The Waterways

There are two waterways, that I know of and am considering floating. They comprise "The Great Loop." This loop, as I understand it, creates an inland waterway stretching from the tip of Florida, up to the Great Lakes and back down the East Coast. Part of this Great Loop is called the Tennessee TomBigBee Waterway, and the other is the Intracostal Waterway.

According to Wikipedia: "The Intracoastal Waterway runs for most of the length of the Eastern Seaboard, from its unofficial northern terminus at the Manasquan River in New Jersey, where it connects with the Atlantic Ocean at the Manasquan Inlet, then around the Gulf of Mexico to Brownsville, Texas. The waterway consists of three non-contiguous segments: the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, extending from Portsmouth, Virginia (milepost 0.0) to Key West, Florida; a section of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway begins at Tarpon Springs, Florida, and extends south to Fort Myers; and a second section of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway extending from Brownsville, Texas, east to Carrabelle, Florida. These segments were intended to be connected via a dredged waterway from St. Marks to Tarpon Springs and the Cross Florida Barge Canal across northern Florida, but these projects were never completed due to environmental concerns. Additional canals and bays extend a navigable waterway to Boston, Massachusetts." Then there's the Tenn-Tom Waterway.

Again, Wikipedia says: "The Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway (popularly known as the Tenn-Tom) is a 234-mile (377-kilometer) man-made waterway that extends from the Tennessee River to the junction of the Black Warrior-Tombigbee River system near Demopolis, Alabama, United States. The Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway links commercial navigation from the nation’s midsection to the Gulf of Mexico. The major features of the waterway are 10 locks and dams, a 175-foot (53 m) deep cut between the Tombigbee River watershed and the Tennessee River watershed, and 234 miles (377 km) of navigation channels.[1] The ten locks are 9 by 110 by 600 feet (2.7 m × 33.5 m × 182.9 m) the same dimension as the locks on the Mississippi above Lock and Dam 26 at Alton, Illinois.[2][3] Under construction for twelve years by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway was completed in December 1984 at a total cost of nearly $2 billion. The Tenn-Tom encompasses 17 public ports and terminals, 110,000 acres (450 km2) of land, and another 88,000 acres (360 km2) managed by state conservation agencies for wildlife habitat preservation and recreational use." All descriptions I've found on other websites say the Great Loop and the Tenn-Tom are wonderful places to "boat, fish, swim, sing Kum-ba-ya around campfires and ride bareback on Wild Chincoteague ponies."

It all sounds suspiciously like a tampon ad, or a used boat salesman's approach to getting people into boats, and onto the water where they're forced to buy boat fuel at $9 a gallon at rickety marinas where banjo-music plays in the background. But I'll withhold judgement until I've actually been there myself. Speaking of banjo music I got my start on the water at age 18, as a part-time raft guide and full-time manager of a rafting company on the Chattooga River - of Deliverance - the movie - fame. I took up ocean kayaking for the first time at age 59.

I couldn't afford to buy a red convertible to weather my silver senior crisis, so I bought a $200 toy kayak and joined a Meetup group of other women learning how to kayak as well. From what I've discovered so far, the waterways throughout this great country are populated with people (like me) who have no idea what they're doing, but they're out there crashing into other boaters, falling overboard, drowning, nearly drowning, finding mutual grounds for divorce, sinking and miraculously (in some cases) successfully floating the river in spite of themselves.

There are apparently lots of good bars, great restaurants and expensive food, tourist traps and relatively undiscovered slices of heaven all along the way. I feel like Bilbo Baggins already — 99 years old and aching for an adventure. Most of people's adventures involve copious amounts of alcohol, cheese and partying. I'm hoping to find people who enjoy fishing, dinner conversation and swapping stories about why they're on the water.
As I learn more about the waterways, some first hand, some from legit sites and not wild blogs, I'll update this page. For now (as of Feb. 18, 2016) , all I know is:

• There's a lot of water — about 3,000 miles for the entire loop, and 400 to 1,800 where I'll be going. 
• Water is not always calm. 
• Storms suck. 
• I'm looking at making 50 miles on a good day, 25-35 miles on an average day, and sometimes I'm going to want to stay in a marina, wash my clothes, sleep for 20 hours and eat hot food. 
• There will be times I'll also want to break out the kayak, or fish, or write, or just sit and contemplate the weather, the water and my navel. 

Here's to Nature.