Welcome to my blog!

Even though we aren’t officially Loopers yet, I want to provide an introduction to this great adventure on which my husband and I are about to embark.

WHO: Rich and Maggie Selo, two retirees from landlocked Indiana, and their 48 foot powerboat, Prime Meridian

WHAT: the Great Loop, a circumnavigation of the eastern half of the US by inland and coastal waterways. This trip is a minimum of 5000 miles and a minimum of several months. However, we plan to take several side trips as well as several short trips back to Indiana, so we will be gone at least a year – after all, we’re retired and it’s all about the journey, not the destination, so who can predict when it will end.

WHEN:  Weather permitting, we will leave September 4, 2018 (my birthday, and a significant one for me!).

WHERE: We will be leaving from Eldean Marina in Holland MI, and will only travel 10 miles that day to Saugatuck MI, where we will have dinner at one of my favorite restaurants. You can go to greatloop.org to see a map of the entire route.

WHY: Rich and I have always loved being on boats, even though we’ve always lived in landlocked states. Over the last 26 years we’ve owned a variety of boats which we’ve kept in marinas and slips on and around Lake Michigan. When we started thinking seriously about what we would do when Rich retired, an article appeared in USA Today about the Great Loop and we knew then what we would do – we would become Loopers!

HOW: Once the decision was made to become Loopers, Rich began searching for the perfect boat. We found it (a Meridian 459) in Bayport MN and had a captain bring it to us in August, 2016. Since then we’ve been outfitting it with new instruments and all sorts of other devices to make it as easy as possible for two people to handle it easily. (Stay tuned for pictures in a few days).

So now that you know a little bit about us and what we’re going to do, I hope you’ll follow us on our journey! I most likely will be posting every few days to talk about our preparations until we actually begin the loop, then hope to post every day or two once we’re underway.

Thanks for reading this!