Will the Circle be unbroken, by and by Lord, by and by?

So we’re THIS close to finishing The Loop.  From crossing our wake.  From completing the trip of a lifetime.  All that.  And of course those same few hours from starting the Down East Circle Loop.  We have the gold Loop burgee and the DECL burgee ready to fly.  But somehow we’ve got to get to the Potomac River first.

Sunday we had a hugely pleasant surprise when we returned from a trip to town.  From a distance we saw the unmistakable shape of a Selene 43 at Zimmerman’s.  And it wasn’t ours.  And someone wearing Terri Culy’s unmistakable trademark floppy hat was cleaning the bow.  Wait, it IS Terri’s floppy hat.  We last saw Change of Pace in West Palm Beach.  Jeff and Terri popped over to catch up.

Yesterday brought a short weather window for us to leave Mathews, so we jumped on it.

Terri sent us a photo of the departure.  Yup, Brent and Karen back on a Looper boat.

About forty-five seconds after this photo, the fly bridge shifter stopped working.  What the hell?  We just had it tuned up.  Smokin’ Bob shot out on the ZMI skiff and took care of it, however, so all was good.

Given the crap weather that seems to be plaguing the Chesapeake, things were decently smooth.  Good to be back underway.

The rain came and the auto pilot acted up, but otherwise things were about normal.  The extra deck hands helped us dock at Dozier.  Take-out from what The Norm assured us was a mediocre Chinese joint was acceptable.

Way back on April 12 of last year we put Deltaville behind us after an excruciating twenty-seven months here waiting for the chance to head up to D.C.  Ok it wasn’t really twenty-seven months, but it felt like it.  Now we’re back.  Unfortunately the winds are higher than a heroin junkie and we’re stuck in Deltaville.  Again.  So close to the finish line we almost can see it.  Because of the weather our next post may be tomorrow or may be a month from now, but hopefully we’ll be Gold Loopers and have the new flags aflyin’.