Loopers

t tested their persistence, patience and planning, but in completing the Great Loop on their 32-foot Nordic Tug named Patriot, Gert and Christine Grohmann of Mequon found plenty of something else they didn’t expect: kindred spirits.

The Great Loop has boaters travel a system of waterways outlining the eastern portion of the United States. The Grohmanns left their slip in the  Port Washington Marina and voyaged south to the Gulf of Mexico, around Florida, back up the East Coast and through the Great Lakes back home.

“I think one of the things that has surprised me the most about this trip is that you could bring together a group like ours, who never met before, were from totally different backgrounds, and make immediate friendships that will last well beyond this adventure,” Gert wrote in his blog about the year-long, 7,200-mile adventure.

The Grohmanns met a Michigan couple early in their trip and kept their boats within sight of one another the rest of the way. They shared meals, games and a similar risk tolerance, and they helped each other when needed. At various cities, the women often shopped while the men hit the maritime museums.

The surprises weren’t limited to humans.

The Grohmanns fed carrots to island pigs in the Bahamas and chicken to large iguanas. They saw manatees and dolphins along side of their boat. Bald eagles at one point circled Patriot.

While on the rivers heading south, they once “woke up to a bit of a horror scene. There must have been a mayfly hatch near the boats and Patriot had thousands of mayflies on her hull and windows.”

Then there were the Asian carp. One jumped onto the boat, and Gert threw it back, declaring a second one would become a meal.

“We had one hit the side door of Patriot later that day and we were lucky the door was closed. Yes, Christine, by her own admission screamed like a little girl,” Gert wrote.

The trip wasn’t her idea. Gert grew up sailing in Milwaukee—he has a Coast Guard captain’s license—and heard about the Great Loop during a Boy Scout trip with his son in Florida in 2017.

Christine grew up in Brown Deer and hadn’t done much boating until meeting Gert. The two have been married for 32 years.

Gert’s first idea to sell their home and live on a boat down south “was a little too gypsy” and sunk quickly. The Great Loop was the next best thing for the Mequon firefighter who retired in 2022.

“It took five years to get me to do this,” Christine said.

It wasn’t roughing it on the open seas, but living in tight quarters for a year while traveling from stop to stop isn’t for the feint of heart either.

Lake Michigan provided the second-roughest water. The Delaware River was the worst. The wind and tide were headed in different directions, causing five to eight-foot waves one to two seconds apart for a few hours. Surf came over the bow of the boat.

“I was holding on for dear life,” Christine said.

“She didn’t think she was going to die but it was uncomfortable,” Gert said. “Patriot can take a lot more than we can.”

Cupboards opened and glasses went flying, Christine said.

The couple bought the single-diesel engine trawler-type boat, which was then 20 years old, in 2020.

The boat had its share of minor mechanical issues during the voyage, and Gert said he “fixed things on Patriot I never would have imagined that I could fix.”

Some Loop voyagers were families who were home schooling their children and were using Starlink internet connections to work remotely. Some lived full-time on their boats and were surprised the Grohmanns still had a “dirt house.”

Other boaters at different points in the voyage instantly became part of a community, sharing “docktails” during the evenings and advice.

Information was so vital that the Grohmanns spent an extra night in one port to catch a harbormaster’s three-hour briefing that was worth every minute.

They traveled through more than 140 locks, once dropping 40 feet in only a few minutes. One lock moved the boat on a  railroad-like car to transport it to avoid the movement of invasive species.

On the rivers heading south, they encountered barges 1,200 feet long and 150 feet wide that take up the entire waterway to turn. Gert has an Automated Information System on his boat to talk to their captains for instructions on how to pass. During downtime, the Grohmanns watched movies Gert downloaded and a lot of “CSI: Miami,” Christine said. Gert read 15 to 20 books and they played Scrabble, dominoes and cribbage.

During stops, the couple would do laundry and head into town for supplies. “Walmart was your friend,” Gert said.

They visited a bunch of tourist stops, visiting the courthouse where Abraham Lincoln tried a murder case, the memorials in Washington, D.C., a turtle hospital in Florida and the USS Yorktown.

The Grohmanns came home to their five-acre hobby farm for Christmas.

In Baltimore, Patriot passed under the Francis Scott Key Bridge, the one hit by a barge last month. Also in that port, Gert wrote, “I had my first and last soft shell crab sandwich.  It looked like two of the aliens from the movie on a bun.”

Their last stop before Port Washington was Ludington, Mich., where they bought Patriot. Lake Michigan welcomed them home with four to five-foot waves.

They “crossed their wake” in completing the voyage and switched their burgee from white to gold, signifying they finished the Great Loop.

In the year-long cruise, Patriot took them 7,203 miles through the waters of three countries (the U.S., Canada and the Bahamas) and 15 states.

Gert and Christine survived the voyage “still married,” Gert joked

This summer, they may take some week-long cruises around Lake Michigan and are looking at a route to visit all the country’s national parks.

“I’m on a 12-month moratorium for hair-brained ideas,” Gert said.