Bushwacker begins Great Loop Adventure!

[flyingfrizzle]

Enjoy yourself and Safe travels!

[uncleboo]

I'm signed up. If time allows, come see me. If not, let me know when you will be in Coinjock for that prime rib and I'll meet you for dinner. Wishing you and Arden a safe and wonderful trip!

[Vezo, Part II]

Hey Denny, any chance you’re stopping in Sav, HHI, or Beaufort?

Michael.

[bumpdraft]

Now you got Cindi thinking boat (big) again. I told her that her "boat" is on 6 wheels. Safe travels.

[Bushwacker]

Lloyd, you’re so right about the hardest part of the trip is getting started. I had simply assumed right from the start that we’d forget a bunch of stuff, in addition to discovering there was more stuff we didn’t even know we needed! Only solution to that is just take a credit card that won’t melt! Thanks to Arden’s daughter taking us around in Jax we were able to get some stuff we needed, but of course nothing was open on Easter Sunday.

Boo, we’re going the Dismal Swamp route, so maybe we can meet you in Elizabeth City?!

Vezo, may stop in Beaufort. Anchored at Cumberland Island tonight. We need to average ~ 70 miles/day to make the Great Loop Rendezvous in Norfolk on May 5-9. May have to leave boat some where and rent a car if we get behind. I know, not supposed to have a schedule on this trip, but we went to the Loop gathering at Joe Wheeler SP near Huntsville in October 2017 and my bride doesn’t want to miss this one!

[flyingfrizzle]

Me and the kids have been trout fishing in Hobucken NC the last few weeks. We normally put in at RE Mayo's seafood house which is right on the ICW and fish out of jones bay. If it lines up with your time line maybe we will cross paths!

[Old'sCool]

Beaufort is nice and only ~ 55NM from Charleston.

An older gentleman bought a new 22 Grady White w/twin 150's in Charleston about a year ago. He started the loop last April, took the longer Canadian route, and is now looped and enjoying the Abacos according to his last post. He said very few nights were spent NOT sleeping on the boat. Your accommodations are a tad more comfortable than that!

[uncleboo]

Elizabeth city is fine. There are several nice restaurants there within close proximity to the docks.

[SailorChlud]

Congrats on getting underway, Denny! If you need any support in the NJ - NY Harbor stretch, give me a shout!

[Bushwacker]

Thanks for all the comments and good wishes! My wife Admiral Arden has also enjoyed your comments but I only log on to the site when we have good wifi, so she would prefer that you sign up on the blog site with your email and post comments there so she can see them easier.

Regarding the “Damn Dingy” episode, all is well with the dingy motor. Call it user error if you will . . . The Nissan 15 hp motor uses the same type of connector that the old Chrysler outboards used with a sliding outer ring that locks the connector on to the male fitting on the motor. The sliding ring is very hard to move and evidently didn’t lock onto the fitting, so after a couple hundred yards the motor basically ran out of gas. I reconnected and pumped the bulb, but when it didn’t fire up after several pulls, I made the mistake of pulling out the choke! I had forgotten how easy it is to flood these old 2-strokes, and once you do that it can take a lot of cranking to clear out the excess fuel! It often helps to just pull the plugs and spin the motor over with WOT to clear it, but I discovered we didn’t even have a plug wrench on the dingy! (Since corrected!) We were upwind of the boat, so I decided it was easier to row back. Once we got back to the boat I got it started again and it ran fine, but it was almost 7 pm so we aborted the planned shore excursion since we had planned to stay in a marina the next night.