Tag Archives: travel

Keeping Up with Blogging

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I offer up an excuse for neglecting this blog.

It’s been a whole month since the last time I posted here. And I only posted twice in January. And not at all in December. Do you see a pattern here?

This blog will be 20 years old in October and has thousands of posts — probably millions of words — and I seem to be running out of steam.

Well, I am and I’m not.

My current priority is blogging about my Great Loop boat trip in Do It Now, which I’m about 135 days into. At this point, I’ve traveled over 2400 miles and have done about 2/3 of that solo — just me and my pups. I’m having a great time facing the challenges and reaping the rewards of the trip. I’ve got about 5 weeks left before I head home for the summer and my summer job. (Yes, I’m still drying cherries.) I’l be back at it in mid-September; I just hope I can catch up with the blog before then.

A brief word about my production rate

I’ve noticed that as I age — or maybe just as time goes on and the world/technology changes? — my writing production rate has slowed considerably. As I type this, it’s hard to see that — I’m really churning out the words this morning.

But writing those trip blog posts leads to distractions. I’m pretty sure its caused by the work I need to do to add photos and links. I have to stop writing to find, format, and add the photos. I have to stop writing to look up the name of a restaurant or tour company or marina and possibly find and add a link to it.

Any time my attention is taken away from my blog composition software, it wanders. While I’m getting a photo off my phone, I may notice an incoming text from a friend. That leads to catching up on texts and responding to them. Somehow I drift into email. Or while I’m looking up a restaurant name, I get pulled into social media, which is always open on a browser tab.

These are distractions I can fight if I’m aware of how they’re destroying my productivity. I’ve been better about fighting them lately, but still not good enough. Heck, even this little sidebar box is a distraction, taking me away from the main point of my blog post. Enough!

That priority is working me hard. I’m trying to write for at least 2 hours every morning, but these days 2 hours just isn’t enough to knock out a complete and illustrated blog post, with links to related content. As a result, I’m falling farther and farther behind. My last blog post on My Great Loop Adventure was published two days ago (March 16, 2023) and it covered the events of January 8, 2023. So yes, I’m more than two months behind.

What’s Sucking My Time

Understand that I’ve got other priorities, too. First, I need to move the boat from place to place. On a long travel day, or one where weather could be a factor later in the day, I might want to start early — possibly so early that I don’t get my two hours of writing in. I can’t write while I drive the boat and lately I’ve been driving the boat for 4 to 7 hours in a day.

Then there are the boat chores when I arrive. The biggest one is hosing down the boat, which I try to do on arrival any day I cruised on salt water. I’ve been cruising on the Gulf and Atlantic Intracoastal Waterways since December so that means pretty much any day I cruise. Hosing and brushing down the surfaces that got splashed enroute can take an hour. I usually follow that up with topping off my fresh water tank, since the hose is already set up.

There are inside boat chores, too. Washing dishes, doing laundry, vacuuming, taking out the trash, grocery shopping. Sounds like what you do at home, right? Well, this is my home, at least while I travel on the water. I did the same stuff when I took my camper south every year. There’s no escaping from it; there will always be chores to take care of a home.

I also need to do trip planning and make reservations as necessary. I don’t do this every day, but when I do it, it can easily take an hour out of my day.


Rosie and Lily on the steps leading up to the command bridge. They have become real boat dogs.

And then there are my pups, Lily and Rosie. They need to be fed twice a day and taken out for pee breaks at least three times a day. If I’m at anchor, that might mean a dinghy ride and all the extra chores related to that.


Charleston has some amazing architecture. The other day, I got a chance to explore it on foot.

In addition to all that, I need to have some fun. I want to explore the places I visit, usually by walking around, sometimes with my pups. Sometimes I take tours — like the Segway Tour I took in Savannah earlier this month. I love to go into shops and galleries and museums and just look at things. Occasionally I buy — yesterday I bought a new mat for outside the boat’s back door and a pair of shoes for art show work this summer. I eat out — usually lunch — to get a taste of the local food. (I can’t tell you how many oysters and versions of shrimp and grits I’ve tasted.) I also go on bike rides and do a bit of hiking.

And, of course, I need to wind down at day’s end and sleep. I normally sleep very well on the boat and can usually get at least 7 hours of solid rest.

So when you add up all the time I spend doing those other things, you can see that there’s not much time left to write — and most of that writing time is spent trying (in vain, apparently) to get my trip blog up to date.

This blog has fallen to the bottom of my priorities list.

Don’t Give Up Hope

I hope that the folks who normally read this blog have begun reading about my trip. Some posts are definitely more interesting than others. I think the photos really help tell the story. Of course, when I’m done with the trip — and my blog about it — the posts will be pulled offline and turned into a book. What you’re reading on that blog is the first draft.

