Cruising the Great Loop: Local couple has circumnavigated the eastern U.S. twice
Jul. 23—IUKA — More people summit Mount Everest each year than complete the Great Loop, a 6,000-mile circumnavigation of the eastern United States and part of Canada.
Local couple Charlie and Robin McVey completed the loop in 2017. In 2019, they did it again.
After Charlie McVey, 68, retired from the Oktibbeha County Sheriff's Office, his wife Robin, 56, left her job and the couple traded their home and 43-acre farm in Clay County for a boat.
Having spent 19 years living in the country, Charlie realized once he reached retirement age that it wasn't how he wanted to spend the rest of his life.
"There's something else out there," he remembers telling Robin.
Completing the Great Loop
Charlie was at Midway Marina on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway in 2014 when he first heard about the Great Loop.
He met a Florida couple who were taking on the challenge with their three dogs. They told him all about the Great Loop and handed him a book about it titled "Honey, Let's Get A Boat."
Immediately, Charlie knew he'd found what he'd been looking for in retirement.
The McVeys joined America's Great Loop Cruisers' Association (AGLCA) and began boat shopping that same month. In January 2015, they found the perfect vessel in Florence, Alabama — a 42-foot 1986 Jefferson Sundeck Trawler.
They dubbed it "The Lower Place" — a reference to what they called the acres of family land below their house back in Clay County.
Nearly one year later, on Oct. 23, 2016, they set off on the Great Loop. Almost exactly a year later — on Oct. 2, 2017 — they completed their grand adventure. During their trip, they sailed in three countries — the United States, the Bahamas and Canada — all at 8 to 10 miles per hour.
Excitement and adventure is what drives the McVeys, and they encountered plenty of it on their trip.
One of Charlie's favorite stops was Washington, D.C. They docked at the Gangplank Marina and spent a couple of weeks exploring the nation's capitol on foot.
The entire trip, Robin said, was a walk — or float — through history, all the while observing the exchange of culture and traditions, not just between countries, but between various regions of the U.S. Like when Charlie had some of the best barbecue he'd ever tasted on a dock in downtown D.C., for example.
Arriving in Iuka 50 weeks after they'd set sail, the McVeys earned the right to replace their white AGLCA burgee with a gold one signifying their completion of the Great Loop.
They bought a house in Counce, Tennessee, just across the Mississippi state line, in November 2017, a month after they finished the Loop. It's a short drive to the Safe Harbor Aqua Yacht marina in Iuka where they keep their boat and a pontoon for days on the river while they're home during the summer. To this day, the Tennessee River remains their favorite cruising spot.
"We bought a house up here to be near our boat," Robin said. "I don't know what that says about us, but hey, it's a cool place to live."
With most of their belongings still sitting in unpacked boxes, they left on the boat again in Feb. 2018 to spend a few months in Fort Myers, Florida.
They'd enjoyed cruising the Great Loop so much that they decided to do it a second time just over a year after they finished the first. They set out on Nov. 1, 2018, and finished in Sept. 14, 2019, now proudly displaying a platinum AGLCA burgee signifying that they've completed the Loop twice.
'I just couldn't do without a boat'
Before setting out on the first Loop, Robin knew she'd need something on which to focus her attention. She'd seen a friend make a T-shirt quilt years ago, so she decided to collect them along the way as a reminder of where she and Charlie had been.
She started on her first t-shirt quilt as soon as they got home. She found the process of creating the cover therapeutic.
"There's this thing that happens when you finish the Loop," Robin said. "We've coined it 'the Looper blues.' It is very much a depression-type thing. All of a sudden, it doesn't matter what the weather's going to be. It doesn't matter what the tide is."
That's part of the reason they went back a second time, and for the last few years have taken "run from winter" excursions to warmer waters. This year, they went to Chesapeake, Virginia, where they left their boat until they're ready to cruise again.
The couple sold their Jefferson, on which they'd done both loops, in March 2021. Two months later, they replaced it with a 1991 Carver 4207 that now bears the same name as the first.
"We were going to wait a while," Charlie said. "And I just couldn't do without a boat."
There may be days where you sit at home doing nothing in Tennessee, but when you're on a boat there's always something to do.
"It's a lifestyle," Charlie said. "Like right now, we're away from the boat, and I miss it everyday."
Despite being married almost 32 years, the McVeys are closer than they ever were before traveling together on a boat.
"Marriage is one thing, but living on a 42-foot boat is a whole other story," Robin said. "You become a team; you become more than husband and wife."
There's also a kinship between boaters. They look out for one another, something the McVeys have witnessed and put into practice. In 2021, they were named the True North Harbor Host of the Year recipients by the AGLCA for "their willingness to go above-and-beyond for their fellow Loopers."
"There is good in everywhere you go, and there is good in every person," Robin said. "In two loops and several side trips, we never once felt threatened, concerned for our safety, intimidated by anything. I don't think we ever felt like we were ever at risk for our own personal safety. And that says a lot for the number of miles we traveled."
There are Loopers from all income brackets and all walks of life making a go of it with the same goal in mind.
"When you're boating, there is no difference," Charlie said. "It doesn't matter if I pull up in my '91 Carver and this guy pulls up in his 2019 Voyager, when they get off on the dock they're just like us. They're boaters."
Finding what floats your boat
The McVeys have yet to decide whether they'll cruise the loop a third time, but there's no doubt they'll continue boating.
And they encourage everyone to find something that floats their boat.
"Anyone who has that sense of adventure, whether its the Appalachian Trail, climbing Mount Everest, doing America's Great Loop or doing 12 marathons in 12 months — whatever that dream is — make a plan, make a date, do it," Robin said.
A single phone call can change a person's life drastically, whether that's a career, family or health change.
"If you wait until you think you're ready, it'll never happen," she said. "Don't say should've, could've, would've. Do it."
