STARTING OUR JOURNEY BEGAN WITH LOTS OF PREPARATION – RESEARCH – EDUCATION

AGLCA – America’s Great Loop Cruiser’s Association! We joined this fantastic association a few years ago. This organization provides a wealth of information, support, and knowledge daily via email. The Forum provides information from current Loopers, Gold Loopers – those who have completed the Loop and Platinum Loopers – those.who have done the Loop twice or more. Current Loopers offer up their experiences of places to visit and marinas that are exceptional. Gold and Platinum Loopers always provide an introspective view of the Loop and what they have experienced. If you have a question about The Loop, about your boat, about anything mechanical, where to store your boat for the winter, what if I need a mechanic somewhere on the loop, everyone is more than willing to help and offer advice. Ron and Eva Staub originally started AGLCA and wrote a book called, “Honey, Let’s Get A Boat”. We have read this book and one written by the Women of the Loop giving their perspective on living on a boat and experiencing The Loop with their spouse/partner! Interesting reading for sure. We researched various boats before buying our Cruiser’s Yacht. We were even interviewed by Kim Russo, the current Director of AGLCA about how we finally decided to buy our particular boat. We are currently watching videos that Kim is posting as she is experiencing The Loop for the very first time herself and is just a little bit ahead of us on our journey so we get to learn about towns and marinas from her advice and experiences. We have a favorite young couple, Jen and Elliot and Ollie(their dog) who we are following as they post their Scho and Jo videos and Blog Posts. People can start The Loop from anywhere they want. The big thing is to complete The Loop by eventually coming back to where you started and crossing “Your Wake”. The idea is when you leave you create a wake and when you return you will cross your own wake. Some people do The Loop all in one fell swoop and some like us will do it in segments. We have attended 2 Virtual Rendezvous where they had lots of excellent speakers who spoke on specific relevant topics. AGLCA has a wealth of Sponsors and we took advantage of that when we purchased our boat by using Curtis Stokes and Associates. Another sponsor, Capt. Chris provided us with good advice. He also has a variety of videos on boating maintenance, to driving and docking your boat in all kinds of weather. And of course, Pete and I updated our boating knowledge by taking an online Coast Guard Course!