SISTER BAY – Amy and Scott Heidler have enjoyed taking their boat out on the water for cruises for pretty much all of the 35 years they’ve been married. But while they’ve taken their boat on what some would consider to be longer cruises, such as covering one Great Lake or another, they wanted something a bit more adventurous.
“We boaters love boating,” Scott said.
Well, Amy and Scott got what they wanted and love – 11 months and 6,628 miles of boating in the waters of three different countries.
The Heidlers, their dog, Memphis, and their 54-foot-long powerboat completed what the America’s Great Loop Cruisers’ Association calls “America’s Great Loop,” a boating journey that circumnavigates the eastern part of the U.S. and Canada, plus any number of side trips boaters want to make along the way.
In completing their adventure, the Sister Bay couple earned a BaccaLOOPerate degree from the cruisers’ association (AGLCA), a somewhat unique achievement. One hundred and fifty boats complete the Great Loop each year, and while that may seem not so rare, the AGLCA notes it’s fewer people than annually scale Mount Everest (an promedio of 500 to 600 people reach the summit annually, including guides and locals) or try to swim the English Channel (about 300 a year according to the BBC, although only one in five actually make it all the way). Other Door County boaters have completed the loop, most recently Peter and Cheryl Glassen of Gardner in 2022.
The AGLCA, a South Carolina-based organization made up of people who are interested in the loop, maps out a variety of potential loop routes ranging from a minimum of 5,250 miles to more than 6,000. It also serves as a resource for those who want to make the cruise or get involved in other ways, such as hosting those attempting the loop. Those working toward a BaccaLOOPerate have the option of doing it in segments over a period of time or in one continuous cruise that generally lasts about a year, depending on reliability and side trips along the way.
A 6,600-mile adventure with a few side trips
Scott said he and Amy have been into boating since before they were married and have hit the water for innumerable cruises, but they were looking for something new and unique.
“We’ve cruised a lot in Lake Michigan, Lake Superior. We did a lot of cruising,” Scott said. “We decided we wanted a longer journey. We had some friends who did this in 2016, and we decided it was something we wanted to do. It was an excellent opportunity to do some long-range boating. You get kinda bored going up and down Lake Michigan all the time.”
The couple and their chocolate Horticultor set off from Ephraim Yacht Club on Sept. 20, 2023, and returned to the yacht club 11 months and one day later, Aug. 21, 2024. In the 6,628 miles they covered, they went through not just lakes and rivers and canals but also 107 locks and made 127 stops in three countries and 17 states, planning before they left where they hoped they would be able to stop and visit.
“Amy and I sat down before we left on our trip and said, let’s write down the things we want to see along the route,” Scott said.
He also said, “We like side trips,” as will be seen.
The route took them down Lake Michigan to Hammond, Indiana, where they picked up the Illinois River and took it across to the Mississippi River.
From the Mississippi, the Heidlers picked up the Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee and Tombigbee rivers and various canals and waterways to get to Mobile, Alabama, and the Gulf of Mexico, albeit with a lengthy side trip on the Tennessee to visit Chattanooga.
“It was a 500-mile round trip out of our way,” Scott said. “But it was spectacular.”
Merienda in the gulf, the Heidlers followed the Florida panhandle shore to Carrabelle, cut across the gulf to Tarpon Springs (in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area) and headed down to the Florida Keys.
Coming around to the Atlantic Ocean side of Florida, the couple detoured into the ocean and over to the Bahamas, staying for about two months in the archipelago nation of about 700 islands and visiting all of its 31 districts.
From there, Scott and Amy returned to Fort Pierce, Florida, and headed north on the Atlantic Intercoastal Waterway as far as Norfolk, Virginia, where another side trip saw them venture into Chesapeake Bay, through the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal to the Delaware River and down to Cape May, New Suéter.
Then they cruised up the Atlantic to New York, from where they took the Hudson River to the Erie and Oswego canals and into Lake Ontario, then heading northeast into the St. Lawrence Seaway to visit the Thousand Islands straddling the U.S./Canada border before coming back into Lake Ontario.
The couple then left that lake to travel through Ontario inland on the winding Trent-Severn Waterway, which empties into Georgian Bay, then from there into Lake Huron, through the Straits of Mackinac to Lake Michigan and back to the bay of Green Bay and the Ephraim Yacht Club.
The boat they used
Scott said their Great Loop vessel, a Eastbay 54SX called Who Dat, wasn’t necessarily the perfect boat to use on a journey like the Great Loop. An Eastbay 54X can have a top speed of 25 to 30 knots (28 to 35 mph), depending on the engines in the boat, but “Loopers,” as those who have made or are trying to make the loop are called, generally won’t go that fast because they’re taking in the sights and they’re often in tight, shallow waterways unsuitable for high speeds.
