Routes
Most Great Loop cruisers travel the Loop counterclockwise, taking advantage of the downstream currents on the Illinois River, Mississippi River, Tombigbee River and Black Warrior River to Mobile, Alabama. To avoid summer hurricanes and winter ice, most Loopers head north in the spring, spend the summer in the Great Lakes region, and head south on the rivers in the fall, arriving in Florida after the beginning of November.
Starting on the east coast of Florida at Stuart the route heads north on the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) along the coasts of Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Chesapeake Bay offers many different locations to visit and some loopers go 95 miles up the Potomac to Washington. At the north end of Chesapeake Bay the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal connects to Delaware Bay. The Intracoastal Waterway resumes at Cape May and ends at Manasquan, New Jersey.
There is a 30-mile stretch of open Atlantic Ocean to New York harbor. From this point a few loopers continue up the coast, around the Gaspé Peninsula and up the St Lawrence River to Lake Ontario. This adds about 1,500 miles to the loop. Most loopers go up the Hudson River to Waterford and then take the Erie Canal to Lake Ontario or Lake Erie or the Champlain Canal to the St. Lawrence. Canada's Rideau Canal, built in 1832 from Ottawa to Kingston, is frequently chosen. Most loopers will take the Trent Canal from Trenton, Ontario to Port Severn on Georgian Bay. The North Channel is one of the highlights of the loop. This is the most northerly point on the loop and has the shortest season, just 8 weeks of good warm weather from July 1 to Aug 30th.
Lake Michigan is next with most loopers taking the east side of the lake to Chicago. From here it is down the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, up the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers, then down the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway to Mobile. The route then joins the Intracoastal Waterway going east to Carrabelle, Florida. The ICW now extends to Fort Myers where loopers can cruise the Okeechobee Waterway to Stuart on the east coast of Florida or turn south to the Keys rounding the southern tip of Florida, returning north to Stuart.
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