Bicycling on the Great Loop

“So be sure when you step, Step with care and great tact. And remember that life's A Great Balancing Act.”

― Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You'll Go!

It is great to travel by boat. The scenery is fabulous. The pace is relaxing. The rolling of the boat can lull you to sleep at night.

But – life needs to happen. Groceries need to be bought. Laundry needs to be done.

Many loopers either walk or take a loaner car from the marina.  Those options work if the stores are close. Often they are not.

We, like other loopers, have brought bikes along with us. They are fastened to the bow rail while we are under way. When we arrive at a marina we take them down to shop, do laundry or explore.

Because of the exposure to water and salt, bikes will rust out pretty quickly. The advice we got was to pick up cheap bikes at Walmart and throw them out when we are done. I know how bad those bikes are at Walmart and really didn’t want something so cheaply made. Babcock Bicycles in Endicott, NY sells used bikes. We were fortunate to get some vintage bikes.  They are outfitted with baskets, racks and panniers. We love them. They ride nice and they were built to last.  Everywhere we go people comment on the bikes!

It is however, a constant battle against rust. I am constantly cleaning them up and putting protective coatings on them to keep them from developing cancerous rust. But, they are so much fun to ride it is worth all the work to keep them working and looking good.

Our first try at a big shopping trip to stock up the pantry loaded up both Mike’s and my bikes. Mike looked at our cart at check out time and said “are you sure we can bring this back to the boat on our bikes?”  Acting confidently I said “of course”. But I wasn’t really sure at all.  I did know that my daughter who does everything by bike carried a lot of things at once so I was hopeful. As you can see by the picture we did manage to get it all on the bikes and ride about 2 miles back to the boat in Portsmouth, VA.

I tried to do a big shopping trip just before we left Kent Island by myself.  I bought way too much to carry home.  Balancing such a load is critical. First I put too much weight in the front basket. That led to not being able to control the bike. Rearranging the load to balance all the baskets out and having a light load in the front basket gave me control of the bike.

The bikes also bring freedom to explore the areas we are visiting.  When we arrived at Cape May, NJ we took the bikes out to go to the beaches. 

We would not have been able to do that if we had to walk. The beaches were several miles away. We also used them to go down the boardwalk at Atlantic City. Mike used his bike to return a rental car we used to go to family events in Pennsylvania.

Next up – Maryland to the New York Harbor

Boat Handling

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...”

― Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You'll Go!

Steering the boat is a learned skill.  My boat handling class teacher suggested going to Home Depot and loading up a cart with long boards and then steering it up and down the aisles without hitting anything.  Just like a boat, the Home Depot cart’s backend does the steering. For instance steering away from a dock will cause the back end of the boat to hit the dock. That is why you will see people pushing the boat away from the dock before leaving. Or you can steer the front of the boat into the dock and that will kick the back end out and then you can safely steer away from the dock.

Controlling the boat in choppy seas is another skill to learn.  I read something last summer about opposing winds in the Chesapeake. At the time I was clueless to what the author was speaking about but on our way to Norfolk I got first hand experience.

Before leaving the dock on your trip you must think about the tides, wind speed and direction and wave heights. Fortunately NOAA puts out a daily bulletin for a given area every day. It is up to you to interpret the report and decide if you want to go out that day.

Being newbies we were making decisions based on wave height alone.

There are sections of the Chesapeake that are very wide. There are sections where rivers such as the Potomac enter the bay. In these sections tide and wind direction are important. If the tide is coming in the Chesapeake Bay the tide will be travelling pretty much north. If the wind is coming from the north we now have the wind pushing the water into the incoming tide making for very uncomfortable seas.

If you are traveling south and the winds are from the east or west and the waves are big then you will have trouble being pushed on the side of the boat and rolling from side to side.

We experienced all of those conditions while traveling to Norfolk, VA for the Spring Rendevous of the Great Loop Association.

