Farewell 2023!

Hello 2024!

It’s hard to believe it’s been two and a half years, 30 months, since Now or Never and crew left our homeport in Jeffersonville, Indiana (across from Louisville, KY) on the Ohio River.

We love that our departure was captured from the banks of the Ohio. Our friend Kelli’s neighbor took this photo at random from her front porch. When she saw a FB post Kelli shared about our grand adventure, she shared the photo and said “I knew something special was happening at 7 a.m.!” Just a cool photo that depicts our moment in time two and a half years ago.

Most loopers complete the 6000 mile, great loop journey in a span of a year, following the seasons. We always knew we would take a little longer, most likely two years, but here we are, still closer to our starting point than our wake crossing even though we have cruised 6246 miles. Our river trips (Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee, & Potomac) and east coast excursion (Melbourne FL to Baltimore, MD and back) put enough miles under our keel to have finished the entire great loop!

Our 2023 cruising had us departing Melbourne, Florida May 1 and meandering up the East Coast enjoying the coastal charms of Savannah, GA, Beaufort and Georgetown, SC, Oriental, Southport, and Edenton, NC, and Colonial Beach, VA.

Our trip has been enhanced with extensive bike riding at Jekyll Island, GA, Charleston, SC, Bald Head Island, NC, Chesapeake, VA, Washington DC, and Daytona Beach, FL.

Our voyage has been rich in history, and we partook in guided tours through Annapolis including the Naval Academy, State Capital and Solomons, MD, Washington DC, the home of George Washington at Mount Vernon, VA, Edenton, NC, Beaufort, SC, and St. Augustine, FL. The crew also visited many museums and historic landmarks throughout the journey.

We visited some incredible lighthouses including Harbour Town at Hilton Head, Old Baldie at Bald Head Island, Calvert at Solomons, MD, Ponce Inlet at Daytona Beach, and Bodie Island on the outer banks as well as screw pile lighthouses in Baltimore, MD, Plymouth, Edenton, and Manteo, NC.

A diversion off the main route led us spending close to three weeks in the Albemarle Sound enjoying it until we experienced the trials and tribulations of a boat accident. This required taking up residence at the boat yard for several weeks including 15 days on the hard without air conditioning in the heat of summer (have we mentioned we only have a few small windows that open?).

We also had our fair share of chilly days on the water requiring the crew to bundle up.

Our great adventure began in June of 2021 traversing from our home waters on the Ohio River to where we sit today, Melbourne, FL, where we first visited April 9, 2022. We abruptly delayed our journey when we ended up in the emergency room with our sweet pup, Remy. We made the decision to “go home” and seek additional care for her (she did very well for almost a year). Now or Never spent a year in Melbourne sitting idle (maybe not idle since she sat through two hurricanes) while we tended to an array of family heartache (including losing Remy 11.5 months later) and health concerns.

Over the course of our journey, our river side trips included heading down the Ohio River 325 miles to the Cumberland River where we met up with our first segment of the Great Loop. We quickly went off course traversing the Cumberland River through Nashville to Old Hickory Lake and back with a 450 mile side trip. We then joined up with the loop route on the Tennessee River for about 200 miles before we took our second side trip up the Tennessee River to just south of Knoxville and then diverting up the Little Tennessee River, as far as one can navigate, to the Chilhowee Dam. This was an 860 mile side trip. We left the Chesapeake Bay and cruised up the Potomac to Mount Vernon and Washington DC for about 250 miles roundtrip. The Albemarle Loop added an additional 280 miles not on the main loop route.

Following is our cruising recap of this year beginning May 1 leaving Melbourne, FL and cruising as far North as Baltimore, MD in the Chesapeake Bay before turning around and heading back to Melbourne October 31. The second column and total loop includes this year’s East Coast cruising as well as the voyage that got us to Melbourne originally.

Great Loop Cruising Statistics

All of It = An Incredible Journey of a Lifetime!

After six months of cruising this year, it was nice to return to Melbourne at the end of October to settle down for a few months over the winter. The marina is in the heart of Melbourne with easy walking to downtown, and biking access to stores and the beach. We have embraced the slow looping lifestyle and our downtime is thoroughly enjoyed.

However, we made a second trip to a Melbourne ER (the first with Remy). This time it was our captain with a boat project that went awry. Five stitches to his toes, shoes that needed mended, a grinder on the harbor bottom, and our second Uber ER run was part of our pre-Thanksgiving venture. One month post project fail, he is healing nicely and just finished the project with no injuries the second time around.

We were blessed to join friends Mark & Jacquie for Thanksgiving in Fort Myers as we did two years ago. Thanksgiving weekend we also caught up with sister Tiffany and Mark, and nephew Rick and Marnie who gifted our captain a new grinder!

Melbourne Christmas Celebrations

We enjoyed a Christmas Eve Service in the park across the street from the marina, and a serenade of Christmas tunes from a cheery lady from her balcony at the marina condos whom we listened to from the aft deck of Now or Never. We trust you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas and wish you a Joyous New Year!

We’re off on a 500+ mile roundtrip across the Okeechobee Waterway to the west coast of Florida to ring in the New Year with Ohio River home port cruising friends in Port Charlotte. We hope to make a Bahamas trip before March and our trek back up the East Coast through New York Harbor, the Trent Severn Waterway, and into the Great Lakes. We’re looking forward to exploring new waters and many ports on the next leg of our great loop adventure.

And the Loop goes on!

Cheers!  David, Tasha,  

                  & Remy forever in our hearts!

 

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