Home Sweet Home

We planned on leaving at 6:30 AM but forgot about the time change so the sun was not up until 7:30AM. We have 65 miles to travel to Pier 99. It is a bit bitter sweet. We are happy to be back in our home town but sad that we are not spending our winter in Florida on the boat.

First thing we see on the river are more rowers. This must be a popular sport in the area. The river was beautiful and as we said before, we think this is the best river we have been on the whole trip.

As we traveled north, we could recognize more landmarks that we were familiar with. We were getting anxious to be back in our home slip. We reached Markland Lock ( our last lock) and had to wait 2 hours on barge traffic since they only had one lock chamber open for use.

Once through the lock we only had one mile and make a right hand turn into Craigs Creek. We could not believe our trip was over. But we were delighted to see that a few of our friends were there to welcome us back! It was a nice surprise.

Now, we will prepare Paraiso for the winter. She has not seen cold temperatures for 4 years. We plan to get our house in order this winter and plan a few smaller trips for next summer. We feel like we are now part of a special group who have made the time to complete the Great Loop. We are glad we did this now instead of “when we get around to it” It was a great experience. We love our land life as much as our boating life and hope to now be able to use our time on land and water to the fullest.