Our first mistake was to have a schedule. Because we needed to be in Norfolk in time for the start of the Rendevous we didn’t have the luxury of waiting out weather. Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t take unnecessary risks – there were no small craft warnings. But our inexperience combined with having a deadline put us into uncomfortable waters.

Trial by fire is often the best teacher. We quickly learned to read the waves and pick a path that would be smoothest. Once we were rolling so badly because the winds were from the east and we were going south that I suggested we act like a sailboat and tack. It worked. We smoothed out our path by working with the waves instead of against them.

Entering the Norfolk area brought its own challenges. We were concerned about the commercial and military ships in the area but that wasn’t a problem.  Two things caused us trouble. First the waves were high; the tides were changing and pushing the side of the boat causing much rolling side to side. There really was no way to mitigate that problem in the narrow area we were in.  Secondly for an unknown reason I was suddenly unable to steer the boat. Thinking something had happened to the steering gear, Mike went down to the lower helm to check things out. Very quickly I could steer again. We have a big plastic bin that our dog Millie uses to get on and off the boat. We had put that bin on a chair near the lower helm wheel.  The rough conditions pushed that bucket under the steering wheel where it got stuck and caused us to loose the ability to steer. Lesson learned. Put the bucket in a secure place away from the lower helm.

Next up – Biking around on shore

Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You're off to Great Places!

You're off and away!”

― Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You'll Go!

--And so we are off to Great Places.  – The Great Loop

If you live east of the Mississippi you live on an island. The Great Loop circumnavigates that island. It goes up the Intracoastal Waterway from Florida to NJ, up the Hudson River then to either the Erie Canal to the Great Lakes or to Lake Champlain to Canada and the Great Lakes. From the Great Lakes you go to Chicago, down the Mississippi to the Ohio, the Tennessee and Tombigbee rivers into the Gulf of Mexico and back to Florida. The trip varies from 5000 to 7000 miles depending on the route you take. You can start anywhere on the loop. You finish when you “cross your wake” where you started.  About 100 boats complete the loop each year.

Mike and I married last May and in August we bought our boat, Easy Pace, a 33 foot 1971 Pacemaker that has already done the Great Loop. George, the previous owner, was kind enough to give us some lessons in boat handling and docking. We spent the fall cruising the Chesapeake getting experience in navigation, docking and boat handling. We learned to call bridges and marinas. We learned to plot our course and follow the compass headings to each buoy. Then – we bought a chart plotter made by Furuno. What a wonderful tool! The trip is so much more relaxing with the chart plotter and GPS that show us exactly where we are. With the fall experience under our belts we put the boat on the hard and headed back to NY for the winter while making our plans for the spring and our Great Loop Adventure.

On April 19^th we left our homeport of North East, MD around noon after launching and provisioning the boat. We thought we were doing a test run but we just kept on going for five hours until we reached the Bay Bridge at Annapolis. There we spent the night before going on to Herrington Harbor Marina in Herring Bay to get the electrical wiring looked at. Easy Pace is an older boat and needs to be brought up to code so she won’t trip circuits at the docks along the way, and more importantly won’t electrocute us. After the electrical survey we decided to have the work done by Herry at BOE Marine on Kent Island. That work will be done after the Rendezvous.

We spent that week remodeling the interior with new carpet, new vinyl floor in the galley, and lots of polishing and cleaning. She shines like she was new and is now a comfortable home for our trip.

Underway again, we spent a night at Solomons Island and then on to two lovely anchorages. Anchoring out is magical, as Mike likes to say. It is so peaceful and you feel in rhythm with nature. Unfortunately, we found a leak in the generator. So until it is repaired, anchoring out means cold cereal or cold sandwiches at mealtime.

We made a quick stop at Deltaville, VA for a part for the generator. What a lovely boat-friendly area! The spot we were told to dock in was along the gas dock between two large boats. It didn’t look to either of us like there was enough room for a boat to fit in between. But Kathy’s docking specialty is pulling into a bulkhead so she gave it a try. We just fit.

Next stop, Norfolk!