Boat Cards, Burgees and How Nebo got us our first Docktails invitation

(Click on the images to see and scroll them in full size)

When I was taking Patriot down to Milwaukee to get her bottom painted, I opened my starboard side helm door and what did I find? The boat card for Irish Lass, a looper boat in Port Washington waiting for the lock on the Illinois River to open up. For those of you not familiar with The Great Loop, one tradition is to exchange boat cards with other loopers. Here is what our boat card looks like.

Well, I was totally confused, because I had no idea how Irish Lass found me because I did not have my AGLCA burgee up, so nothing identified me as a looper boat. Or so I thought. Almost all boat on the loop fly the AGLCA burgee to identify them to other boats. The burgee looks like this.

Well, when I met owners of Irish Lass, they reminded me about NEBO, which is a boat logging application that allows you to track where your boat is and to automatically see where you and other looper boats are. Well, Patriot has NEBO installed to track our trip and all she had to do was pull up NEBO and BOOM, there was Patriot, so she dropped a boat card. I am going to love this community!

Another tradition on the loop is "docktails", it is a BYO social event that happens many evenings when looper boat crews get together and talk about the day, swap stories and discuss plans. Thanks to the crew of Inked Mermaid and Irish Lass, we were invited to our first official docktails party Tuesday evening August 16th aboard Irish Lass. Even though we were not officially on the loop yet, everyone aboard was incredibly welcoming and we had an awesome time. There were crews from 3 or 4 other looper boats that were in port that evening. We were even able to do a good turn and take one of them to the grocery store to get some shopping done after the party.

I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to starting our adventure and more docktail parties and friends that we have yet to meet.