Members of Little River boating group complete yearlong ‘Great Loop’ trip
HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) — Two members of a local boating organization returned to the Grand Strand Tuesday afternoon after completing a year-long trip called the “Great Loop.”
The trip’s roughly 6,000-mile-long route stretches around the eastern United States and into Canada.
“Everyone said our boat was small, but it was the first boat we had,” Mary Lickfeld said. “We didn’t have anything to compare it to. We don’t live really large anyways, so it was easy.”
Bob and Mary Lickfeld are members of the nonprofit America’s Boating Club North Strand based in Little River. They left almost a year ago and sailed up to the Chesapeake Bay to the Great Lakes and then down the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico, and back up the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.
The Great Loop is a part of the America’s Great Loop Cruisers Association, which supports anyone looking to complete the trip. The Lickfelds spent 600 hours driving their boat and traveled about 6,000 miles.
“A lot of people have a fear of coming home,” Bob Lickfield said. “You know a lot of people who are doing the trip they slow ride it or they have sold their house, and they just continue going because they don’t want to come back.”
The club has 85 members, and the Lickfields are two of five people who have completed the trip. The club provides educational resources for anything and everything related to boats.
Another member, Kathy Thorne, who recently completed the trip, said she was able to connect with other boaters, also called “loopers,” like the Lickfelds.
“I was with them for some of the Keys, so it was nice to know some other boaters from Myrtle Beach were out there cruising, so that made it very special,” Thorne said.
The Lickfelds said it was nice getting to explore different coastal parts, but one downside was living in a small space for a year. They spent about three days or more in each spot they visited, including Canada, Maryland and Key West, Florida.
When they weren’t on their boat, they spent a lot of time volunteering.
“So if we went to a certain town and they had an event that they wanted, a 5K race, we would volunteer for it just to get acclimated with people in the community rather than just hanging out with the boating community,” Bob Lickfeld said.
The Lickfields said they plan to use their boat this summer to visit their daughter and then go back to Key West when winter rolls around.
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Adrianna Lawrence is a multimedia journalist at News13. Adrianna is originally from Virginia Beach, Virginia, and joined the News13 team in June 2023 after graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University in May 2023. Keep up with Adrianna on Instagram, Facebook, and X, formerly Twitter. You can also read more of her work, here.
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