Happily Wherever After

Happily Wherever After We're filming daily videos of our 6,000-mile Great Loop waterway cruise aboard our good ship Swamp Puppy, a 45-foot, solar-powered, 1989 Carver motor yacht.

We'd love to share our journey with you on YouTube! - 🍻 Tom & Elyse 🏴‍☠️

Our little Looper fleet then cruised 14 miles in about two hours to the next lock at Dresden Island.The inland waterway ...
10/07/2026

Our little Looper fleet then cruised 14 miles in about two hours to the next lock at Dresden Island.

The inland waterway locks have been very calm so far! There's not nearly as much turbulence moving our boats around like there has been in many of the previous locks. These aren't as scenic, of course, but we appreciate the simplicity and ease of manueverability.

10/07/2026

Swamp Puppy 🐊 with a 11.5' air draft, rarely has to wait on bridges 😎 We had to wait ~30 minutes for this one, not too bad 😁

When you're locking down ~35 feet like we did at Brandon Road, the outside world starts to disappear as you drop down. S...
10/07/2026

When you're locking down ~35 feet like we did at Brandon Road, the outside world starts to disappear as you drop down. Sounds quieten, and the noise of rushing water dominates. For a few minutes, you exist only in this momentary Looper world, walled off by the concrete lock chamber.

And then they crack the lock doors open, and the outside world slowly reappears.

We headed into the Brandon Road Lock and rafted to each other in pairs. Since these locks are designed for large commerc...
10/06/2026

We headed into the Brandon Road Lock and rafted to each other in pairs. Since these locks are designed for large commercial vessels, there aren't enough pins for each of our teeny Loop boats to tie up to the lock wall directly. So the pre-determined wall-side vessels entered first and secured their boats to one pin each, then the remaining vessels entered and attached to the wall-side boats. This is called "rafting!"

If you're unfamiliar with rafting, or would like more information about the Brandon Road Lock -- feel free to ask questions! It was not so long ago that we knew little about this style of boating 😅

We left the Joliet Free Wall the following morning, in coordination with many of the other Loopers. We were all headed t...
10/06/2026

We left the Joliet Free Wall the following morning, in coordination with many of the other Loopers. We were all headed towards the Brandon Road Lock and Dam, less than 2 miles ahead.

Despite the fact that there were 20 boats on the wall, we had a very peaceful evening! We elected Mark Cramer from Meant To Be as Admiral of our little Looper fleet. He coordinated with the lock on our behalf, and we started heading out at 6:45 AM.

We rafted up with 19 other Loopers at the free wall in Joliet - it was quite the night!1. Holiday2. No Factor3. 9 1/24. ...
10/06/2026

We rafted up with 19 other Loopers at the free wall in Joliet - it was quite the night!

1. Holiday
2. No Factor
3. 9 1/2
4. Compass Rose
5. LaRea
6. Frankie Mo
7. Galian (Skipper Jack & Migal)
8. Sol Mate (Sol Mate on The Great Loop)
9. Meant To Be (Debbie Kron Cramer & Mark Cramer)
10. Swamp Puppy
11. Serenity Now
12. Eleven X
13. No Moor Money
14. Slowpoke
15. Believer
16. River Life
17. The 'Nati Nomad
18. Wade-ing Around
19. L'Attitude Adjustment
20. Revival

A HUGE thank you to the Joliet Police Department for taking such excellent care of us! We got the chance to meet three different officers, and all of them were incredibly kind and very interesting to talk with.

After leaving the Lockport Lock, we followed our little Looper fleet through a quick succession of 5 bridges. The leadin...
10/05/2026

After leaving the Lockport Lock, we followed our little Looper fleet through a quick succession of 5 bridges. The leading Looper called to have the bridges open, since most of the bridges had a vertical clearance between 16.5' - 17'. Most of the boats we were cruising with couldn't pass under them in the closed position, but our beloved Swamp Puppy could've 😎

We approached the Lockport Lock around 3:30 PM, and watched a tug load several barges into the lock chamber. There were ...
10/05/2026

We approached the Lockport Lock around 3:30 PM, and watched a tug load several barges into the lock chamber. There were a number of other Loopers moored nearby, and they'd already been waiting for a while. Compass Rose invited us to raft up to them, which we happily did. About an hour later, the lock was ready for us and we entered with the other Loopers.

This lock was massive! It's 110' wide by 600' long - it made our Loop boats look like tiny toy boats. It dropped us ~40 feet in just 15 minutes.

On the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal, shortly before Lockport, sits a dispersal barrier. It's an underwater DC electrica...
10/04/2026

On the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal, shortly before Lockport, sits a dispersal barrier. It's an underwater DC electrical system that aims to prevent invasive fish (primarily Asian carp) from making their way into Lake Michigan, and ultimately the other Great Lakes.

Any fish that enter the electrified water are stunned and float downstream, away from Lake Michigan. But it's an imperfect system - it doesn't work on small fish, and the massive barges can cause voltage drops and unintentionally carry fish through.

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