Great Loop

[upbeat music] Welcome to the Great Loop Radio podcast, brought to you by America's Great Loop Cruisers Association.

We're dedicated to sharing Great Loop information and inspiration with those actively cruising, planning for, or dreaming about a Great Loop adventure.

I'm Kim Russo.

I'm the director of AGLCA.

So I'm excited for both of those things to happen today.

As always, we'll jump in in a moment, but I want to s- first start by recognizing and thanking our admiral sponsors who support AGLCA at the highest level.

They are Kathy Ahl, she is a certified financial planner with Edward Jones, Great Loop Yacht Sales, Passagemaker TrawlerFest, Skipper Bob Publications, SkyMed, and Waterway Guide Media.

As always, we encourage our listeners and viewers to support these businesses that support the Great Loop.

Welcome to the Great Loop Radio podcast, brought to you by America's Great Loop Cruisers Association.

We're dedicated to sharing Great Loop information and inspiration with those actively cruising, planning for, or dreaming about a Great Loop adventure.

I'm Kim Russo.

I'm the director of AGLCA.

They are Kathy All.

She is a certified financial planner with Edward Jones.

Great Loop Yacht Sales, Passagemaker Trawler Fest, Skipper Bob Publications, SkyMed, and Waterway Guide Media.

As always, we encourage our listeners and viewers to support these businesses that support the Great Loop.

Exactly.

So I had never heard of the America's Great Loop prior to a conversation.

We were actually sitting across the kitchen counter right here at my home, a few of us from Orlando Rowing Club, and one of the ladies who has some boating experience, she shared what it was with us, and we were, you know, we were just, I mean, we were drinking red wine and eating sourdough bread and just hanging out, a bunch of ladies, and she said, what if, what if we rode the Great American Loop? And we all, I think we all, like, choked on our, you know, wine and just were like, what, that's incredible, like, what? What, who that, how could that be? And then nothing happened.

Right? So then fast forward, maybe a year and a half or two years later, and she came to the team and said, there's a boat.

Can you tell us, for those that don't know what the route is?

Yes.

So the America's Great Loop, it's a continuous waterway around the eastern half of the United States.

So if you were to leave from the east coast of Florida,

Welcome to the Great Loop Radio Podcast, brought to you by America's Great Loop Cruisers Association.

We're dedicated to sharing Great Loop information and inspiration with those actively cruising, planning for, or dreaming about a Great Loop adventure.

I'm Kim Russo.

I'm the director of AGLCA.

Today we are doing another one of our popular story of our loop sessions.

So we will have Bob and Cheryl Gilmore with us.

They recently completed their great loop and they are gonna provide some information and some inspiration for all of you based on their story.

We'll bring them in in just a moment, but first I would like to recognize and thank our Admiral sponsors who support AGLCA at the highest level.

I want to get on one.

I want to go do the Great Loop.

How do you work from home when you're working in HVAC, Evan?

Great question.

I was able to work remote before Evan was.

So once we got him figured out, we were ready to go.

So you guys figure out you want to do the great loop.

Where'd you find the boat? What kind of boat did you buy? Let's get that out of the way too.

Well, you can't do

that in this boat, but I can definitely take it on the Great Loop, which is this water route that kind of goes around the eastern half of the United States.

That counts.

Yeah.

And I mean that as a compliment.

I do.

He's going to do the great loop with his boat, so that's still going to be a...

Yeah, and Barry's just looping.

Welcome to the Great Loop Radio podcast, brought to you by America's Great Loop Cruisers Association.

We're dedicated to sharing Great Loop information and inspiration with those actively cruising, planning for, or dreaming about a Great Loop adventure.

I'm Kim Russo.

I'm the director of AGLCA.

Before we officially bring Mark into the conversation, I want to take a moment to recognize and thank our admiral sponsors who support AGLCA at the highest level.

They are Kathy Alp.

She is a certified financial planner with Edward Jones, Great Loop Yacht Sales, Passagemaker Trawler Fest, Skipper Bob Publications, and Waterway Guide Media.

As always, we encourage our listeners and viewers to support these businesses that support The Great Loop.

But Cheech, that doesn't even hold a candle to what one Florida captain has been doing in hopes of raising money and awareness for pediatric cancer.

Yeah, the Great Loop Challenge, which is sponsored by our mutual friends over at Honda Marine.

is going on right now, and it's a 7,300-mile route in just about three weeks.

Extreme endurance and test for their BF350, you know, outboard engine platforms.

[upbeat music] So Amanda, how did this come about?

So just the other day I was showing a boat to some clients who contacted us because they were shopping for Great Loop boats.

They were here in the Miami area, and they said, "Hey, I wanna go see this Regal 42" that we had listed.

So I got to talking to them, and, you know, they had seen none of our videos and none of our podcasts, but had called on a listing that we had.