Bushwacker begins Great Loop Adventure!
 

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!

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

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

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

Michael.

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..

Subscribed.

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

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 ....:D

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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

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.

Enjoy yourself and Safe travels!

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!

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

Michael.

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

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!:eek: 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!

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!

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!

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

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

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.

Denny - so glad to see you folks underway !! Folks from our marina in Narragansett Bay just finished wintering in the Bahamas, and are at the Norfolk gathering also, Susan and Greg on a Tiara 36 - they have a facebook blog going - Lucky Me Looping. I'll sign in on yours. You guys are gonna have a great trip !!

I had the pleasure of spending time with Denny and Arden last night. Arden is such a charming lady! Denny took the time to show me around the Dream Seeker and what a beautiful vessel she is. Don't know if I've seen that much teak on a boat before! Anyway, we had a wonderful evening enjoying conversation and seafood and I got my first taste of Pappy Vanwinkle! That stuff is dangerously delicious and ever so smooth! Wishing them a safe and wonderful journey!

Ummm…. maybe a misunderstanding but CoreCell was developed by Tom Johansen and the Gurit corporation, a Dutch company.

Update for those of you not subscribed to Denny's Looper blog:

Arden broke her wrist while picking up a mooring ball - apparently a cleat pulled out and hit her arm. She and Denny have flown or are about to fly back to Stuart for a visit to a surgeon. We wish them all the best and a speedy recovery to Arden.

Wow, that is terrible to hear! I was so enjoying reading their blog posts. Maybe she can get her wrist worked on and they can resume their trip later this fall.

Being the pistol she is, I bet they're back underway within a week or two.

Just a quick note to update everyone, as Arden has been too busy lately to make any more updates to her blog. Although we had excellent response from the paramedics and ER folks who set Arden’s wrist in a temporary cast, we flew home to Palm City the next day where we were able to see a wrist/hand specialist. He operated just a couple days later, getting the broken bones aligned perfectly with a plate and some screws. She began therapy a couple days later, got the stitches out yesterday, and is rapidly regaining use of her hand. In fact she’s now in the kitchen making some chicken chili! Although she’s still wearing a light cast when she’s not doing wrist exercises, I feel like I have a tiger by the tail trying to keep her from doing too much! She just brought me a spice bottle she had tried to open but was too tight!

We see the Dr. again on the 18th, and I expect he will be impressed enough with her progress that we’ll get the ok to resume our trip. However she will have to be treated as a “First Class Passenger” for the next couple of weeks, so we’ve found a person on the Great Loop forum who may be able to travel with us for a bit to help handling lines, etc. The canal up into Lake Champlain has been closed due to high water and current until just a couple days ago, so we may be able to catch up with some other boats we were traveling with once we get up into the Canadian canals, which is supposed to be the best part of the trip. The boat has been running very well so far with fewer problems than expected, so barring any dumb mistakes by the captain, I’m hoping we can get back on track in the near future!

We’ve been experiencing “withdrawal” symptoms with the lack of boating activity since leaving the boat in Annapolis, but we really enjoyed meeting Old’sCool and Uncle Boo during the trip, and have found time spent on the CSC forum to be a good antidote!

18th ehhhh?

We will be expecting to see you and Arden at the gathering.
Glad you went to a specialist!

We enjoyed meeting you both and the boat tour. Arden will back 100% in no time!

Further update . . . Saw Arden’s Dr. 19 days after surgery and he was amazed that the range of motion on her wrist was about 80-90% of normal. He said she was a superstar! Even said that a 6 week follow-up visit with a Dr. at some point during the loop was optional, so we will probably cancel the appoint she had already made with a Dr. near her son’s place in New Caanan, Ct. We flew to Annapolis the next day, spent a couple of days provisioning the boat and headed out last Friday and are now in Cape May, NJ. Will head out tomorrow for Atlantic City, then Manasquan, and on to the Hudson River.

