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The End of the Adventure

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 It has been a year since I purchased the Dorothy Scott and set out to do The Great Loop. Unfortunately, sometimes we are not successful in the endeavors we set out to do. After spending a year and a great deal of money and effort, I have decided it is time to end the adventure for now and refocus back in Austin. I have put the boat up for sale in St Petersburg, FL and am preparing to move all my stuff back to Austin. This trip has been filled with some great moments and some very low points that challenged my character and my resolve. In the end, I think the boat is just too old to reliably go on a year long trip around the loop. She is much better suited to live in a marina somewhere and give her owner many great memories in local bodies of water. I thought I would share some highlights and lowlights from the trip. Pretty much everything I shared on social media was highlights. I tended to hide many of the lowlights as I was trying to stay focused on the positive. Highlights I have m
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Sometimes we are not in control. Adapt and Pivot

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First, I would like to apologize for not posting in a while. Unfortunately, I haven't had much to post about, unless you want to hear about my boat sitting in a boat yard while getting work done. It has basically spent the last month sitting and waiting to get key things done so it can make the trip around the loop. Well, those key things are still being worked on almost a month later, and I am not sure when it will be ready to go. Due to these repairs, I have pretty much missed the window to get out of Chicago in time before they close a lock for repairs. That means I will not be able to complete the Great Loop this year, unless I just cruise all day for weeks at a time and pretty much miss all the stops that make this trip exciting.  So, I have decided to abort the full trip this year and give it another try some other time. All of these issues also have had a very negative effect on my mental and physical health. The quote below is something I wrote at a very low point in the la
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Where Did My Boat Go?!?!

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 I arrived back in Miami on Friday from spending a week in the Keys. The view coming in from Biscayne Bay is amazing. This picture doesn't do it justice.  I cruised into town just before dusk and tried to find a good anchorage. Everything was full that was in a location that was close to where I wanted to be, so needing to find something before dark, I anchored next to a 90+ foot mega yacht near the channel. I jumped in my dinghy and went to meet my friend Skye who happened to be in town. When I came back to my boat, the mega yacht was gone. I was a little concerned that I was anchored in a spot where you are not allowed to anchor, but I needed to wait til the morning to move. I woke up and the generator wouldn't start...again! I have to raise the anchor by hand without the generator, and that is very difficult. I also cannot use the lift to get my dinghy out of the water without it. After spending all morning troubleshooting, I finally figured out that it was just a bad connec
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Location: Miami, FL, USA
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Boynton Beach to Key West

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 Well, I am finally on my way after months of repairs and setbacks. I left Boynton Beach on Wednesday morning with my friends Kurt, John and Jim. Jim is a ship's captain and was a very valuable asset on the journey. We ran into a few technical problems along the way, but my crew are all very knowledgeable in mechanics and electrical. We dropped Jim off in Key Largo to meet a friend and they drove a car to Key West and we met up with them when we got in yesterday evening. We caught our first fish yesterday, a Spanish Mackerel, and it was delicious! If you havent had fresh sashimi, it is fantastic. Literally ate the fish 2 hours after we caught it.  The weather was nice enough yesterday to get out on the ocean. We cruised all day on beautiful water, but after 10 hours, we were all a little tired. We rolled into Key West right at sunset and decided to reward ourselves by staying at the Opal Key Marina. After anchoring out the night before, we thought a shower and shore power was worth
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Location: Key West, Florida 33040, USA
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Beginnings, Delays, Repairs, and COVID

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As the official beginning of my Great Loop trip approaches, I wanted to update everyone on the current status of everything as well as share some of the challenges I have encountered thus far. The whole idea of this trip sounds exciting and fun, but there definitely have been many challenges that have made me question my decision to make this trip at all. Don't worry, I am still going through with the trip, but I think it is important to share more than just the positives that go along with an undertaking of this magnitude.  I had planned on cruising around the Florida Keys and the Bahamas from early November through mid March. Instead, my boat has been docked almost the entire time while waiting on repairs and maintenance. Both Detroit Diesels and the generator have had to have work done, and are still not fully operational. This trip is much less exciting when you live on a boat that doesn't move for over two months. I am also without a car here, so my radius of activity is a
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Location: Boynton Beach, FL, USA
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Goodbye Austin

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On Monday(11/8/21), I left my home for the past 33 years to move to my boat. For the first time, I dont have a home base that is on land. It feels really weird. The last week or so, I have been feeling anxious, excited, sad, and have been questioning if this was a good decision. Now that I am back on the boat, I think I am going to really enjoy this adventure, but I will definitely miss Austin and all the awesome people I am blessed to know there. The trip back to the boat was crazy. I think Austin didnt want me to leave. When I landed in Fort Lauderdale at 10:50am, I received a text from a friend to call ASAP. I had accidentally taken her passport with me by mistake. I had to fly back to Austin that night and back out to the boat on Tuesday morning. She was leaving the country Tuesday morning and there was no other way to get the passport back in time. So I did get one extra night in Austin. I was fortunate to have visitors from Austin this week as well, so it felt like home was fol
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First Days: Fun and Trouble

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The first day out was amazing. we cruised over 11 and a half hours and made it 110 miles to mile marker 0 in Norfolk, VA on the Intercoastal. We stopped at Fish and Ships restaurant and bar where we met Jenny the bartender and had taco Tuesday and beers. It was a great day with no issues along the way.  Day two proved to be a little more challenging. We were planning on changing oil in the morning before leaving, but couldn't get the pump out to work properly to remove the oil. So after a couple hours, we decided to move on and stop somewhere to get help down the way. Around 3pm we stopped for fuel, but ran into issues with the diesel full burping back up the fill. It took an hour an a half to slowly fill the tank. We were originally going to anchor out for the night, but decided to stop in Coinjock, NC for the night and see about help with an oil change in the morning. We found Brian Scott through is wife Candice at the Coinjock Marina Restaurant (which has the famous 32oz prime r
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