I’ll try to get to this blog with non-boating posts again soon. But you probably shouldn’t expect much until this summer when I’ll have a lot more time on my hands.

I think.

At Anchor

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Enjoying the kind of peace and quiet that an anchorage offers.

I’m just starting my second morning at anchor in a small channel between Florida Gulf Coast barrier islands. I’m not completely in the “middle of nowhere,” as I have been many times while camping with my truck camper — after all, I can see a handful of lights about a mile away at the end of the channel where there are a few homes and the sky in that direction has the glow you’d find over small cities. But where I’m parked at anchor it’s dark and quiet right now, with the only sound being the breeze in the flags and burgees hanging on my boat. Even the Gulf’s breaking waves, which I’ve been hearing during most of my time here, have quieted.


This fellow walked by my boat along the water’s edge yesterday. A friend followed about 3 minutes later.

Later, as the whole sky begins to brighten, I’ll see the wildlife around me: raccoons on the nearer island, wading birds like egrets walking the shallows, pelicans in flight, turkey vultures soaring. Yesterday I saw a bald eagle perched on one of the few tall trees nearby; when I arrived on Friday I saw the fins of dolphins swimming by.

The sun will be out today, warming the boat’s cabin and providing my solar panel with the fuel it needs to power my boat’s living systems without running a noisy generator. I’ll make bacon and eggs with veggies for breakfast, I’ll feed my pups and take them on a short dinghy ride to the beach to do their business, and then I’ll settle down to do more writing — I have so much to say about my journey so far! Later, we’ll make another, longer trip to the beach in the dinghy and spend some time gathering sea shells. I’ll grill up some salmon for dinner while listening to a podcast and spend the evening reading or planning the next few days of my trip.


Yesterday, we took the dingy to a nearby beach. My girls are smart enough to sit in the shade when it’s sunny out.

Yes, I’ll see people come and go. While my boat is the only boat anchored here, it’s not the only one using this relatively shallow channel. I’ve seen pleasure boats zipping through, fisherman gliding by with silent electric motors, and even tour boats promising dolphin sightings puttering through while a man on a speaker points out things of interest around them. Yes, I’ve become a tourist attraction: the semi-retired solo traveler soaking up the serenity of Florida’s coastal waters.


Yes, I’m a tourist attraction now.

And I’ll see people walking along the shore in the State Park on the Gulf side island. Their voices carry across the water; I can hear them talking but not what they’re saying.

But eventually, as the sun sinks lower and lower toward the horizon, all of these boats and people will fade away, going back to their docks and their homes and their lives. I’ll stay another day or two or maybe move on to the next anchorage, hoping it’s as pleasant as this one.


The sunsets aren’t too shabby from the boat, either.

Loving the Cruising Life

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Living on a boat, cruising from place to place at my own pace, is almost too good to be true.

If you’re wondering why I haven’t been blogging here lately, it’s because I’m busy trying to catch up with the blog posts I need to write about my big boat trip, which I started back in October. While I was traveling with two different friends — one for about 3 weeks in October and the other for about 3 weeks in December — I just couldn’t seem to get my head into writing mode. Days and days of my trip slipped by without me writing a word about my trip. This happened to me during my cruise in Spring 2022 with Capt John on the Intracoastal Waterway and although I promised readers I’d write up the missing days, I never did. I don’t want to make or break promises about this trip. I just want to write it up.

You can find what I’ve written so far in my Great Loop blog, MyGreatLoopAdventure.com.

Why I Blog

Understand that I blog, in part, to document what’s going on in my life so I can revisit those times in the future. I started this blog in October 2003 — yes, it’ll be 20 years old this year — and it has become my personal wayback machine, providing me with hundreds of true stories covering nearly 1/3 of my life. I can go back and not only read about a specific trip or day in my life, but also about what I was thinking of feeling about politics, current events, and personal matters, such as my work or divorce.

So when I neglect to post in this blog, I’m neglecting my duties as chief documentarian of Maria Langer. I’m creating gaps in my record, empty patches where days and weeks and related events existed only to be forgotten.

Do you think blogs are dead? Think again, The Verge published a piece called “Bring Back Personal Blogging” on December 31, 2022, less than two weeks ago.

My response? Bring it back? Who says it went away?

Who cares? you might ask. You’re nobody. No one gives a shit about what you did or saw or thought.

Here’s a newsflash for folks thinking something like that: We’re all nobodies. And we’re all somebodies. It’s all in your state of mind. (Also: If you don’t give a shit about what I write here, what the hell are you doing here reading it? Get lost.)

Anyway, it’s important to know why I blog to understand what I blog. And why neglecting my blog disappoints me.

