Well it finally happened. After years of talking about it, describing and explaining it to family and friends, we have started our adventure on America’s Great Loop. But before we talk about day one we have to go back about 17 years to the year 2006 when I worked at the Grande Dunes Marina in Myrtle Beach. While working in the marina every spring would bring the transient boaters heading back north from their winter retreats in the southern United States. On occasion there would appear a few adventurous mariners telling their stories of “The Great Loop”. They’re tales of running aground, dragging anchors, grabbing slimy mooring balls and other misfortunes. Outweighing all these mishaps were their stories of the beautiful sights they observed traveling through the locks of New York and Canada, the high seas of the Great Lakes, the wilderness of the inland river and the green water of the florida Keys.
I would often tell Maria about these mariners and their great adventure and we both put it on our bucket list. As we raised our boys and got closer to being empty nesters we decided to put the “Loop” on the front burner. We sold our home of 15 years downsized considerably and started our search. We called our friend and local yacht broker Chris Lombardi to help us find our new home and mode of transportation. It was in the middle of Covid and as the prices went up in real estate so did they go up in RV and boat prices. With our budget in mind Chris found our 2004 Carver 444 in Charleston, SC and so began the next phase of our new life. It took us another year and a half to get our affairs in order. Our youngest son just graduated college and was getting ready to move west to start his next adventure. We provisioned our boat with what we thought we would need to include a dinghy, food, safety gear, new canvas, bottom paint and anything I thought I could get away with without cluttering Maria’s future living room.
It now came time to name our home. I came up with a few names that were immediately turned down and we settled on Sea No Evil. The name comes from the many years we asked our three sons to portray the three monkeys for christmas photo’s and the many sets of monkey’s, frogs and gargoyles with the same theme that I have collected over the years adorning our dirt home. So “Sea No Evil” was now the name of our new home.
On April 21st 2023 Maria and I finally pulled our lines from the Grande Dunes Marina with the great assistance from my Son Matthew, my brother Mike, my sister in-law Eva and our new looper friend Bruce.
We headed up the ICW traveling in familiar waters. We would travel approximately 52 miles today to the Deep Point Marina on the north side of South Port, NC. It was early the water was calm and the sky was clear. We passed by Barefoot Landing Marina where other loopers were appearing on my Nebo app. Next was the rock pile which all captains should take notice due to the hidden shelf and narrow channel. It is located just north of the Barefoot Landing Bridge and ends just south of the Robert Edge Parkway Bridge. We traveled through Little river where the fisherman were heading out to the getty and shoals of the Little River Inlet. The day was quite unadventurous until we hit the Cape Fear River running against an outgoing tide of at least 4 knots. The last two miles seemed to take forever. We finally made it to Deep Point Marina after a seven hour run, topped off the fuel and settled in for a quiet evening.
Photo’s above are of South Port, NC and Deep Point Marina.
We were happy day one was in the books and we look forward to the rest of the Loop.