Drew Mutch and Michael-Anne Ashford, formerly of Severna Park, MD, live on Back Creek aboard their Kadey-Krogen 48 Whaleback Escape Plan. The couple began their Great Loop adventure on December 22, 2023, and crossed their wake one year later. Like many Loopers, Drew and Michael-Anne juggled multiple responsibilities during their circumnavigation. The pair, who are avid sailors, made return trips to Annapolis for sailing regattas and took numerous flights to spend time with family and friends, and they did all this with their two dogs aboard!
Unlike most Loopers from the Chesapeake, Drew and Michael-Anne began their journey in December by traveling 2600 miles south to Florida to visit family. Also, who goes north from Annapolis in the winter?
The Dream Begins
Michael-Anne: It was 2018 when we began thinking about the liveaboard lifestyle and I was introduced to the Great Loop. In 2022 we bought Escape Plan, sold our home in Severna Park, MD, and moved aboard our waterfront Annapolis home. We planned to do the Loop “someday,” but when I had to unexpectedly take a break from work to assist an ailing family member, the discussion of “someday sooner” started to creep into our conversations.
Drew: Just days before Christmas 2023 we slipped our lines in Annapolis and made our way south. By New Year’s Eve we were anchored under a brilliant starlit night at the top of the Alligator Pungo Canal in North Carolina, where we enjoyed homemade Chicago style pizza and an electric blanket for the night. Icy docks and frosty lines continued well into Georgia, and we thought we would never escape the cold.
Winter in Florida
Drew: Finally, we broke free from the sweater weather with an overnight offshore run from Savannah, GA, to St. Augustine, FL, and soon arrived in Stuart, FL. After visiting with Annapolis sailing friends from the Sailing Club of the Chesapeake, a blustery east wind hastened our departure from the exposed bulkhead at Four Fish Marina and led us across Lake Okeechobee to Fort Myers.
Michael-Anne: We spent the next two months living on a mooring ball, desperately trying to teach the dogs the joy of afloat potty rather than dinghy ashore thrice daily (yes, there is a method, no it didn’t happen here). Thankfully I got to stay most days with family, and the dogs got to revisit the joys of ashore life, though they did not approve of Florida grass nor the pond alligators. I think Drew appreciated the quiet and looking out the window as his office spun with the changing current and passing boats.
We managed to fit in some local cruising along the west coast of Florida. An overnight passage to Key West with quartering seas, a dark and overcast night, and an autopilot and stabilizer failure made for a terrible combination, but we safely arrived the following morning. We also hopped over to Key Biscayne for a few days in tropical paradise.
Back to the Chesapeake and Northward
Drew: Escape Plan started her way north on the inside and returned to Annapolis for a month of refit work, EWE Spirit Regatta race committee duties, a wedding, and a Memorial Day cruise.
There are more drawbridges between Miami and Fort Lauderdale than I can count, which made for very slow progress. As it turns out, it would have been better to stay at anchor for a week and jump in the Gulf Stream for a fast run all the way to Cape Hatteras. However, with the help of friends we made the tedious path up the ICW with a few day-long jumps offshore between weather fronts.
By the middle of June, we were puttering north from Annapolis, via the Magothy and Patapsco Rivers and Worton Creek. With a favorable current we made good time down the Delaware Bay and elected to keep going straight through to Sandy Hook to stay ahead of impending weather. Exactly 24 hours and 184 nautical miles after leaving Chesapeake City, we anchored for the weekend in Atlantic Highlands.
New York and our First Lock
Drew: We set a new expense record with our $8 per foot, per night slip at Chelsea Pier in midtown Manhattan, but it was very cool passing under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and passing by the Statue of Liberty. The next day we motored northward up the Hudson River. At the Poughkeepsie Yacht Club, the members couldn’t have been more welcoming to late arriving cruisers, with the commodore himself opening the bar up for the evening. The best part of the Great Loop truly is meeting new friends like these.
Michael-Anne: We continued up the Hudson to our first lock at Troy, NY, which marked the end of tides and saltwater for our summer.
