Conanicut Marina is the center of Jamestown and provides all the waterfront services including ferry to Newport, tours and the town moorings.  Bill and May Munger have developed a fantastic and impressive business that adds enterprise and charm to the community.  The island is self sufficient with grocery, hardware, liquor store and marine supplies.  We had a wonderful visit with the Mungers and dinner at Bay Voyage.  In the morning we took the dinghy to Newport and walked the town and had lunch at J22 on the wharf.  Newport is a mega yacht capital and famous for its waterfront.  All were true with lots of yachts to look at, fudge, ice cream and the typical stuff.

A pleasant calm ride across the sound up into Nangassett Bay to Wickford, staying at another Safe Harbor marina.  Did a good cleaning of the boat before a hard and long rain came in for the balance of the day. Walked town and ate at the Tavern patio.
Mid-day we moved up to anchor in the Bristol Bay.  Took a long dinghy ride to tour the harbor & walked around the America's Cup exhibit before a wonderful scallop dinner at Lobster Pot.  Windy and wavy night kept us up some and the winds predicted to ramp up more.  We moved to another bay and sat at anchor in the rain and wind all day, completing msc projects, games, and a movie.

Oh
As we entered the Block Island Sound from Long Island we were encompassed in fog for the next few hours.  There was a fair amount of traffic on the Sound so we both watched the radar and drove slow.  As we entered the Great Salt Pond at Block Island the fog disappeared and it was a beautiful day.  We anchored there for 3 nights as the winds blew.  The island is quaint, New England-y, and a unique culture.  The Great Salt Pond is a huge anchorage/mooring field which can hold several hundred boats.  

The island is full of rock walls dividing all homes and along roads.  The architecture is strictly New England cedar shakes and historic buildings. There are 2 historic lighthouses, lots of classic old hotels and miles of hiking and beaches.  We rented a moped and toured the entire island, inside and out. Great food at outdoor restaurants and wonderful sunset where the several hundred boats in the anchorage all honk their horns at sunset.  Oh... and the sunsets are amazing!

Our 2nd night in the Shelter Island area we stopped in Greenport and then anchored in the bay by Orient, NY.  Greenport is another charming town on Long Island with local Breweries, good food and super friendly people.  

We came across the Long Island Sound to enter the east end of Long Island and headed toward a tour around Shelter Island, landing at Sag Harbor.  The bays around Shelter Island have many great anchorages which are full of small boats to large mega yachts all enjoying the water.  Sag Harbor, part of the Hamptons, is a vintage town. We enjoyed touring the town and the harbor with all the large yachts packed in.  

A short stop at a great family run marina where we took delivery of new dinghy. We really like this small town, with fabulous lobster rolls and friendly people.  

We drove for about 5 hours in the rain and looked for a place to throw out the hook and stumbled upon the Thimble Islands.  They are a very beautiful and interesting set of rock islands just off the coast at Stony Creek, CT.  There are about 81 houses on about 40 islands and we understand that most have been in the same family for generations. Only a few have electricity and water but use services brought by boat to their island.  Super calm night for a nice tour of the islands and a grilled dinner sunset.  

A charming stop on Long Island for provisioning and good dining. 

Liberty Landing in Jersey City, NJ was our home for 3 nights while we explored the City, from the outside, of course.  Central Park, the Central Park Zoo, and views, views, views. 

Arriving in New York Harbor is everything you'd expect.  Seeing the Statute, Ellis Island, Manhattan, all of it.  We ate lunch while cruising past the Statute of Liberty and Manhattan and then pulled into Liberty Landing Marina, in NJ just across from the Freedom Tower in Lower Manhattan.  The Suntex Marina is a great location and unbelievable views of the City.  Here we are hanging out by the Statute of Liberty, photo compliments of our friend Herb.  
By mid afternoon we took the ferry across to the City and spent until later in the evening wandering around the 911 Memorial, walking to Times Square, dinner in Hell's Kitchen area and drinks in lower Manhattan.  

C&D Canal is one of the oldest in the country, 14 miles long and lots of cool looking bridges.  At the end of the canal, the trip down the Delaware River to round Cape May is 55 miles and for the most part not the prettiest place.  The river is very wide (20-30 miles) and has lots of shallow and marshy areas.  We found a deep river called the Cahonsey River and anchored in what looked like a big grassy marsh.  The flies thought is was a nice place also.  

