Great Loop & Cruising Adventure Blog

One of our all time favorite things to experience in Charlevoix, our homeport, is Venetian Festival. It occurs during the peak of the summer and is a small hometown festival like none other.

With the newly constructed marina, park and harbor this is a fabulous venue for all the fun activities the city of Charlevoix organizes every year. Every night of the festival there is a line up of some amazings bands. On Saturday there is a parade through town featuring the Venetian Queen and her court who were selected the night before. Both Friday and Saturday nights there are amazing fireworks like none we have ever seen before. Before the fireworks on Saturday night there is a lighted boat parade around Round Lake and the harbor.

This year our friends Jean and Gary, on First Sight, decided everyone had to dress up to go along with the Hawaiian theme of their decorated boat.

This is Rob and Kerri’s boat (above), Kerried Away. They are big fans of our blog and we are always amazed that they keep up with all our postings.

Skyler and Sarah (above) joined us for the festivities and a night on the boat.

Jan, on Open Wide (above), pausing during her decorating frenzy to pose for the blog.

Ain’t that the truth. We had a fun two weeks visiting with parents, siblings, sons and lovely Sarah, nieces and friends. We even met our new grand niece, Audrey.

We savored the hugs and the time we had to share. Longing for our family and friends is the downside to the traveling that we do.

We stopped in Sidney on our way to and back from Michigan to visit with Jim’s parents, Don and Diane and sister, Cindy and her husband, Steve.

Our friends Lynne and Mike Borer invited us to stay with them while we were in Traverse City for appointments. It was fun catching up with them and meet their new grandson, Patrick.

We stayed several nights with Lisa’s mother, Barby in Kewadin and her brother’s Jem and Ken and his wife Malinda joined us for a BBQ with our sons, Skyler and Bart.

We haven’t seen Lori or her son Michael in a long time. Lunch was fun and included a walk along the Boardman River.

Our niece, Amanda and her husband Brian introduced us to their first child, our grand niece, as we headed through Fenton on our way back to Maryland.

Our friend Mary emailed us to ask if “Date Night” was finally over.

Sorry to keep everybody hanging with the Date Night post, but we left Solomon Island for a two week road trip back home (Michigan/Ohio) to see family and friends.

Now that we are back we are starting to plan our next trip to explore more of the Chesapeake Bay area. Next Sunday or Monday, weather permitting, we will head out across the bay to St. Michaels and Oxford for a few days.

So, check back soon because we will be updating the blog posts today and tomorrow.

It started in the late afternoon, with just needing to go to the public dock to get pumped out. While there we realized we were enjoying the opportunity to be untethered from the dock during an amazingly calm day and decided to go up Mill Creek where Jim had spotted a nice anchorage on the chart earlier in the week.

Before we knew it we were anchored and settled in for a peaceful Friday night up the creek. It’s impromptu events like this that you live for as boaters and as a woman I have to say that being able to be spontaneous and free is very appealing in the romance department.

It’s a great feeling, when you are far away from home, family and long time friends, to gather together with a group of Loopers for some fun and good food. This opportunity arrived when Bob and Sharon, Catch Me If You Can, arrived this week and Larry and Sue (below-right), Sue Sea Q, came shortly after. Tonight we also met Looper’s Jim and Sue, Palmetto Moon (below-left).

Sharon & Bob (below-left), John & Jan (below-middle), Larry & Sue (below-right)

We needed to run to the Sam’s store in Annapolis and decided while there to visit the offices of the Waterway Guide to meet the staff and see what’s new. Then we went for a tour of the State Capitol Building.

Surprise, surprise, look who we saw there. Just can’t get away from these folks.

Jim got to stand in the exact same spot that George Washington stood when he resigned his military post from the Continental Army.

We finished up with lunch at a fantastic Sicilian restaurant called Maria’s.

We feel fortunate in that we were able to spend the Fourth of July holiday with family and friends. Our Looper friends Bob and Sharon, Catch Me If You Can who is already docked here and Jim’s sister Denise and here husband Mark and son Gavin came to visit and celebrate with us the festivities being held at the Solomon’s Yachting Center. Starting with a BIG BBQ featuring pulled pork and beef brisket which was put on the grill in the wee hours of the morning. All the boaters and their guests brought dishes to pass and it was a feast.

The night ended with a spectacular fireworks display over the Patuxent River.

We are determined to make a boater out of our nephew, Gavin. So we planned to get him intimately involved in the activities of boating. He went out in the dinghy and came back driving it to the dock. Again he is captain as we took Kismet out for a short boat ride. Lastly we spent some time catching crabs at the dock.