Our year has been pretty hectic up to this point, so our expected departure date has been delayed by about two months, but the day has finally arrived. We left our home in Orlando in a rental car and drove to the marina, which is about two hours away. We packed the boat, picked up groceries and made some last-minute repairs. We then returned the rental car and rode our bikes back to the boat, where we finally attached our AGLCA burgee.

In the morning we said goodbye to Regatta Pointe Marina where we had been docked for the past seven months. We have enjoyed this marina and will most likely return to it when the loop is complete.

We have decided to take it easy for the first week while we get used to boat travel. So our first day was only about 4 hours, covering about 24 miles of water. Our destination was Marina Jack in Sarasota, FL. We had visited this marina nearly two years ago when we were first interested in doing the Great Loop, so it made sense to make this our first stop.

This is a really nice marina, and we felt a bit out of place being parked right next to this 110 foot mega-yacht. Hopefully they weren’t too envious of our little tug!