Meandering Magees: Winter Home

Day 122
2447 Miles

It has been almost 2 months since my last post and True North has moved twice so time to catch up.
Our month (November) at Marker One Marina in Dunedin was a good one. Mike and I and Matt spent Thanksgiving with Jeff and Julie's family. (Greg and Karen flew home to be with their family for Thanksgiving and Christmas. ) We were also able to watch our nephew Shafer's varsity basketball games. We slid right onto the gym bleachers like they were old friends, as we've spent countless hours over the years at games all over Michigan and beyond.
Many Looper boats came into Marker One while we were there and we chatted and exchanged boat cards (like business cards) with most of them.

We were off the boat for the first two weeks of December as we traveled home to enjoy the snow and cold while celebrating an early Christmas with the grandkids. While we were gone, Greg and 3 friends flew down for a week to move True North from Dunedin to Burnt Store Marina in Punta Gorda. I think they had a little fun in doing so. Just a little . . .

Mike and I got back on the boat, now at Burnt Store, the week before Christmas. Matt and Josh joined us that weekend and our Christmas day was spent together in the Florida sunshine.

A benefit of being at this marina was that friends from Ionia live in the Burnt Store complex in the winter. We enjoyed meals, sunsets at a tiki bar, and watching football with Loren and Marilyn Adgate. And we had lunch one day with our neighbors from the A dock of our marina in Ludington - Mike and Pat Kowatch.

The fun stopped for about a week as True North developed a real issue. The last several times we had pumped out the holding tanks, there was difficulty getting one of the tanks to fully empty. Fortunately, we could use one of the bathrooms on the boat as the pump out on that holding tank worked. You have to be thankful for the little things . . .
But our "pooper problem" with the other tank became a very smelly issue and we spent hours trying to fix it. We couldn't find a service person to help so when Greg and Karen flew to Punta Gorda on January 2, they brought help with them. In exchange for a few days of sunshine and 80 degree weather, Dennis Plamondon (who works on our boats in Ludington) worked all one day in that 80 degree weather and fixed the problem!

We were now able to continue on the Loop and head to the Keys. Greg, Mike and I left Burnt Store Marina by water on Thursday morning at 7:30 and Karen left by car. She arrived in Marathon at 1:00. We arrived at 4:30. It took us a half hour to get out of Charlotte Harbor to the Gulf. Once there we rarely ran in a straight line as we dodged crab pots the whole way. I had taken a book and some crossword puzzles (thank-you, Pat) up to the flybridge for the 181 mile trip but they both sat untouched as all 3 of us had to keep our eyes on the water. As I described them in the last post, the crab pots are a floating balls that can be difficult to see until you are right on them. "Ever Vigilant" should be the Looper motto between watching for debris on the inland rivers and crab pots on the open waters. If we had a nickel for every crab pot we saw, we would be doing the Loop on a yacht. Or, in a more humanitarian gesture, every homeless person could be off the streets. And if there actually were crabs in all the pots we saw, every man, woman and child in the United States could have crab legs for dinner!
By keeping our eyes glued to the water, we were rewarded several times by the graceful arc of dolphins leaping out of the water and flying fish skipping on top of it.

The darker water of northern Florida became more blue the further south we went. Not quite the beautiful turquoise color of the tropical Caribbean seas but the blue-green water we were now in hinted that we were getting closer.

At 4:00 we passed under the famous Seven Mile Bridge in the Keys. Greg said it was a milestone, like going under the Mackinac Bridge. Many travel over it, few go under it. The real milestone was, having passed under this bridge, we were now in the Atlantic Ocean. Some marinas in Marathon are on the Gulf side, but the Marathon Marina and RV Resort, which is where we are staying for the next 3 months, is on the Atlantic side.

After leaving Ludington back on Sept. 7th, 122 days later on Thursday, January 5th, we completed the southern portion of the Loop. A BIG HOORAY!!!! We are truly grateful for the safe journey. And excited that some fellow Loopers have become real friends. (We traveled with Gypsy Spirit from Little Diversion Channel on the Mississippi to Green Turtle Bay on Kentucky Lake and met Dan and Jenny for lunch when we were all back in Michigan in December. And we FaceTime often with Jim and Terri from Lucky Ducks, who are taking a break from the Loop and spending the winter in St. Maarten.)

The next 3 months should fly by as we have friends coming for visits and side trips planned to Key West and the Bahamas. I'll be sure to post on those excursions.

So when we head up the east coast for the second half of the Great Loop, whether it be this spring or 2018, True North and its crew will be headed true north. Headed home.