Lakewood Yacht Club, Seabrook, Texas and Last Blog!

The Muriel June and her crew celebrate her return to her home port at Lakewood Yacht Club in Texas and her new American Great Loop Cruising Association burgee.

Click the map to see the yellow line showing the route taken by the Muriel June for the American Great Loop.

At noon today, we passed under the Kemah bridge and entered our homeport at Lakewood Yacht Club where Ken and Pat Griffin greeted us on the dock with a bottle of champagne and lots of photographs.  They leave tomorrow for St. Petersburg, Florida on Lady Sundream.  Many thanks for the wonderful greeting Ken and Pat and fair winds with following seas to you!  

Muriel June has finished the American Great Loop with her crew– all happy and healthy!  She’s completed 8000 miles, 23 states, 2 countries, 4 of the 5 Great Lakes, 915 hours of cruising, 75 locks, in 3 years during her journey where she encountered 6 hurricanes (4 were “I” storms). What we missed were all the robo calls, the oil spill, and the road traffic over the past three years.  

We’ve learned how much has changed in the three years since we left.  Homes have returned to Bolivar Peninsula wiped clean from hurricane IKE.  Barge traffic has multiplied exponentially, and the economic progress of our country has certainly increased with “help wanted” posted throughout the Gulf Coast.

We are still sad that the infra structure of our country is holding up commerce.  Hundred year-old locks need to be modernized and expanded, bridges that look like they will disintegrate any time, need to be rebuilt.  We noticed lines of barges waiting to continue their progress at the Ohio River locks, at the New Orleans/Mississippi locks and river crossing and in the Galveston ship channel. 

We laughed as East Coast people thought we had to come through the Panama Canal to get from Texas to the East Coast, that the number 10 is often heard and spelled, “t-i-n,” in the South, and that catfish is the total diet for many river dwellers.  We marveled at the resilience of the environment: the dolphins, pelicans, cormorants, osprey, and bald eagles who have endured despite human intrusions. 

But the best part of the journey was meeting the many people (including friends and relatives) along the way: locals, Loopers and other boaters including congressmen in DC who lived on boats.  From the hurried life of New York’s Liberty Landing next to the Statue of Liberty to the peacefulness of the isolated anchorages in the North Sound of Canada, we loved the diversity of this amazing journey.  Each day was a new adventure-a challenge we learned to conquer including being locked in Lock 3 of the Erie Canal for a month with 2 hurricanes passing through. This diverse trip from inland rivers and lakes to off shore cruising taught us to take life as it comes, to relax and reflect, and to appreciate the beautiful natural country where we live.