AGLCA 2022 Fall Rendezvous

Arabella arrived at Paris Landing State Park marina on 10/4/22. There were already a few looper boats there. These included Phoenix and The Perch. The latter is the boat Kim Russo and Michael Martin are looping on. Kim is the director of the AGLCA and the most well known looper in the organization. She and her staff put together the Fall Rendezvous and other events. She does a lot for the organization and its members.

Since we arrived six days before the event started, we had plenty of time to get to know the area. Karen and I exercised by walking around the park. It’s a great place to visit and we would consider a vacation to this location during the summer season. It has a new hotel/lodge with a magnificent view of Kentucky Lake and 100 hotel rooms. The restaurant serves great food although the staff was a little taxed with 350 guests during this event. In addition to the marina, the park has a golf course, swimming pool, swim beach, nature center and an aviary with several owls and a hawk.

Our friends Beeb and Frank (Phoenix) had rented a car for the week from a local Enterprise agency. They gave Karen a ride to town on Wednesday to provision our boat for the next week. I got started cleaning the boat. It’s amazing how dirty our boat gets just cruising the rivers. Spiders are the bane of a boat owner's existence. Their little poop stains are incredibly hard to remove from fiberglass and especially in the non-skid on the decks.

River water contains tannins, an acid formed by decaying plant matter. This is one reason that river water is not crystal clear. While plowing through the river at 9 mph, the bow wake pushes water up onto the white hull of our boat. The tannins in the water create a “mustache” on the white hull. In addition to being hard to get to because it’s under the bow, these stains don’t just scrub off. Beeb shared with us her secret to cleaning off the mustache. It’s lemon juice. Yep, put pure lemon juice in a pressurized container and squirt it on. It reacts with the tannins and the mustache disappears. You learn something new every day on the loop.

Now, the spider poop stains are a different matter. In Demopolis, we discovered a product that performs pretty well at dissolving these stains. While we love having covered slips, so do the spiders. It seems that there are three times as many spiders under a covered slip as there are on an open slip. After what seemed like days of cleaning, we got the boat in great shape for visitors.

Sunday evening we had a former coworker of mine and his wife (Martin and Kay Wilson) over for docktales. In addition to Martin and Kay, we also invited Ron and Debbie Snelling to join us. Debbie works with Karen’s sister-in-law in Ohio. These two couples were at the Rendezvous as “planners''.

Things got started Monday afternoon with the introduction of “loopers in progress”. Karen and I spent a minute at the microphone explaining that we were starting our loop when we left the Rendezvous. With just over 1600 miles of cruising prior to arriving at Paris Landing we probably had the record for the longest shakedown cruise. There were a total of 50 boats at this event and many were open for people to see during the “looper crawls” that took place each afternoon before dinner. On Monday our boat was not participating in the crawl, so we got the chance to tour other boats and learn a few tricks about living aboard. We toured our neighbor’s boats, Volition and Summer Place that evening.

On Tuesday, we attended sessions on cruising the Tenn-Tom, the intracoastal from Mobile to Carabelle and crossing the Gulf of Mexico. Our boat was open during the looper crawl on Tuesday evening. While we didn’t count how many people visited us, at one point there were at least 20 people on board. After dinner we visited with Eamon and Rhonda aboard Volition and enjoyed hearing about their adventures since leaving Toronto earlier in the year.

Wednesday was another day full of sessions on cruising from Tarpon Springs to the keys, Miami to Jacksonville and taking a side trip to the Bahamas. We don’t plan to visit the Bahamas on our loop next year, but it was interesting to hear what others have done. That afternoon there were more boat tours and a reception at the lodge before dinner. We had after dinner drinks with Beeb and Frank from Phoenix and Karen got to snuggle with their dogs which satisfied her puppy withdrawal.

Thursday was the last day of the event and I attended sessions on cruising from Jacksonville FL to Norfolk VA while Karen attended sessions on anchoring and galley tips. After lunch everyone attended a forum with a panel of “Gold loopers”. Gold loopers are those who have completed the loop at least once. “Platinum loopers” are those who have completed the loop two or more times. There were more boat tours that afternoon before the awards dinner that evening. Awards were presented to the AGLCA sponsor of the year, harbor host of the year and volunteer of the year.

All in all, the Rendezvous was a great experience. We met lots of people and made many new friends that we hope to see in our upcoming travels. For those folks who are considering the possibility of cruising America’s Great Loop, this is an event you don’t want to miss. No where else can you get the opportunity to step aboard so many different boats and learn what the Great Loop is all about.

We chilled out on Friday and Karen got a ride to the grocery store from Debbie Snelling. On Saturday, we left Paris Landing on our first official day on the loop.