Fueled up then took the doggies for a walk this morning (Tuesday, 7/16) and stopped by Boat N Hoagies for a couple of their homemade blueberry muffins. On our walk we ran into Karen from Kar E On, the Mainship that went aground yesterday. She told us the story and they really were in the wrong place at the wrong time. When they hit bottom, their prop snagged a huge anchor chain that wrapped around the prop and took a big chunk out of it. She and Steve had to call Boat US and were towed to Leland Oil Marina late yesterday afternoon. A diver came down around 10:00 pm and worked until about 1:00 am getting the chain unsnarled and the prop off. They also lost their transmission so Boat US came again today to tow them all the way to Georgetown which is the nearest place to get any kind of work done and is about 23 nautical miles away. Wow, talk about bad luck! Another vivid reminder of what can happen out here on the water.

We departed Leland marina about 9:45 headed to the Georgetown Landing Marina in Georgetown, SC. It was about a three-hour journey with not much to see and lots of debris in the water. It was pretty enough but just all the same swamp-type reeds and marsh on both sides. We did pass a small go-fast boat, in the middle of nowhere, pulling two kids on a raft. Crazy! We arrived at Georgetown about 1:00 pm and it was way too hot to take the doggies for a walk, so we stayed in the air conditioning, had a few snacks and relaxed.

Meeting Karen and Steve who are fellow Loopers reminded us of when we first started planning this adventure. We thought we would be with hordes of people/boats and meeting and partying with them in the marinas or anchorages. If I remember correctly, I read somewhere that over 300 boats were expected to do the Loop this year.  Actually, our thoughts were, that’s a lot of boats/people and it might be a little difficult to find marina/anchorage space with that may boats moving, pretty much, in the same general direction. That is not what has been happening with us. Since we were delayed in Stuart, Florida for two months we find ourselves waaaay behind the pack. We understand that most of the group is pretty far north in places like New York and Canada. So, we are “out here all alone”. The good news is that we don’t have any competition for slips or anchorages and we missed the rains, flooding and all the debris in the waters that have been a problem for so many Loopers. The bad news is that we are “out here all alone”. We do meet and chat with lots of lovely folks in the marinas but sadly, we have to say bye to them in a day or so and we are pretty sure won’t see them again because they are either staying in the marina long-term or going in a different direction. We rarely see any Loopers – Karen and Steve were a rare sighting.  We think we will continue moving north until the weather gets too cold for us then we may come back south – maybe we will catch up with the crowd at some point. In the meantime, we are having a ball – but we do need to find some cooler weather soon!

After it finally cooled down enough to go outside we took the doggies for a walk. Unfortunately, we seem to be in the middle of nowhere so we came back to the boat and had dinner on board.

Will head to Myrtle Beach, SC tomorrow.