What I’m Up To Now

So what’s keeping me so busy that I’ve been neglecting this blog? As the previous post here indicates, it’s not Twitter. (Frankly, the changes at Twitter have made it so distasteful that I’m glad to avoid it and get hours of my week back. Jeez, what are we thinking wasting so much time on social media? Want to wake up and smell the coffee? Read chapters Six and Seven of Johann Hari’s book, Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention — and How to Think Deeply Again.)

I’ve been on my winter travels and they’re very different from the RV trips I’ve been taking to travel south for the past 10 years.

This winter, I’m on my boat, which you may have read about elsewhere in this blog. I sold my helicopter in May and bought a trawler in September. In October, I had the boat shipped to Chicago where I put it on the Great Loop. I’ve spent a total of 72 days/nights on the boat since then, traveling south and east, and I am totally loving it.


My buddy boat friends shot this photo of Do It Now as we headed out of Carrabelle, FL, the other day around dawn.

I really think that 20 years of RVing prepped me for living on a boat. I wrote about that in a lot of detail back in November after the first three+ weeks of this trip, when I went home to take care of responsibilities. Since then, I traveled for three weeks with a different friend and have since traveled for nearly a whole month by myself.

I think going solo is what has really made me fall in love with this type of travel and lifestyle. After so many years of my life spent compromising with a difficult partner on so many things, it’s great to be able to make all of my own decisions. While it’s nice to share a trip with a friend, it’s not as nice when that friend has expectations that aren’t in line with mine — or maybe even the reality of this lifestyle. It’s very frustrating to travel with someone who is perpetually disappointed when you’re having the time of your life.

Right now, it’s before dawn on a Thursday afternoon. I’m in Steinhatchee, FL, at a surprisingly affordable marina. I arrived several days ago and had originally planned to leave yesterday, but weather is on its way so I — and a boat I’ve been traveling with for a few days — have decided to stick around. The marina has a great staff, three restaurants within walking distance, and a grocery store and hardware store I can get to on my bike. I’ve made friends with a few of the other boaters waiting here for the weather to pass, including another solo traveler in a boat even smaller than mine.

The next leg of my trip is long — 82 nautical miles! — and is mostly on the Gulf of Mexico. The weather we’re waiting out isn’t severe like thunderstorms, but it is windy and wind generates waves. Although my boat can handle ocean travel, there’s nothing pleasant about traveling 80+ miles in waves that are two or more feet high. So we’ll wait until the Gulf calms down, probably on Sunday morning, and make our run then.

What awaits me at my next stop? An anchorage in a town known for its manatee population in the winter. I’ll have to use my dinghy to get to shore to walk around. I’ll stay a day or two and then continue down to Tarpon Springs. After that, I’ll be in the Tampa area where I can hop on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and not have to worry so much about weather and waves for a while.

I have no set plans. I have no reservations. All I have is a comfortable and seaworthy boat, access to the information I need to plan out the next few days of my life, and a credit card. What else does a person need for adventure?

A Home on the Water

I’ll say it here — if I haven’t already said it elsewhere — I’m enjoying this so much that I’m starting to think about becoming a full-time live aboard. That’s a person who lives on a boat instead of “on the dry” in a “dirt home.”

I’ve already met a few liveaboards on this trip. My favorites are Kenny and Rhonda in a big Kadey Krogen trawler. I don’t know how long they’ve been cruising full time, but it’s been at least a few years. They’re knowledgeable, they’re comfortable, they’re happy, they’ve come up with a “formula” that includes marinas and anchorages and isn’t as expensive as one might think. This part of the country is perfect for living and traveling aboard a boat full time: south in the winter, north in the summer, in between in spring and autumn.

(I think people who live on a boat in a marina are missing the point just as much as folks who live in an RV in an RV park or piece of land. Your home can move; why not move it? If you’re going to stay in one place all the time, you don’t need a home that can move.)

So far, I’ve passed too many places too quickly; I’d love to go back and see some of them again with time to really see them. The idea of traveling along the route of this 6000+ mile circle, possibly for years, is incredibly appealing to me. Every day different, always meeting new people, always doing new things. I wish I could have started doing this when I was younger, but it’s not too late to do it now.

(Yes, Do It Now is the name of my boat. When I think of the years I wasted in a dead-end relationship with someone too afraid to take risks and have fun, I cringe. If you want to do something with your life, do it now.)

Would I do it in this boat? Probably not. I’d need something a bit bigger, one with decent guest quarters and a place I can set up as a workstation for doing my own thing. I’m thinking of something a few feet longer and maybe a little wider than this one. But I’m not going to start looking now because then I’ll want to buy what I find and I’m not ready for that. Not yet.

Anyway, while my house-sitter is dealing with what seems like a never ending winter of snow and frozen fog — including several days when the water was shut off because the water company found a leak in their lines — I’m hanging out on the water in the sun with new friends, planning my next adventure.

And I’m starting to wonder why I need to go home at all.