Wishing you calm seas and a light tail wind! :)

Wish came true, at least so far - wind SW 10-15, seas 1-1.5’ SE swell w/ 10 sec period! About 1 mile off beach we appear to have a south running current so our 8 kt hull speed is giving us a little over 7 kts over ground. Should make Atl. City ~ 3 pm, in plenty of time for sundowners!

Sounds like you are having lots of fun.
Any trolling lanes on the third ?

Bushwacker sighted in Jersey!
 

This just in: Denny and his Gal Arden sighted at a dock in Point Pleasant Beach, NJ! They are well, and well-provisioned, (especially the liquor locker - of which I was the beneficiary).

Yesterday they left Atlantic City en route to NYC, and stopped at a marina in Pt. Pleasant Beach (Manasquan Inlet) overnight. The original plan was for me to pick up a part for their trawler's balky water system at a nearby Westmarine, and deliver it to them at the dock. Alas, the part was unavailable, but instead we spent a pleasant hour on the flybridge with cocktails and snacks thoughtfully provided by Arden for Denny, myself and Loren, their able captain/crew/deckhand extraordinaire.

Then we all walked over to the Shrimp Box restaurant, where we enjoyed a delicious meal and good conversation, outside on the patio, overlooking the docks and inlet. By sunset, we parted company, but not before I got to snap this photo of them in front of their boat, arm in arm. All in all, a beautiful night!

Glad they're back in the saddle!

Dream Seeker & Crew Cross Wake in Stuart Area
 

Last Wednesday we crossed our wake, arriving back at our home port marina at Nettles Island, off A1A in Jensen Beach, so we now get to replace our White Looper flag with the Gold flag, signifying completion of the Great Loop! Adjustment to life back in our dirt home after living on the boat for 8 months has been a little strange, as we discovered we?ve forgotten how to program the coffee maker, TV and AC system, but we?re glad to be back in warm weather!

A couple days before Thanksgiving, we had a great weather window and were fortunate to make the 180+ mile Gulf crossing from Carrabelle to Anclote Is./Tarpon Springs in nearly flat seas for 12 of the 20 hr overnight trip. We left Carrabelle about 3 pm on 11/25, ran due east for a couple hours to avoid the Gulf Loop current, and then headed SE to Anclote Island, staying out in deep water during the night so we wouldn?t run into crab pots in the dark! An E wind started to pick up about 3 am, but we were headed SE in 2-3? seas off the port bow, which barely even slow down the 30 ton DeFever! (It rolls a lot in beam seas, but it loves head or following seas - we?ve been in 5-7? following or head seas and not even had spray on the windshield!) We made the crossing with a 43? Marine Trader and a non-looper 38? Bertram (who had the power to run 20+ kts, but couldn?t afford the associated 80 gph fuel burn!). Since I was the slowest boat of the bunch, the other boats adjusted their speed to match my 8 kt pace.

I discovered an interesting characteristic of a heavy displacement hull during this trip. When we left Carrabelle, I set the throttles at 1750 rpm which gives me 8 kts in still water, and I never touched them for over 19 hrs, when we got into the speed zones in the Anclote River. Once the wind and seas picked up, the other boats started falling back and had to increase rpm to keep up with me! It takes Dream Seeker a minute or so to reach full cruising speed after I advance the throttles, but once it gets going, it has so much momentum that it takes a lot to slow it down. However the planing hulls of the Bertram and Marine Trader, which were as much as 10 tons lighter, appear to be much ore sensitive to rough seas.

Our last ?big water? crossing was shallow Lake. O, which can build up a nasty steep chop with big winds, but we were again blessed with 10 kt winds and a light chop, so that trip was uneventful, although water depth was on the thin side with less than 2? under the keel for much of the area around Clewiston!

The Admiral want?s to make some cosmetic improvements to Dream Seeker, but after that?s done, future plans include a trip down the St. Johns river and a trip to the Bahamas, maybe the Berry?s and Eluthera next spring & summer. Denny

Congratulations! I've been following and have read every word of your blog. It was very nice to meet both of you and we hope you stop in Chas again.

Nice to see your back safe and sound Denny!

strick

What a journey! Glad you guys made it safely!

Congrats Denny!

It was fun following the blog.