A boat, a starting point, and a DATE

We paid the last of the money last week and Urban Legend is ours. Having said that, we are already underway with Maritime New Zealand to have her registered under a new name, which we were able to reserve for a month after we got back from the USA. When we get the USCG de-registration documents from our friendly yacht broker, John Niemann of Harborside Yacht Center, Milwaukee (a plug for you there John), she will be officially renamed……..

yes, you got it……LOOPY KIWI. 

Of course she will remain unofficially “Urban Legend” until we get someone to remove the old name and redo the new one. I believe we are also supposed to go through some kind of renaming ceremony as well to ensure we don’t have bad luck.

So there it is, we have the boat (Urban Legend/Loopy Kiwi), we have the starting point (Milwaukee), so all we needed next was the date. This was decided as 16^th June 2012 (no particular reason – but it is a Saturday!) and will be the target date for our arrival at Milwaukee to begin preparations for shaking down and provisioning for the Great Loop. We will probably cruise around Lake Michigan for 2 months or so and depart down the river system from Chicago in August. According to our insurance policy we must remain north of 31 degrees North (about 30 miles upriver from Mobile Alabama) until the 15^th November. This will give us plenty of time to check out places like Pickwick Lake before heading down to cross the Gulf of Mexico to Florida where we will lay the boat up and come home for Christmas. Here is a roughed out map of stage 1 of our Loop until we reach Florida and return to New Zealand. (remember - click on the map to make it bigger then use the white cross in the RH top corner to get back here)

Presuming that we want to continue after the “taste test” (yeah right!), here is a map showing possible places and times that we will be targeting after we return to the USA in March 2013. It is based on a previous Looper’s journey so don’t take the times or places too literally, but for those who plan to join us on stage 2, it will give an idea of the timeframe for the particular section of the Loop that you may want to join us for.

 248 days to go, but who’s counting!!!!!!!!!