With a loaded-down Jet Ski and a thirst for adventure, Kasey Perella tackled the 6,000-mile Great Loop, proving that big courage does not require a big boat.
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When her children grew up and life gave her space for her own dreams, Kasey Perella of Sneads Ferry did not choose something small — she chose America’s Great Loop. On her Jet Ski.
Perella loves a good adventure, and she kicked that into high gear when she took on the 6,000-mile America’s Great Loop in May 2025.
“I had both of my kids pretty young while I was in my early twenties, so I didn’t have a lot of time to pursue big adventure while my kids were growing up because I was too busy being a mother,” Perella says. “But now that they’re grown up and don’t need me as much anymore, I’m suddenly available again to consider other things I might like to do with my life and my time.”
The hairstylist of 25 years purchased her first Jet Ski in 2019, when she first caught wind of the Great Loop and asked herself, “If boats can do it, can it be done on a Jet Ski?”
“That would be an amazing adventure. It’s wild. It’s crazy. It sounds insane, but can it be done?” Perella wondered.
Serendipitously, in 2022 Mike Straub from Omaha, Nebraska, started posting his preparation videos on social media and on YouTube as he navigated America’s Great Loop on the same type of Jet Ski she owned. She carefully studied the videos throughout his journey and even hung out with him on one of her favorite sandbars when he came through Sneads Ferry during his voyage.
“He didn’t make it look easy, but he definitely made it look manageable,” Perella says.
“You have an incredible amount of distance to deal with. You’ve got very limited resources that you can carry with you because you are limited by the size of the machine that you’re dependent on. And then you’re faced with all of the challenges of weather and the conditions of the terrain you’re traveling on.”
America’s Great Loop boating route follows the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, New York State Canals, Great Lakes and the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. It usually takes boaters about a year to complete the Loop. Roundtrip, it took Perella less than three months to complete the adventure solo.
Perella compares riding America’s Great Loop on a Jet Ski to riding a motorcycle across the country three times back-to-back.
She says a lot of people asked her if she was scared doing the trip as a solo woman.
“No, I was not scared,” Perella says. “I mean, the challenges, obviously, of being women is that our entire lives are spent considering our safety in all circumstances. You walk into a gas station, and you feel like a piece of meat. It’s a universal known fact for women in America, and we all grew up with that awareness in our lives. So you can cower at home and be afraid of it or you can just deal with it, not let it get to you, and do all the things that you want to do despite the challenges.”
Perella’s safety measures included carrying a couple of knives on board, having an EPIRB(Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) in the pocket of her vest and a handheld UHF radio, plus being connected to multiple people via a live tracker the entire trip. She also checked in with her parents every morning and every evening after she docked for the night.
The goal distance each day was 200 miles, broken up into pit stops at marinas every 30 to 50 miles, depending on weather conditions.
Perella’s lodging each night varied, from nearby hotels she could Uber to, to staying at homes next to the marina she was invited to, to camping out in her tent and hammock on the marina property.
“When I would pull up to a marina on my ski, it was layered down with 20 gallons of extra fuel, a huge bag on the backseat, a flag pole with an American flag and an America’s Great Loop flag, so it was obvious that I wasn’t just out on a little 30-minute Jet Ski ride,” she says with a laugh. “Boaters would stop me and ask me what was I doing, where was I going, so when I pulled into a marina, the old marina guys — there’s always five old dudes that hang out at every marina around the country — would approach me.”
Perella relied on “old marina guys” when she did not quite trust the digital weather updates, since they knew their local waters better than anyone. An emergency towboat driver in Lake Erie advised her to wait another day to disembark because current conditions were windy and choppy waters, and she did.
Although Perella says she never considered turning back to retreat home, even for a millisecond, she did experience a few intimidating bodies of water in the Loop, including the 180-mile New Jersey coastline offshore; the Great Lakes and Lake Michigan, specifically with battling Midwestern winds and 4-foot waves; crossing the 150 miles of the Gulf of Mexico without land nearby or cell service; and the 200 miles of the Mississippi River, which is completely unsupported without marinas, fuel stations or recreational boat traffic.
Luckily, through social media, she was able to coordinate a refuel midway in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, thanks to a sweet, local couple.
“I met so many great people who were willing to support my journey,” Perella says. “Boating people understand the challenges of such a huge undertaking, and those were the people who reached out to me and supported me because they could, so I was really thankful that I did have so many kind people who were willing to go out of their way.”
Another takeaway from the adventure, Perella says, is that she underestimated her strength — physically, spiritually and mentally.
“I pushed myself a lot of times and in a lot of ways on this trip, but I never really reached my limits,” she says. “I never got to the point where I thought I can’t go on, so that was personally inspiring for me in that I realized that I’m capable of so much more than I’ve ever even bothered to reach for, and I think that’s probably true of all of us, we just don’t realize it because we never genuinely challenge ourselves.”
In addition to feeding her confidence, along the way via social media, Perella raised funds for Brothers in Arms Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that supports wounded veterans and their families.
As for her next adventures, Perella says there will definitely be more on the horizon, but she has not specifically planned anything yet. She does, however, know she would like to travel with others rather than solo next time. There may also be a book in Perella’s future — maybe a fiction novel based on her experience based on a strong, brave heroine character.
“If there’s something that you think you want to do, you should absolutely do it,” Perella says. “Don’t let it be just a dream because time will slip through your fingers and you’ll lose the opportunity completely.
“No matter how hard or challenging or intimidating the thing seems, if you genuinely feel like it’s worth doing for you spiritually, emotionally and psychologically, then you should absolutely do it because life is short. … Especially for women, because we do put ourselves in our own little gilded cage and let society, culture, fear and vanity and all of the things hold us back from having genuinely rewarding life experiences. And that seems like such a waste or a disappointment.”
