Bushwacker begins Great Loop Adventure!

[Bushwacker]

Dream Seeker & crew departed on the 6000 mile Great Loop trip last Monday 4/15. My wife Admiral Arden, who is a much more creative writer than I, has started a blog documenting our adventure which will hopefully contain numerous pictures. If you go to https://dreamseeker.blog/about/, there is a spot where you can enter your email address so it will send you a note whenever there is a new entry.

We arrived at Palm Coast Marina in Jacksonville Beach about noon yesterday, just a couple of hours before the latest cold front arrived with a nasty squall line and predicted gale force winds! Arden’s daughter Valerie and her husband live just a few miles away and may spend the weekend aboard, after taking us to their home to do laundry and do some shopping and provisioning.

Arden and I spent a year looking at boats from NC to Marathon in the Keys, starting with older boats in the 35-40’ range. My good friend/neighbor and Best Man Jef, who I’ve known for ~25 years, developed CoreCell foam and is a composites expert and also a yacht broker, served as our buyers broker. After looking at about a dozen boats in our initial price range which all turned out to be project boats, he suggested that we would probably end up with a better value if we raised our target price a bit and looked at something a little newer. We made an offer on a number 13, a 2000 vintage boat in New Bern, SC, with a single Cummins 225, but it flunked it’s sea trial due to a bad fuel lift pump!

I had heard about Art DeFever, who appeared to be the Carl Moesly of the long range cruising world! His series of very well-designed trawlers appeared to be the “SeaCraft” of trawlers, so we started looking at DeFevers. Jef found [U][U]Dream Seeker in a yard in Stuart and described it as having “good bones” The 49’ Raised Pilot House model https://www.passagemaker.com/cruiser...r-defever-49-2 had just gone on the market and had everything we wanted except air conditioning, but he said if we could buy it cheap enough that we could afford to add AC, he felt it would be a good buy. Long story short, we did! Although I would have like to have more time fixing stuff, we decided that if we waited till I fixed everything, we’d never leave! And most folks doing this trip are 10-15 years younger, so we figured we’d better do it now while we still can! So off we go!

[Beaver]

So rad. Love the boat and the sense of adventure. Look forward to following you guys

[Old'sCool]

Bucket list for me also. I'll be following your journey.

[Vezo, Part II]

Be well Denny! Way to get after it. Standing by.

Michael.

[Islandtrader]

If you remember we did half a loop...so when you get on the back half we will have to trade notes...following your blog..

[Bikecop1]

Subscribed.

[Capt Chuck]

Best of luck on your adventure Denny & Arden !
Capt Chuck (on the blog also)

[NoBones]

Denny & Arden made a pit stop in New Smyrna Beach Wednesday night !
Had the pleasure to go have dinner that afternoon with the two of them...
As well as sipping some "Pappy" on the Dream Seeker before.

Keep us in the Loop ....

[gofastsandman]

I must have missed the first email, but in typical Denny fashion, he sent a bat signal
into the southern sky and I happened upon the bat phone last week.

There is no such rest on land as that of a boat.
Follow the stars where they may lead you and enjoy the treats along the way.

Cheers,
S&J

[CaptLloyd]

Denny,

So often the hardest part of a trip is getting it started. Once underway, you realize some of those items on the list weren't really "Show Stoppers".

Great to see you and Arden on your way! I will be following the blog.

Safe Travels!!

Lloyd

BTW, be sure to have the prime rib when you get to Coinjock.