pretty Railroad bridge

     We got settled into the Columbus Marina around 6:30 pm and the last boat in our caravan came in well after dark.  We knew we were in for some bad weather, so we were happy to be in a secure location.

White bluffs, starting to see a little color change in the trees

White Pelicans

10/25/19-10/26/19  Friday and Saturday

     Rain, Rain, and more rain!  There were about 17 looper boats here and we all tried to make the best of the bad weather.  We used the loaner car to go to Walmart, but that was about all we did with a car.  It really stormed!  Good days to catch up on reading and watching TV.   We watched FSU football, they finally won a game! We all gathered under the covered slips to have docktails one night, which was fun.  We met some new folks and we enjoyed catching up with ones we hadn't seen for a while.  Everyone was talking about where they were heading next, all downriver of course, so we knew we were in for some boat "congestion!"

Visit To Lexington, Ky

10/17/19- 10/20/19

    We drove to Lexington, Kentucky to attend our 50 year high school reunion.  We enjoyed seeing and catching up with friends that we haven't seen in years!  We also attended the Keeneland races over the weekend.  I laughed at some of the names of the horses, because they now remind me of boat names.  How do people come up with their boat name?  Some names are very original, and unique, incorporating their name in it, or their job, or some bit of humor.  Some of my favorite names of our Looper boats that are traveling among us this year include: Aquaman,  Chasing Eighty, Curti-Sea, Done Diggin', Phantom, Whiskey Business (from Kentucky!)  These are just a few, all the names have a meaning to their owner.  It is funny that we now refer to our friends as "Southern Cross'" or "Pegasus" or "Breakaway!"

Keeneland Race Track

     We loved visiting with Mom and our family in Lexington.  We had a great time, but knew we needed to get back on the boat and get on the river system, we still have 10 locks and many miles to go on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway!

Karl, Mom and Carolyn at Keeneland on Saturday

 

We went to Keeneland on Sunday with our good friends from Lexington, Don and Liz

Keeneland

Paddock Area

Tennessee and Mississippi

Pebble Isle Marina

10/10/19
    We reluctantly said our farewells to Green Turtle Bay, Kentucky, which turned out to be among our favorite stops!  We traveled on the Kentucky Lake for 6 hours and finally entered Tennessee.  We arrived at Paris Landing State Park, Tennessee around 4:00pm. The marina is owned by the state and is very nice.  There is a restaurant on site.  We had docktails with several Looper couples, some we had never met before.   Doctails are when we set up an impromptu cocktail hour on the dock.  We all bring our own drinks and share appetizers and enjoy besting each other with boat stories of the day!

    The next morning, we walked around the state park.  It started to rain and it rained all day, so we caught up on things on the boat.

Fall is in the air

10/12/19

    We traveled about 43 miles to Pebble Isle Marina in New Johnsonville, Tennessee.  This is a small, marina with a nice restaurant and friendly people.  There were about 6 transient boats there and we got to know them all.  The Verizon service was poor, so internet was not very good.  We only stayed one night.  In the morning, the owner of the marina made homemade cinnamon buns and coffee for all of us!  It felt like we were staying at a bed and breakfast!

10/13/19

     We traveled 62 miles on the Tennessee River to our next stop, Clifton Marina in Clifton, Tennessee.  We saw some familiar boats, Mountain Wave was there and some new people.  We had drinks with some couples who were from New Zealand, who had just bought their boat (Somerset) near St. Louis and are cruising down the river system to Mobile Bay.  They plan to ship it home.  It was fun talking to them and we traveled with them the next day.  It was hard to understand them on the radio, due to their thick Kiwi accent, so Karl and I kept asking each other, " What did he just say?  Did he really say that? "

Foggy morning view from Clifton marina

10/14/19

   We woke up to a foggy morning again!  We traveled 62 miles on the Tennessee River to Grand Harbor Marina.  This marina is on Pickwick Lake and borders Mississippi.  We really like this marina, it is very nice, clean and has a pool, tennis courts, condominiums, a rec room and a courtesy car.  It is very hilly here.

10/15/19

Borroum's Drug Store, Oldest drugstore in Mississippi

Corinth, Mississippi

     We took the courtesy car to Corinth, Mississippi to get a rental car.  We looked around this city, which is full of Civil war history.  We visited the Civil War Interpretive Center, which told the story of the siege and battle of Corinth during the Civil war through exhibits, videos and artifacts and a beautiful courtyard with a flowing fountain pool with stones marking the battles of the Civil War.  It was quite striking and meaningful.   We ate lunch at Borroum's Drug Store, the oldest drug store in Mississippi, built in 1869 by a former Confederate Army surgeon and it has been in the family since.  We had great hamburgers and fountain drinks.

Shiloh Battlefield

10/16/19

     We visited Shiloh Battlefield today.  We were very impressed with this area and learned a lot from the movie that was shown before we walked around the battlefields.  This was where a 2 day battle was fought between the Union and Confederate soldiers on April 6-7, 1862.  It was one of the bloodiest battles of the civil war, ending with over 23,000 deaths.  The battle was a victory for the Union soldiers.  There was a self-guided tour around what is now a national park.  There are numerous monuments that mark the events of the battle.  It was a strange feeling to stand on these grounds where so many young soldiers died in battle.   It was a humbling experience.