To follow our adventures on the America’s Great Loop, view the Relevant Monthly Posts in our Archives: February 2018 through November 2018.
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Great Loop Schedule: We spent roughly nine months completing the loop. Our departure was on March 1, 2018. As we embarked on this journey we had to let go of the Type-A desire to create a “time line” of when we might be at certain points along the way.
Let’s be real, it would be very tough to follow such a “fools plan” since mother nature will always have the final say.
Route: The journey officially began on the southwest coast of Florida, in Fort Myers, our home base. First we headed east across Lake Okeechobee. Pointing the compass north from Stuart, Florida we slowly worked our way up the Intra Coastal Waterway (ICW) towards Norfolk, VA for the 2018 spring Loopers Rendezvous (April 30 to May 3). With lots of places to visit along the way, we traversed north towards New York, aiming for the Hudson River. Heading to the Great Lakes we had several options – subject to the weather, water depths, bridge clearances, and other factors. Heading west we spent two months exploring the historic canals and pristine waters of Canada. It was magical. Eventually we redirected the compass to a southern route, heading to the Chicago area, down the winding waters of the Tombigbee towards Mobile, Alabama, continuing east, with an overnight crossing of the Gulf of Mexico, and then finally south, to Fort Myers, Florida, where we officially “cross our wake” on November 11, 2018, earning a coveted gold looper flag!
To give you a sense of the route options, take a look at the maps created by the America’s Great Loop Association
Exhale on the Water 