|
|||||||
 |
GREAT LOOP -
----"We can do it!" With those words of discovery uttered by El on a dark morning in June 1992 on Chesapeake Bay, we began an adventure that has been discovered by many since then. A circumnavigation of the eastern United States on some of the most beautiful waterways anywhere.
- |
-----We were living aboard a cruising sailboat, a 20' Pacific Seacraft Flicka, and had sailed her up the Intracoastal Waterway to the Chesapeake from a winter cruise in Florida. We were bound for a summer of exploring the Ontario canals and Great Lakes. El had been perusing our charts of the lakes, when she suddenly 'discovered' that there was a connection through Chicago to the Illinois River and hence to the Mississippi and southward. We could return during the fall to the Gulf Coast. This would give us new country to see in the heartland of America and we would avoid the hazard of fall hurricanes along the Atlantic seaboard. Perfect!
-----And it was. We 'circumnavigated' the eastern United States, following some of the finest waterways to travel anywhere on Earth. Our route has since been called the Great Loop (we called it the Great Circle, not thinking that this was really a misnomer, since a 'great' circle has a specific navigational meaning, and this route does not satisfy the definition. We should, perhaps, have thought of it as a Big Circle. Now, the name is correctly called the Great Loop). Many cruising boats follow the Loop every year. During our maiden voyage on the Loop we never met another boat intending to do the same passage.
----- It was a marvelous adventure and we share many fond memories and friends from that trip. Since then, we have cruised 'favorite bits' with our trailerable boat, so of them many times. Also, with a power boat, we have the advantage now of going up tributary rivers that join the Loop. For us, today, the Loop is the 'freeway,' and the tributaries the 'blue highways.' We strongly urge anyone cruising the Loop to leave the main route and explore the marvelous 'side roads' of America.
-----There are many websites (and books) to read today for 'how to' advice on anchorages and marinas. We do not attempt to compete with those sites with detailed information. You can find them by a search on the Internet. What you gain from perusing this website is a 'feeling' for cruising -- and a sense of what the cruising life has to offer. Hopefully, the tales we tell and the photos we share will enticed you to cruise the St. Johns, Lake Champlain, the Cumberland, and many of the 'back roads' off the Highway. Drop the schedule, kick back, and enjoy America's waterways. They are the finest on Earth!
(05/05)