We finished our way down the Delaware River, took the cut into Cape May and headed out on the Atlantic to stop at Atlantic City.  Since we are not gamblers we took in the boardwalk and ran some errands.  The town is suffering from the lack of tourism (and was before Covid hit).  Marina was a good stop though with the glittering skyline and we met some fellow loopers.  

After a 3 week trip home, we arrived back to Pleasure Cove Marina in Pasadena.  The Curry family joined us for a weekend trip across the bay to Rock Hall, MD.  Known as the "Pearl of the Chesapeake", it is a pretty quiet town with a long fishing history.  George Washington and others passed through here numerous times.  Great sunsets from Haven Harbour South Marina. 

Just a quick stop in Annapolis for lunch and we plan to return to really see the sites.  

Solomons or Solomons Island is another boating mecca on the Chesapeake.  Loaded with marinas, it is what Joe calls Disney for adults, or at least adults who love boats. Fun place to dinghy around.  We stayed at the friendly Solomons Yacht Club where dockage comes with a HH each evening.  

Last port before heading home for a few weeks was Herrington Harbor South, 
Deale, MD.  

We were surprised by the size and beauty of the Potomac River, which you travel 100 miles upstream from the Chesapeake Bay to reach Washington DC.  We had 2 wonderful and tranquil anchorages on the St. Mary's River and Tobacco River as they flow into the Potomac.  We spent one night at the Alexandria Yacht Club in the historic district of Alexandria.  This is a wonderful quaint old town to visit and even with Covid restrictions we had a wonderful time and some great food at Vole' on the Waterfront. 

Alexandria to Wash. DC

Washington DC. July 4th weekend 2020.  We stayed at Capital Yacht Club, which is part of the Wharf area and right in the heart of Washington DC. The District was partially shut down with the Corona virus regs which apparently kept most tourists away.  On one morning we visited all the monument sites and a few we were alone at and the maximum number of people we encountered at any site was 20.  Definitely a good time to see the sites in DC, although the heat was pretty bad for a couple from MN.  
James & Andrea Curry (our niece) joined us for the weekend.  With the heat we spent time on the water anchored in front of Mount Vernon and on day visited the Bible Museum, which we highly recommend.  
The grand finale to the weekend was the fly over and the best fireworks display which we had a great view of from our back deck.  

Deltaville is a unique old fishing town with about a dozen marinas (mostly of which are stuck in time from the 1960's or 70's) and a few eating establishments. Due to covid most restaurants were not open so we cooked on the boat each for our 2 night stay.. We were able to use the marina pickup to go to West Marine and get seafood from their local market. Grilled a nice anniversary seafood dinner at the marina.
Next stop was just up the creek where we spent a couple night of quiet and beautiful anchorage in Irvington where we anchored by the well known beautiful resort Tides Inn,

We  met up with Leslie and Glen Carter (related by our son-in-law) and spent a couple of lovely days fishing the Chesapeake Bay out of Windmill Point and visiting Tangier Island.  

Tangier Island
One of the most unique places in the Chesapeake Bay area, the island has a dwindling population of 'waterman' who historically depended on crabbing the local blue crabs for a living.  Today tourism is one of the main industries and the  locals meet you in their golf carts as you park your boat or get off a ferry and bring you on a tour, to eat and shop. There are still crabbing boats but there many of the boats and processing operations are abandoned.  
The locals have a distinctive Elizabethan dialect developed on the island and attributed to the isolation from the mainland and most of the locals have families that have been there for generations.  We were met at the Parks Marina by Mr. Parks, an 80 some year old whose family has owned and operated many of the local businesses for a generations. 
This island is disappearing slowly into the bay. Since the mid 1800's the island's landmass has been reduced by 67% and it is expected that the remaining land will be lost in the next 50 years and the town/island will likely need to be abandoned.

Mobjack Bay.  June 2020
Absotutely wonderful anchorage on the East River off Mobjack Bay.  Dinghy rides around the many inlets for a couple days, enjoyed great food, sunsets, paddle boarding and sunshine.  

Now that we are north of the 'hurricane' line, we can slow down.  We did about 925 miles in less than 14 days so we are ready for some more casual cruising.  With a big rain front hanging on for days, we made our way north, first to Coinjock, NC on the Virginia Waterway, Chesapeake, VA, where we stayed at Atlantic Yacht Basin and old boat yard, then into the Chesapeake Bay.  We made a brief stop in Portsmouth, VA to walk around and cruised the Norfolk area to see all the naval ships and yards.  With most public places closed still and many other businesses just opening, we planned to stop at some of the larger ports when we travel back this way.  Landed for a couple days in historic Yorktown where we ended up with a private tour of some of the (closed) museums by a member of the DAR, Daughters of the American Revolution. They are very serious about their history and we learned a ton.  

