The Home Stretch

The Home Stretch

August 6, 2024: An update from my final week on the Great Loop — and an AMA announcement/invitation.


I know I’ve been neglecting this blog lately. There’s a reason for it. There’s actually a lot of reasons for it.

  • I got pretty far behind because I write a lot more than I probably should. This means it takes longer to write a blog post, and since there are only so many hours in each day, and I spend a bunch of those hours either driving a boat, sleeping, or trying to enjoy my destination, there aren’t many hours left to write blog posts. That’s how I got behind. It’s happened before and it will happen again.
  • The Do It Now Crew
    Here I am with my crew members, Rosie and Lily, atop a mountain at Baie Fine anchorage. We hiked to a lake with buddy boater Bill, who took the photo. Highlight: wild blueberries. I picked enough for breakfast the next day.

    I was at a lot of different anchorages that had little to no cell phone coverage. Imagine being somewhere so remote that the only way a boater can get a cell signal is to hoist a cell phone on the a 45-foot sailboat mast and use it as a hotspot. (That’s what my friends on Instigator were doing when we got to Bad River.) Other anchorages require satellite coverage through the use of something like Starlink. (I don’t have Starlink and I’m currently not planning on getting it anytime soon. I don’t like the underhanded political dealings of the company’s owner. ‘Nuff said.)

  • Before I left Canada I managed to pick up a nasty sinus infection that gave me a sore throat, pain when I swallowed, an earache, and, believe it or not, a fever. (I never get fevers.) It took a little while to track down a clinic that was open and get a prescription for an antibiotic. And there were some hoops to jump to actually get the prescription filled. (I’ll blog about all that in the future.) In any case, I was doing a lot of extra sleeping and, when I was awake, I couldn’t stay focused enough to write. It’s been more than a week, I’m still on the antibiotics, and I’m still feeling a sore throat and had a low-grade fever.

That’s three excuses. Is that enough? I could probably come up with some more.

Baie Fine Anchorage
One of the nicest anchorages I stayed at in Canada was Baie Fine (pronounced bay fine). I had absolutely zero cell phone coverage for the two days I was there. About half the boats with me seemed to have Starlink setups; I saw their networks in my wifi menu.

I should mention here that the same reasons pretty much apply to why I haven’t released any new videos lately. I’ve been recording plenty of footage, some of it actually pretty good. (I have this cool new technique to record my chartplotter enroute.) But it takes even more effort to edit video than it does to write blog posts and I’ve already covered why I haven’t done that.

The Home Stretch

I got into what I consider the Home Stretch on Thursday or Friday: Lake Michigan.

For the record, folks, this is not where you want to end your Loop. The sad truth of the matter is that when you start getting close to the end, you start getting kind of eager to be finished. You don’t pick stops to enjoy what’s there. You pick stops that’ll get you closer to the end with speed and convenience. Lake Michigan has plenty of potential stops along the way and most of them — whether you’re on the east shore or the west shore — are plenty attractive. But you have to cruise on Lake Michigan to get from one to the next. As anyone who boats frequently on the lake will tell you, it can be a mean place.

Like today. I’m spending two nights in Frankfort, MI, because 3-4 foot waves are forecasted on the lake between me and my next east shore stop in Luddington, MI. My boat is not large and it doesn’t have stabilizers. And I don’t like cleaning up dog (or person) puke. So I’ll stay put today. Fortunately, it looks like I can travel again tomorrow.

Of the four days I’ve already spent on the lake, one was actually pleasant, one was okay, and two were unpleasant. That includes yesterday from Leland (recommended) to Frankfort (recommended). The lake was like a washing machine that couldn’t decide on which way it wanted to churn the water.

Beaver Island Ferry
I passed the inbound Beaver Island Ferry as I traveled from Beaver Island to Charlevoix the other day. Lake Michigan, like all the Great Lakes, is so big that you can’t see land across it.

The point is, finishing up on the south end of Lake Michigan puts some challenging water right in front of the goalpost. So while I’m thinking about the next phase of my trip — going home by plane with two dogs, driving back with my boat trailer, and then trailering the boat back to Washington state — I’m struggling to move forward and actually finish this phase.

So no, I’m not going to spend time writing up my trip along the Oswego Canal or Lake Ontario or sharing my experiences at anchorages in Georgian Bay. Those will come one of these days; I’ve set aside the whole winter to write them. And make the videos. And do a bunch of other stuff I’ve been neglecting for far too long.

The Invitation

That said, I’d like to invite readers to attend a live Great Loop AMA (Ask Me Anything) event on YouTube next week when I should better be in Chicago, celebrating the crossing of my wake. (Technically, if I continue along the east shore as planned, I cross my wake at Hammond, which is where I bought fuel before starting the loop in Chicago. But that’s not where I’ll celebrate.) You can learn more about the event and join it live on August 13 at 3 PM (EDT, I think) here.

Great Loop AMA
I’ll link to the actual video after the event so if you missed it, you can find it here.

There is a catch, however, if you want to ask questions: you need to be a subscriber to my YouTube channel. You might want to subscribe now (if you haven’t already) if you plan to ask questions. If you just want to listen in, just tune in.

I hope to see you there! Heck, at this point I just hope to be there.

4 Comments

  1. Derek W Thomas

    Dang! One of our dogs is enrolled in The Dog Aging Project, and we’ll be in Kansas City for his 6 month evaluation. But I’ll catch up to the “instant replay” LOL. Meantime, fight off that “get there-itis”, be safe and enjoy the journey!

    • I’m enjoying an extra day in Milwaukee, so that’s good. Sorry I’ll miss you. Hope your dog scores highly!

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