To start the Erie Canal sailing friends from Chicago joined us for a week. The canal is a civil engineering miracle that took us on a great journey through American history, and, yes, we did sing the song a few times. Our friends had studied the history of the canal, and we were happy to have their help and the historical perspective.
At the impressive Welland Canal, which bypasses Niagara Falls between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, you need a minimum of three people to lock up the 326 vertical feet. For an extra fee you can take a guide, usually a retired tow operator or lockmaster, who will share local history as well as handle the lines. However, while we took some travel time and awaited a part in Sodus Bay, NY, we met a couple, and they helped us locking up on the Welland, happy to have the experience before moving their own boat through.
Lakes Superior and Michigan
Drew: Traveling both the eastern and western shores of Michigan, I discovered the finest state park marina system in the country. Starting in downtown Detroit and extending across three of the Great Lakes, the state provides wonderful facilities with modern floating docks, 50A power, and all for $1.25 per foot.
Leaving Detroit (which is directly north of Canada), we headed against the current to Lake St. Claire to Port Huron. There is an entire summer of magical cruising on the Canadian side of Lake Huron, but we elected to explore the Michigan side of the lake as we headed to the Soo locks to experience the majesty of Lake Superior.
After having successfully negotiated dozens of 20-, 30-, and 40-foot locks in the Erie and Welland canals, Soo Lock was a walk in the park with a modest 14-foot lift. The volume of shipping is so great there that four parallel lock chambers connect the two lakes.
Michael-Anne: For anyone planning their Loop adventure, my advice is to spend time on all the Great Lakes if you can. I was really excited to experience Lake Superior as the furthest north I had been boating previously was Mackinac Island. Though it was all magical, what really stood out was seeing Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, snorkeling over a 154-year-old shipwreck, and traveling right over the site of the Edmond Fitzgerald, the Great Lakes freighter that sank in 1975 (and was the subject of a hit song by Gordon Lightfoot).
Drew: Superior can be fearsome at times, thus requiring careful weather planning. Ports of refuge are about 60 miles apart compared to 20 miles along the more populous Lake Michigan shore. However, the sheer natural beauty of the lake and shoreline make this detour an essential part of any boater’s lake journey. With emerald green waters as gin clear as the Bahamas, you can clearly see the rocky bottom in 40 feet. Towering cliffs complete with a waterfall, natural arches, and shipwrecks (both deep and shallow enough to snorkel) abound between bucolic towns.
Escape Plan made it as far as Munising on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where we bicycled to several waterfalls in an afternoon ashore before a closing weather window forced us to turn back short of Isle Royale National Park. After stops in Les Cheneaux Islands, we made our way to the charming Mackinac Island.
Escape Plan made her way down the Michigan side of Lake Michigan including Harbor Springs, Lake Charlevoix, Traverse City, and the Manitous. Paddling ashore to climb the 450-foot sand dunes at Sleeping Bear was a top-three highlight of the trip. Meeting new people, exploring nano breweries, yacht club bars, and sampling cheese sticks round out my top five.
Luddington (the home of the steamship ferry Badger) was the last Michigan port before crossing to the Wisconsin side on a calm but foggy day to refuel and have remarkably disappointing cheese curds before heading to Illinois. Visiting Michael-Anne’s hometown of Chicago and her family made for a wonderful Labor Day weekend before the start of the river system.
Southbound on the Rivers
Drew: We left Chicago bound for Peoria, home to Caterpillar, the maker of our 3208 engine and some amazing construction and mining equipment that is showcased in a waterfront museum. Soon we were at the junction of the Illinois and Upper Mississippi Rivers.
Michael-Anne: The Mississippi can be wild. Without much effort we were doing well over cruising speed riding the current and dodging tows and barges. There aren’t many stops along the way. Anchoring on the inside of a bend or behind a weir dam in three-plus knots of current is both beautiful and nerve wracking. Thankfully the dogs were well versed on the onboard potty by this time.