Yorktown, VA.  The double swing bridge opens for the naval ships that have to go into the York River to get loaded with ammunition after being in the shipyard.  We got to see one of the ships leave harbor.  People typically cheer the crew who are on the front of the ship. 

Norfolk and Portsmouth

Chesapeake, VA & Atlantic Yacht Basic

Nice calm, sort of rainy day for an easy ride 50 miles to Belhaven.  Small 2 dock marina.  Greg, the single handed manager was helpful in getting our refrigerator/freezer in  and we spent 2 somewhat wet days working on electrical/refrigeration, etc. Ate at Spoon River & Artworks, a farm to table restaurant with a wonderful chef.  Food was abundant and delicious.  2nd night we ate on the boat deck, watched the sunset and watched Steele Bridge virtual festival from Sturgeon Bay.

Belhaven is a small town stuck in time with many nice estates in one section of town and many older and abandoned properties elsewhere. The downtown included a couple restaurants, a large (well worn) hardware store and a few shops. 

Only 35 miles on the ocean to the Cape Fear Inlet.  Grateful to be going a bit fast with no bridges although the scenery is not as good as the ICW. Nice rolling 3' seas made for a decent passage and smooth coming into the inlet, which can get sort of hairy. Got a place to stay in Wrightsville Beach at Bridge Tender Marina gas dock (wish we knew about the great anchorage around the corner).  This is a very popular tourist area and Sunday afternoon, 95 out and SO many people & boats.  There's some nice beaches when the tide is low and people love boating in this area. 

Note the small boat, which we'd seen a few of, where the outboard is placed inside the boat. 

 June 8-10.  We were going to take the ICW from Wrightsville Beach north but with several bridges with limited openings, no wakes zones, Camp LaJune crossing which typically entails some waiting for training maneuvers, we decided to go out the Masonboro Inlet and went about 75 miles up to Cape Lookout and the Beaufort Inlet.  We anchored by 2:30 across from downtown Beaufort.  The Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament is in town and we got to be in the midst of the activity for 2 days as they came in from their day of fishing.  Exciting to see these serious fishing boats who are competitively fishing come in after a long day of fishing and show some of their catch.   We did not get to see Michael Jordan whose boat Catch 23 was at the main tournament marina in Morehead City, just across the cut.  

Next Stop:  Oriental, NC.  Awesome little fishing town just east of the Outer Banks. Will return here ☺️

June 6, 2020.  From Georgetown to the Little River Inlet, the ICW is part of various river systems and was extremely flooded.  The flooding happened within a few hours of heavy rain further west, and people did not have time to move out of their homes.  The homes are low to the waterway and we could see that everything was still in many houses with 1-3' of water.  We went as slow as possible to not make any wake, which was impossible.  Once closer to Mrytle Beach there were hundreds of people on jet skis in this area, sort of crazy for the small river it is. Little River is part of an area called The Grand, which is the Mrytle Beach greater area.  We stayed at Mrytle Beach Yacht Club. They had a small pool and we jumped in to cool down from the 95 degree/85% humidity day (not our kind of weather).  Took a dinghy ride to town to try to eat, but the one place to tie up was a crazy packed biker bar with no social distances so we moved on.  Ended up with a  great dinner adjacent to the marina at Clarks, a wonderful seafood place.  The next morning we got the cheapest fuel we'd had yet and headed out for another ocean run.

So, after more than 3 months enjoying our wonderful family at home and being under Covid lockdown, (& other sad national events of the last days) we got back to the boat at River Forest Yachting Center.  We had a few issues to address on the boat, mostly because when we left in February we intended on a much shorter trip home.  So after about 5 days of projects, we were on our way back to the ICW and north. Our goal is to be north of Belhaven, NC within 2 weeks to get out of the hurricane zone per our insurance requirements.  We left Stuart, Fl and headed north anchoring in Fort Pierce, and then a short afternoon stop in St. Augustine to have some additional canvas work done, 
We then anchored at Jacksonville near the inlet so we could take the 'outside' to Hilton Head.  

