Great Loop

December 23 Merry Christmas I hope this blog finds everyone in great health for the holiday season.  Merry Christmas to all.  It is about time for this dude to get off his duff and start flying!!! So I had a bit of an epiphany the other day.  The Shorebilly looks an awful lot like a 1959 Ford Fairlane 500 Galaxy.  Tell me I am wrong ... We laughed at this.  At least now I know where Aspen got its design inspiration. Clearwater Florida Clearwater was a surprise.  I knew nothing of the town other than it was the home of Scientology.  Separated by a small bay there is Clearwater Beach and Clearwater the city.  Unable to get into a Clearwater Beach marina, we went to the city municipal marina.  This marina was five star being relatively new, located in the heart of town, gated and clean.  The Xmas decorations were out and the place was stunning. The town's walkways and parks were close to perfection with long winding pathways and open parks.  Just gorgeous.   But the surprise came when

December 10 The Crossing deals with getting from the Florida Panhandle to the western shore of Florida typically referred to as the Gulf Coast.   The crossing is a point of high concern and stress for most Loopers.  It involves 180 miles of open water boating where normal connectivity to society simply doesn't exist.  No cell phones, no internet (unless you have Starlink marine),  no support infrastructure and minimal other boaters.   The launch point for getting across is from either Apalachicola or Carrabelle which is slightly closer by ~10 miles but Apalachicola is a better town / dockage.   Apalachicola We chose Apalachicola. It is a fantastic town with great food and lots of fun spots.  Along with "fresh off the boat" seafood and restaurants serving home cooking, the town had an actual saloon.  This was a first on the Loop for us. The rest of the town was equally quaint and cool.  Christmas decorations were out and the streets beautiful. Having a good dockage to stag

December 5 Find the Bridge It is only ~200 feet away, huge and it is 11:30 AM.  Obviously you can't miss it ..... If you ever wonder if the good Lord has a sense of humor, that question was answered in full this past Sunday.  Being at this trip for almost seven months now, I began to believe I had life figured out.  Sigh! It rained from Thursday until Saturday.  Literally buckets and buckets of rain making it hard to walk the dog, get any exercise or grab a bite to eat.   Cabin fever is the right description.  I was doing OK, my admiral not so much.  The weather was scheduled to break Sunday, YEA!!!  We prepped and planned, largely because there was little else to do.  Our next destination was Panama City on the Florida Panhandle.  There were two routes available to us, the Florida Inter-coastal Waterway or through the Gulf of Mexico.  Both routes were plotted and showed that the Gulf was ~20 miles shorter.   On Saturday night, we did our weather check and every indication showed p