Great Loop 2022: Day 1: Arrival in Charleston, SC

I travel across the country, meet Capt John, and climb aboard Carver 36.

I got an early start on Tuesday, rising at 3 AM for my 6 AM flight. Leaving my pups behind was heartbreaking. They knew something was up and I cried as I hugged them both goodbye. I drove away for my five-week trip at 4:15 AM.

The Flights

The first flight was uneventful; I was seated near the front and watched the port side engine as we climbed up through the clouds away from Wenatchee. Less than thirty minutes later, we were on the ground at Seattle, after popping out of the clouds only a few hundred feet away from the ground.

In Seattle, I treated myself to a day pass for the Alaska Air lounge. I had originally booked a first class seat to Charleston, but had to change my flight about a week before the original departure date and could not get a reasonably priced seat in first class on the replacement flight. Lounge access comes with that ticket and with about two hours to kill, I wanted to do it in comfort. So I paid my way in, made myself breakfast at the buffet, got a latte, and settled down at a seat by the window — oddly enough, the same seat I’d occupied while waiting in the lounge on my last flight out of Seattle seven months before.

Here’s a panoramic shot from my seat at the Alaska Air lounge on Tuesday morning. The weather in the Seattle area was grim.

I spent the next 90 minutes watching the planes go by while feasting on oatmeal, cheese cubes, and salami. (Hey, that’s what was there.)

I was in sitting just behind the wing in coach on my next flight. I managed to get in early enough to get both of my small bags in the overhead bin, which was nice. I settled in with my iPad, which had a few books on it, an orange from the lounge, and my phone for snapping photos. My seat mate in the middle seat was a nice woman heading out to Charleston to “clear her head” with her daughter. Beyond her was a couple with two kids; the seat beside my neighbor was occupied variously by the mom, the dad, or one of the daughters. One kid cried a lot. It wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t horrible either.

I got a great view out the window of Mt Rainier, Mt St Helens, Mt Adams, and Mt Hood after we climbed out of Seattle.

The flight was long — 5 hours! — and I read a lot. But after 2 hours and a cheese platter, I was getting antsy. So I tuned into the inflight entertainment system on my iPad. I killed time on the rest of the flight by watching a dumb yet strangely entertaining movie from 2003 starring Rowan Atkinson and then a very weird tv show called Painting with John, featuring John Lurie. In this show, he shared a parenting story from his childhood that he thinks explains why he and his siblings became creative people. That story alone is worth watching this weird first episode, which you can find on HBO.

Then we came into the Charleston area and my seat mate helped me pick up the remnants of my cheese plate and orange peels that had fallen onto the floor during the flight. (The crew had skipped the second beverage service and one of the clean up passes because of turbulence that had never materialized, and the trash had fallen off my microscopic tray table.) The pilots made a smooth approach but banged the landing gear so hard on touchdown that half the passengers gasped and then laughed. We taxied in.

Meeting Capt John

I’d met Capt John exactly once and that was on a Skype call. We’d emailed a bunch. I was finally going to meet the man I would spend the next five weeks of my life with.

But first I had to get my luggage. At baggage claim, I had my huge bag — which had weighed in that morning at 47.6 pounds — and six bottles of wine in a special travel box that had cost about the same as one of the bottles in it. I managed to get everything out to the curb a few minutes before John pulled up in his station wagon. We shook hands and loaded all my gear aboard. I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised when he said, “Is that all?” in a way that didn’t seem sarcastic. (I thought I had a lot of stuff.)

We were both hungry so he drove us to a place he liked called The CODfather, Proper Fish & Chips. We ate at the bar. I had a nice cold hard cider and a chicken curry pie; John had a beer and the fish and chips. It was all good.

John had been down in South Carolina from his home in New York since Thursday, taking care of some final preparations to get the boat back in the water after some maintenance and repairs. He’d been on the Great Loop for quite a while with other crew members and had put the boat in dry dock to get the bottom painted and some other work done way back in the summer. Although he’d hoped to come back on board in autumn, that trip had been canceled. The shop had put the boat on the back burner, had some delays due to Covid, and had finally finished the work — or almost finished it — by the time John arrived. He told me about the delays and additional work needed since his arrival in Charleston. And how the boatyard had a weird system for getting boats like his back in the water — a system that involved not only a Marine Travelift boat hoist but a crane.

We talked a little about the Loop and our philosophies about it. Unlike Capt Paul, who I’d spent five weeks this past summer with on my first Great Loop adventure, Capt John likes to take it slow and enjoy the journey. We’d make plenty of stops along the way and likely spend several days at each one. I knew all this from our telephone conversation and emails, but it was nice to chat about it. I was excited about traveling on the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) — it’s one of the top waterways I wanted to explore. (The others, if you’re interested, are the Erie Canal, which I did with Capt Paul; the other New York State and Canadian canal systems; the Florida Keys; the Panama Canal; and, of course, the Inside Passage (which I did back in 2019 but would love to do again in my own boat.)

I’ll say now that I was pretty happy with our first real life meeting. Capt John was friendly and we seemed to be on the same page. I always thought that my first day on my last Great Loop cruise was a little weird — both Paul and Dianne seemed a little distant or even cold. But this first day didn’t seem weird at all. I felt as if I had known John for a long while.

Going out to Carver 36

Capt John asked me not to use the name of his boat in my blog and I’m honoring his wishes, but I have to call the boat something. So I decided to call it what it is: a 36 foot Carver or Carver 36. It’s a 1985 model in very good condition.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

We drove from the restaurant to the boatyard where Carver 36 had been living on blocks for close to a year. John wanted to point out the lift and the crane. From there, we headed to the Copper River Marina, where he’d driven the boat after launch earlier that day. We had a long walk down a long pier with the marina on the right and a container ship terminal on the left. It was a very industrial area but quiet and kind of remote.

Carver 36 was the first boat on the transient dock. For some reason, it looked a lot bigger than I expected it to be. And I was surprised by the amount of canvas creating sheltered areas on the cockpit and command bridge. Compared to the last boat I’d been on, it was huge.

Carver 36 at its slip in Charleston, SC. I shot this at night with my iPhone and it really came out a lot brighter than it was.

We climbed aboard with all my bags — fortunately there were carts near the parking area — and John showed me around a little. There was a large salon with a sofa, with a cubbyhole of a galley, and a very large dining area. My cabin was forward and was set up pretty much the way it had been on the last boat, but I had all the space to myself. I also had my own head (toilet to landlubbers), sink, and shower. A sliding door would give me privacy if I needed it. I was in heaven.

I unpacked and stowed everything. John unpacked and stowed the wine I’d brought along. Then I made a trip to the restroom up by the marina — in all honestly, I prefer not to use the head on the boat unless it’s the only option, mostly because the less I use it, the less often we’ll have to pump it out. Everything up there was clean and pretty new looking. There was even a lounge and laundry facility.

It was dark by then and nearly 9. Capt John and I went our separate ways — he going aft to his big cabin at the back of the boat and me retreating into my cosy space up front.

Although I didn’t sleep perfectly, I sure did love the sound of the waves lapping against the dock though my open “porthole” window.