A Phenomenal Midwest Cruising Ground
Michael Anne: At the bottom of Illinois, we turned to the Ohio River headed for Kentucky and Pickwick Lakes, which hold interesting history as well as beautiful cruising grounds. In the 1940s the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) built Kentucky Dam to create Kentucky Lake, submerging the entire town of Birmingham. Similarly, when the TVA built Pickwick Landing Dam, Pickwick Lake was formed. The land between the lakes is a phenomenal cruising ground. Much like our Chesapeake Bay, it would be possible to cruise the rivers and lakes between Nashville and Knoxville for many seasons without stopping in the same place twice. Though, we learned, there is more planning involved as the airports are further away and taxis are much more difficult to come by.
To the Tenn-Tom
Drew: We had planned to head upriver as far as Chattanooga, but the massive 94-foot-tall gate in the Wilson Lock was found to be cracked just before we arrived resulting in an unplanned closure until the following spring. We didn’t want to try the 100-year-old auxiliary chamber and risk getting trapped above the highest single lift lock east of the Rocky Mountains. Instead, we enjoyed biking around Florence, AL, before turning back downstream to Pickwick Lake and the Mississippi/Tennessee/ Alabama juncture where we entered the Tennessee Tombigbee waterway. Completed in 1984 after excavating 310 million cubic yards of rock and soil (more than the Panama Canal), this relatively recent addition to our nation’s waterways by the Army Corps of Engineers enables Loopers to bypass the lower Mississippi River and enter the Gulf via Mobile, AL.
Michael-Anne: Mississippi and Alabama are long. The lack of cut throughs makes them seem endless at times (I’d recommend turning off the AIS alarm here to prevent endless alerts from boats miles away by water but just over the hill as the crow flies), but the people couldn’t be nicer. In October, in Smithville, MS, we left Escape Plan and drove 2500 miles round-trip home to Annapolis to race in the J/22 Worlds Sailing Regatta and to visit family and friends. We also had to wait for the hurricane season to end before moving the boat out to the Gulf of America.
Drew: Once safely back aboard, we headed to Mobile Bay and on to New Orleans. The international workboat show, hosted each fall in New Orleans, was an enjoyable chance to catch up with work colleagues, clients, and “the other Drew,” sailor Drew Fleming who was in town representing Weems and Plath.
Michael-Anne: New Orleans is full of history as well as fun. Thankfully our responsibilities kept us out of too much trouble. And it sure was nice to have an airport nearby again.
Back on the boat, four easy days underway brought us back across Mobile Bay to Pensacola for the Thanksgiving holiday, restocking our larder, a lengthy visit to the Naval Aviation Museum, and some brisk dog walks about town.
An Offshore Night Crossing and a Lighted Boat Parade
Drew: A marginal weather window cracked open just enough for us to head out on what is the most feared part of the Great Loop for many novices—an offshore overnight crossing of Florida’s big bend. We questioned our life choices in the early morning hours as winds and seas built beyond the forecast, but they quickly calmed again enabling us to enter Clearwater Beach in calm seas and with a flood current helping us along.
In Clearwater we participated in the Clearwater Yacht Club lighted boat parade held on the same evening as Eastport Yacht Club’s own edition back on the Chesapeake. The southern version was both warmer and longer, covering 14 miles in a linear fashion on a balmy evening.
Crossing our Wake
Drew: With continued sporty weather we chose to take the Gulf ICW down the inside of Florida’s left coast through Venice before hopping outside to Boca Grande en route to Fort Myers Beach where we officially crossed our wake on December 21 after 5688 nautical miles. We left Matanzas Pass 261 days earlier and returned after burning 2400 gallons of diesel, just in time to host Christmas aboard with both sides of the family. Good thing we have a boat with plenty of berths for all.
People Make the Loop Experience So Much Fun
Michael-Anne: Friends, old and new, helped us on our journey, and we are eternally grateful for those who spent their vacations and spare time helping us move the boat. My advice for Loopers is to stop and visit family and friends along the way. It gives you a chance to get off the boat, and everyone is happy to see you and hear about your adventure. It really is the people who make the Loop experience so much fun.
As Told to Beth Crabtree