Summer Looping – Looped In

Hello blog friends and family. We are back from our break at our “dirt house”. It was great to spend time with our parents, children, and grandchildren but its great to rejoin the looper pack working their way north.

Josh gave us a ride to Marin, and we had only minimal TSA “there’s something always forgotten to pull out of your bag” craziness at security. Both of us were routed to the line of shame, I forgot to pull out my Kindle reader and Ellen’s jar of spaghetti from last night probably looked like C-4. Boarding was not bad, middle of the plane, jammed into the small seats that we now just accept as standard. Brian remembered flying as kid again on summer vacations with the folks in first class (dad was a mechanic for United airlines) that benefit was well used, boy did I take that for granted.

As we sat on the runway window facing west, the fog was rolling over the San Mateo hills near my childhood home, and I remembered how that wonderful fog would cool the bay even on the hottest days and bring wind into the delta where we taught our kids how to sail.

Breaking up my daydream, the pilot came over the com system and with a reassuring southern accent said, flight time to Dallas, two and a half hours, Dallas weather clear; and after a pause to double check his info “temperature 109 degrees 100 percent humidity” It’s going to be an interesting summer.

The Loopers we have been traveling with from the start have all moved on to the Erie Canal and Canada in order to be in Chicago before winter. Our decision to do the loop in three to five years as at much slower pace is what this summer is all about. We will still be cruising with other late loopers, segmenting loopers, snow bird cruisers, and locals. We will be spending this leg of the journey in a much warmer climate than the rest of the pack. Our plan now is to spend the next few months going the short distance from the Neuse River in North Carolina to Dickerson’s Landing marina midway up the Chesapeake where the boat will be stored for winter. Here’s a clip of our pin map with the summer plan and a bit of the Leg 4 plan leaving the Chesapeake next spring. And, some ducklings greeted us at our slip.

So, closing and opening a boat is similar to a beach house or lake cabin. Lots of things were stowed due to no refrigeration, or protection from bugs, moisture, heat etc. Brian had a list in his mind of hundreds of terrible things that could have happened while we were home (it is hurricane season). But the boat was in good shape. So in the heat we got her cleaned, the a/c on, the awning up, and opened all the Ziplock Space bags we had left clothes, towels, and paper goods in. We also brought some boat presents from home. A rubber sink drain unexciting but useful, A trucker shade from Amazon for the trolley windows that fits vertically or horizontally across two of the front three windows!!! And we brought home all the chair arms and Brian redid them – they look amazing. Then we drove back to town to provision up while we still had a rental car. How to have a smokin hot body ?
Have a body, come to North Carolina, walk from the house to the car.

It’s been pouring on and off and we were treated to an impressive squall around dinner time. I was down below putting our bunk back together, doing office work, including logging and blogging, and route planning for next week.

We lowered the dink and did a tour of the inner harbor. We have always been interested in houses with their own dock, and although we have seen countless Zillow pics it was fun to see them up-close. We will keep this place high on our list of places to move to someday.

This was the second diver we called to check the prop and clean the bottom Both no shows, it’s always something on your mind to watch when you are on a boat. Apparently in this part of the Neuse River which is brackish you get blooms of mussels that can take over the hull in a couple weeks time when the temp is just right, I took the dink and cleaned the waterline, and could not feel anything on the hull, next time we anchor I’ll dive and clean myself. Never liked diving in a marina, never the cleanest water and risk of electrocution from stray currents.

All in all, the boat did fine while we were gone, in general, life is simpler on the boat, you tend to focus on fewer things per day and are way less concerned about the rest of the world. But cruising keeps us busy, I have about 5 books I brought on board from the start in Kentucky and have yet to read any of them.