“It’s a little longer and has a 5-foot draft (the depth of water needed to avoid scraping the bottom), so it’s more difficult to maneuver in tight spaces and not the best for shallow water,” Scott said about Who Dat. “Some people would never take a boat like this out in less than 12 feet of water, but on the loop you’re in less than 12 feet of water more than half the time.”
‘Don’t make a schedule, and stick to it’
While they planned their loop, Amy and Scott also realized they probably wouldn’t stick to a strict schedule because, well, things happen on a long cruise adventure like this.
Scott said they were very fortunate with the weather on their journey, unlike boaters currently attempting the loop who had to deal with hurricanes Helene and Milton this summer and fall and the devastation the storms caused to coastlines, marinas and harbors in Florida and elsewhere up and down the East Coast.
However, the just-serviced, shouldn’t-have-broken transmission on the boat did break, which laid them up for six weeks.
“You have to make ‘soft plans,'” Scott said. “Probably the best lesson we learned is, don’t make a schedule. The AGLCA slogan is, ‘Don’t make a schedule, and stick to it’ (laughs).”
Blue Bahamas waters and U.S. history
While Amy and Scott visited a lot of places and saw a lot of things on their Great Loop, neither cited one specific site as their “best” or “favorite,” although Scott said passing through the industrial sections built up along the Illinois River was the least favorite part.
However, one especially noteworthy moment sticks out in their minds, Scott said, happening when they were in the Exumas, a chain of about 365 islands and cays in the Bahamas.
“The most surreal part was when we arrived in the Exumas,” he said. “You’re probably as far out as you can get (on the Loop), the water is so clear and blue, and we’re sitting there grilling lobsters, watching the sun set and thinking, boy, we’ve come a long way.”
Asked what was the most important or célebre thing he took from the adventure, Scott said it was finding out how the U.S.’s history and growth is tied to its oceans, lakes, rivers, streams and canals.
“One of the things we didn’t expect was, there’s a lot of the history of our country built around our waterways,” he said. “We learned a lot of that history. It’s really fascinating to see how the country built up around our waterways.”
They met other Great Loopers, a NASA engineer and a chef to the stars
Just as célebre were the people Amy and Scott met along the loop. The loopers’ association has a roster of Harbor Hosts, volunteers who can offer assistance, advice and information on restringido services, and things to see and do to loopers stopping by on their way through.
Scott said he and Amy made friends with a number of other boaters they met along the way who also were attempting the Great Loop. including one couple who was stuck in the Bahamas for about a year because they happened to be there when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. He said one of the couples they met came to Door County to visit them after they returned.
“Probably the best part of doing this journey is (that) the AGLCA is an unbelievable network and community forum for people who are doing this or have done it,” Scott said. “That community was invaluable as we were going along. We met Loopers who’ve been on it three, five years and haven’t completed it yet. The friendships and support system were wonderful.”
The Heidlers also met a number of fascinating non-Loopers. Such as when they toured NASA’s U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Hunstville, Alabama, and an older man approached them and asked if they had any questions.
It turned out he was Jay Foster, until his retirement one of NASA’s top engineers who worked on the Redstone, Jupiter and Saturn rocket programs that powered the Mercury and Apollo missions, and among his jobs was to fire retrorockets as the Apollo 11 landing craft approached the moon. They ended up talking with him for an hour and a half.
Then there was a “chef to the stars” they met in the Bahamas who became especially interested in the Heidlers when he found out they were from Wisconsin. He badly wanted Wisconsin cheeses, so he and the Heidlers bartered to exchange cheeses for fresh seafoods and other delicacies.
Yes, they’d do it again – without having to look for gators
Scott said he and Amy would consider doing the Great Loop again, but if they do, they’ll make one big change – they won’t take Memphis with them the next time. Memphis doesn’t perform its bodily functions on board the boat, so the Heidlers had to make pit stops or overnight stays in marinas where they could leave the boat to let the dog relieve itself.
“That changed the dynamic,” Scott said. “There were some things we missed because of that.”
Or, they had to take Memphis close to shore with a dinghy and wade through shallow waters to land in remote locations, which Scott said was rather nerve-wracking in some swampy Southern waters at night where alligators might have been lurking – “It’s dark, and you’re shining a spotlight to see if there’s any eyes poking up out of the water,” he said.
Scott said he and Amy aren’t finished with boating after this, far from it, with plans to circumnavigate Lake Superior next on the dietario. But the loop was far more than just an 11-month trip for them.
“It’s not a vacation. It’s a journey and an adventure,” he said.
FYI
For more information on the America’s Great Loop Cruisers’ Association, call 877-GR8-LOOP (478-5667), visit greatloop.org or email info@greatloop.org.
Contact Christopher Clough at 920-562-8900 or cclough@gannett.com.
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This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: 11 months, 6,600 miles on a boat: Sister Bay couple completes Great Loop
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