Bob Duthie's passions include recreational boating and sharing useful information. Both of these interests fueled the creation of What to Expect Cruising the Great Loop, a narrated photo-log of his 5,614-mile journey around eastern and midwestern North America with his wife Mavis. Now available on CD-ROM, What to Expect Cruising the Great Loop offers advice to would-be cruisers on where to dock and dine and do laundry, as well as Bob’s blunt opinions on sub par venues and warnings about dangers to be dodged.

Bob is a longtime member of the Music City Power Squadron and a former board member. His activities have included teaching courses on cruise planning, contributing articles and photographs to the Power Squadron’s newsletter, and presenting seminars on the Loop. He learned to sail as a child at summer camp, eventually working as a canoe guide on the Muskoka Lakes. As an adult, his first boat purchase was an 18-foot Star Craft cuddy cabin cruiser, Seawon, which he motored up the Trent Canal to Georgian Bay. A few years later, he traded it in for a 26-foot Fjord cabin cruiser, Seawon II, taking his young family on trips on the St. Lawrence River, Rideau Canal, Georgian Bay, and Lake Ontario.

When his then-employer transferred him to Nashville, Bob then took a break from boating …which lasted for 22 years. Although he never lost his love of boating, his work as an upper-level executive and later as an entrepreneur pre-empted the time he could devote to his hobby. However, after his son Andrew joined DAI, Bob was able to resume his adventures in boating, starting in 2000.

Bob’s first excursion was to collect his new boat, the Katy Leigh, a 36-foot Grand Banks trawler. It had been stored in Erie, Pennsylvania; he sailed it through the Mackinac Strait to Chicago and then down to Kentucky Lake, his home marina. After various trips to Chattanooga, Nashville, and Cordell Hull Lake, Bob and Mavis began their journey around the Great Loop on October 17, 2003. They completed it in four stages over the course of 20 months, totaling 173 days aboard (with 11 nights at anchor, 157 nights at docks, and 1 night spent in transit). The trip required 692 engine hours and 140 generator hours, fueled by $2,996 (1745 gallons) of diesel (3.22 miles to the gallon).