Traverse City, Michigan is cloudy this morning. And the fog is rolling over the Leelanau Peninsula from the west, just like it comes over the Coastal Range into San Francisco Bay at Sausalito: those thin tendrils that presage oblivion. It is 66 degrees here and there is the hint of Fall weather in the air that invites reflection and warns of changes to come.

Halfway in on America’s Great Loop, we are hanging out at Traverse City for another week while Hervey goes to North Carolina for a family reunion. We have gone from St Petersburg, Florida on the Gulf Coast over a six months period; starting on the last day of July 2024, arriving in Baltimore in late September of that year and taking the Winter off, and starting again on May 2 of 2025, with a month-long-delay waiting for the Eries Canal to open. We’ve gone over 3,000 miles on our boat, running the engines 420 hours, for an average speed of 7.14 miles per hour. We’re burning fuel at an efficient rate (for boating) of 1.8 miles per gallon (for both engines) and have used about 1,600 gallons of diesel fuel. But the story has been so much more than the data reveal…

We enjoyed the trip from St. Petersburg to Baltimore last year. It is the third time we have made that trip (fourth from Georgetown, SC north) and familiarity has bred love of the region and our boat — and an ease of travel that surprised us. We have favorite places along the Southeastern Coast that we were delighted to visit again (Melbourne, FL; St. Augustine; Little Jekyll Island; Isle of Hope at Savannah; Georgetown, SC; Sunset and Wrightsville Beaches in NC; and Oriental and Belhaven, NC) and added places that were new to us this time. Days on the bridge in the hot sun of August, with the ever-present threat of hurricanes in our minds as we traveled aggressively north, then hid out for the remnants of one storm or another.

We’ve continued the pattern of that trip with cooking on the boat most nights, the occasional dinners out, long walks with the dog in the morning and evening, and relaxing in the evening on the aft deck with a drink in hand after early mornings and long days. We’ve been getting up early (on travel days), leaving at 7:00 am and docking by 4:00 pm, so we usually go to bed at 9:00 pm, if not earlier.

Hervey spends all that time on the bridge, piloting the boat, and Duke and Kitty join him for hours at a time to watch the shoreline and talk. Mr. Pretty (the cat) never ventures out of the cabin, but has come to like watching the world go by from the windows and open doors. We usually eat a hot breakfast, have a snack for lunch, and have a big dinner that we cook in our kitchen; channeling all our gourmet inclinations. There are the inevitable arguments and anxieties and we are no strangers to that, but in this classic relationship crucible, we are getting better at forgiving each other and ourselves, and working through our disagreements and issues. This was one of our unspoken fears about the trip: that we would find it too much to live in such proximity to another in such a small space. Although we have only been married to each other for nine years, we have a wealth of married experience between us and are getting better at it.

We sped from Baltimore to Kingston, New York in early May of 2025. Anticipating the opening of the Erie Canal (22 locks) on May 16, we were forced to wait until June 11 to start that segment. After a ten-day break for a family trip to the Adirondacks, we returned to make it through the canals and into Canada by July 4. More canals awaited us there and we made our way through the Trent-Severn waterway (41 locks!) by July 22. The 500 miles or so over two months slowed us down and we got used to lazy days in small towns on the way. We tend to travel three days out of five but start to get itchy to go if we stay in one place too long.

The boat is holding up terrifically! The engines are purring and love the cooler water and the slow pace (low RPMs) of our recent days. We’ve become used to going 7.5 knots (8.63 mph) and the fuel consumption shows that the engine like it also. We have an analog stabilizer system with a tower and arms that lower to the water to deploy planers (“birds”) and that gives us an ease of travel in beam seas from the side and quarter.

But, as one fellow boater said to us, this is not the sport for you if you don’t like solving problems. We have had a few and most of them have been dealt with, but we expect more. And we learn from each new challenge and the incidence of repeating issues is declining.

And the journey brings its gifts. The rhythms of travel are familiar to our origins as a nomadic species and our world shrinks to the inside of the boat and the ever-changing world outside. The changes from one region to another are discernible and interesting, and not just in the natural world: the people and cultures change too. Meeting fellow boaters from all over the world, many of whom we see over and over again, and spending time with the people in coastal towns develops a certain feel for the complexity of the world and an understanding of the cultural narratives that people tell themselves about where they live and the hearts of their communities.

We are looking forward to the second part of the trip as we travel the inland rivers and return to the Gulf of Mexico and St.Petersburg. After Christmas in Baltimore (and the occasional trip home for mail, etc.), we have discussed going to the Dry Tortugas, the Florida Keys, and the Bahamas after we finish this cruise — perhaps in the first part of 2026. And then returning to Baltimore in April or May.

We’ll see. Stick with us and we’ll share the next adventures with you.