We left Tarpon Springs on Sunday, January 26, 2025 and traveled 44 miles; almost 6 hours, outside the ICW into the Gulf of Mexico toward St. Petersburg and home. It was a beautiful day on the Gulf as the water was flat and the weather was warm – finally! And the dolphins traveled along with us.

We made our way to Isla Del Sol to anchor for the night before heading to a marina in Tierra Verde for a couple of days. Sooooo, just into year 4, over 9,000 miles and only 20 miles from home port and I ran aground! Yup, that was one boating experience I had missed so I guess I just had to do it. Isla Del Sol is shallow cove with a really narrow channel to get into it and I got just a little out of the channel. In my defense, not to throw Michael under the boat, well, maybe just a little under the boat, “he told me to turn there”. We were stuck! At least the tide still had a foot to top high so we were just going to have to wait it out so we could float free. But a guy also anchored there got in his little boat and came to our rescue and was able to pull us out and we were able to get back into the channel. He said he has had to rescue people pretty often. We finally managed to get to a safe spot and dropped anchor. I was a little leery of leaving the next morning, but I managed to stay in the track that I made when we came in, with the exception of the little jaunt out of the channel, and we got out without any trouble.

From Isla Del Sol we traveled 3 miles, about 30 minutes, to Port 32 Tierra Verde Marina where we stayed for 2 nights and visited with Mark and Debbie from Meant to Be.

When we backed into our slip at Port 32 we were surprised by the greeting Debbie had put up at our slip.

Yup, we are officially Gold Loopers! That means we have completed the Loop one time and we now fly the gold flag instead of the white one we have been traveling under. We had a little ceremony on the dock with Mark and Debbie, which really was only changing from the white flag to the gold flag, but it was nice to have people who shared some of our journey there when we crossed our wake and completed the adventure.

On January 29, 2025 we traveled 20 miles, 2 1/2 hours, through Tampa Bay from Tierra Verde to Ruskin. It was another gorgeous day on the water as the Bay was flat and the weather was decent. Mark traveled with us but Debbie was under the weather so she passed on the trip. It’s always fun to have someone aboard for a little trip on the water. By land it was only 20 minutes to take Mark back home.

Ruskin, FL was one place that was pretty hard hit by Hurricane Helene and Milton a couple of months ago, but this marina seems to have fared reasonably well, compared to other marinas along the Florida Gulf coast. But, there was still some damage. A couple of the boats on the dock we are currently on pulled the cleats out and the wood they are bolted into apart causing the boats to come free and swing into pilings and other boats damaging them. If we were here at the time, the boat next to us, who did come free and smash it’s bow into the piling damaging it, would have smashed into the side of our boat and the damage might have been extensive. Hopefully the new wood in the docks and new bigger cleats will be enough if/then there is a next time. Oh boy…

Well, it looks like our journey has come to the end. It’s a bitter sweet, kind of sad ending. This trip has made me reach beyond anything I never even thought I was capable of doing. Sometimes frustrating, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes boring, sometimes fast paced, sometimes slow, but mostly peaceful and happy. And it was a lot, a lot, of fun. The places we have been, some of which we never even knew existed let alone ever thought of traveling to, and some of which we could not even have gotten to if not for the boat. We have met some amazing and wonderful people along the way, many of whom we will continue to keep up with. And I am so very grateful to those who were able to experience some of this adventure with us and a very heartfelt thank you to those of you who have followed along on this blog. That means a great deal to me that you have taken the time to read my rants and raves and hopefully have enjoyed the pictures and some of the stories and history of the places we have traveled.

Most of all I am very thankful and grateful for my best friend, my cornerstone, and my husband of 38 years, Michael, who came to me about 9 years ago and said he had something for us to do when we retire – travel America’s Great Loop. Yeah, right. We know nothing about that kind of boating and that kind of thing just sounds insane to me. Amazingly we did it!

We have spent 717 days on the trip; 560 nights at marinas; 157 nights on anchor; 81 locks – really? I could swear there were over 300 of those!; $44,530.05 in dockage fees; 6,558.9 gallons of fuel at a cost of $27,598.41.

Welp, that’s a wrap for “THIS is what as we journey along America’s Great Loop”. I’m a little teary eyed, but now it’s on to our next adventure; whatever that may be…

Love to all, Gina and Mike