We can't wait to return to St. Augustine in the future as this town is very inviting and historic with its fort (which we saw as we passed by) and its waterfront.  Our trip up the coast on the Atlantic to the Port Royal Sound was fair weather and mostly enjoyable seas (flat would be my personal favorite but it is the Atlantic).  We pulled into Skull Creek Marina in Hilton Head in time to grab an outdoor dining experience at the Old Fort Pub (aka Old Fart Pub).  As we have not been eating out for the last few months, we really enjoyed the experience.

Th next day we stopped at Charleston, SC for a short break and replenish supplies.  This typically bustling city was quiet as a mouse.  This was Thursday evening and the previous Saturday had been a curfew with protests that had turned violent.  As we walked the city the streets were weirdly quiet and businesses closed, with much of the downtown boarded up.  We did find a wonderful lobster roll takeout and some ice cream and we walked the streets to see the amazing homes in this beautiful city.  A former mayor, Joe Riley, is quite famous and well know there, and for some reason Joe thought that all the monuments and signs were about him.

​Again, we'll be back in the future when the city and businesses are back in swing.  

The next leg of the the ICW through South Carolina is through marshlands.  It's quite beautiful but quite remote and the weather is hot and humid.  There are alot of homes along this narrow strip of ICW, most of which have walkways through marshlands from their houses that are hundreds of feet long.  The tides are also quite large in this area at about 7-8' which required us to pay close attention to water depths and currents.  

As our Great Loop trip and much of our lives are on pause from planned activities, I am sharing some family photos. While we haven't been able to spend time with the whole family, over past weeks we have been blessed to be able to see some of them, including our 2 wonderful grandchildren.  There are so many special moments during this time of staying away.   
We also want to acknowledge and thank River Forest Yachting Center in Stuart, FL for taking such good care of the Beyond Kare'n for us.  

February 11, 2020. Arrived into the Lake Worth cut about 3:30 and docked at the first marina we saw Riviera Beach Marina, because we were excited to get off and see the sites.  This area rivals Fort Lauderdale with the boats and waterfront and Joe kind of likes to look at boats (in case you were unaware) so the next few days included much of this activity.  
Friday Feb. 14th - Valentines Day, We moved to our friends, the Powells, dock and hung with them, and their daughter, son in law and beautiful grand daughter Sophie, for a couple days.  They are super gracious hosts with a fabulous home and they toured us around the area by boat and car, complete with historical commentary.  Enjoyed great company, food, games, boating, etc.  

Sunday Feb. 16, 2020, we took the intercoastal to Stuart where we will have some work done while we go home and await our new grand baby.  As soon as we tied up the boat at Sunset Bay Marina in downtown Stuart, we were greeted by some Loopers and invited for 'little beers', which a Great Loop tradition to meet or send off fellow Loopers.  Little beers are actually a liquor drink topped with cream to look like beer.  This a tradition we like and will pass it forward.

​Chris and Kermit Wold, friends from MN, were our local hosts here and tour guides. Stuart has a quaint downtown and many bays, marinas and boating areas.  More great food, company, boating, etc.  We toured the various shores of the St. Lucie River and then the Manatee Pocket where there are great restaurants.  
The next day we all had dinner at the Dolphin House.  This place was owned and operated by Frances Langford (her signature song -"I'm in the Mood for Love") as the Outrigger Resort.  Many celebrities frequented here and their pictures hang on the wall.  Jackie Gleason apparently liked the bungalow closest to the bar.  The restaurant today had some of the best shrimp and tuna along with a great view.  

Lucaya, part of Freeport, is another resort area of the Bahamas that is has so much untapped potential.  Its latest struggle is Hurricane Dorian, which damaged most of the island outside of the small area of Lucaya.  The far eastern end of the island is pretty much gone, as are the adjacent Abacos Islands.   Lucaya was spared but the water supply and clean up are ongoing.  We rented a car and toured some of the damaged area you could get to. Boats thrown blocks from inner canals and a mile or so from the coast, new developments with houses either gone or totaled. Electricity outside of the main city won't be reestablished for months. Help for these areas is pretty limited still but slowly things are happening.

The Grand Bahama Yacht Club was a fun place to hang out with the very limited people there. We ate several times at the poolside bar called the Thirsty Turtle, which is recently opened by a young Brit couple that had their resort literally swept away at the eastern end of the island by the hurricane.  These people are so resilient and positive!

Banana Bay (great lunch and beach) and Fabian, who has been at the marina about 30 years.  

More windy days and we would have loved a few more days here but took advantage of a fairly good travel day to get across the Gulf Stream to Palm Beach.  A good 90 mile ride in 3'-4' seas, but at least not on our beam and the weather was fantastic.