On Tuesday, July 15, 2025, at about 1:00pm we crossed our wake in Lake St. Clair 12 years, 10 months and 3 weeks after our journey began on Monday, August 20, 2012. Yesterday we commemorated the completion by exchanging our white ALGCA burgee to the gold one, representing the successful completion of America's Great Loop. We are now considered Gold Loopers.
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| Burgee Exchange |
Since we left Florida four months ago, we covered 2,263 statute miles, logging 300 hours of run time. Those 300 hours represent 7.5 standard 40 hour work weeks that our Captain invested in navigating us safely to Michigan. We estimate we burned about 1,172 gallons of diesel fuel.
Over our entire Loop journey we covered 5,832 statute miles and navigated 66 locks, logging 679 hours of run time. We averaged 8.5 mph.
When we started the Loop in the fall of 2012, the average price of diesel fuel was $4.05/gallon compared to $3.81/gallon in the spring of 2025. Our transient dockage fees averaged $1.04/foot in 2012 compared to $1.85/foot in 2025.
Our final day of travel up the Detroit River and across Lake St. Clair was a calm day, albeit a bit overcast. We enjoyed all the sights from the bridge on our final day. We crossed under the new Gordie Howe Bridge as well as the current Ambassador Bridge and saw the Detroit and Windsor skylines from the water.
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| Gordie Howe Bridge connecting US to Canada Scheduled to open in fall 2025 |
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| Detroit RenCen |
Unlike the experience of passing our first freighter nearly 13 years ago on the first day of our Loop journey, passing our last freighter was somewhat routine, just another day of boating. The size of the massive freighters is impressive.
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| An oncoming freighter in the Detroit River |
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| Exiting the Detroit River to cross Lake St. Clair |
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| Final Travel Day to MacRay Marina 48 nautical miles over 5 1/2 hours |
Several friends have already started asking us what is next now that we've completed this goal. Near term we will bring our car up from Florida to Michigan, enjoy the rest of Michigan summer and have fun shopping for an RV. We have seen so much of our beautiful country via waterway and now we are looking forward to seeing even more of our beautiful country via the open road.
We hope you have enjoyed following along on our Great Loop journey and we thank you for sticking with us over the years. In closing, if you have a journey that is special to you that you have yet to begin, don't wait any longer to start. It sounds cliche that life is short, but it is so very true. Find a way to take the first step forward towards fulfilling your dreams and you'll be richly rewarded. Safe travels and may all your dreams come true!
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| Captain Bert @ MacRay Loop Complete! |
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