The Great Loop is a circumnavigation of the eastern U.S., and part of Canada. The route takes about one year and includes the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, the New York State Canals, the Canadian Canals, the Great Lakes, the inland rivers, and the Gulf of Mexico. “Loopers” take on this adventure of a lifetime aboard their own boat.
The website for the America’s Great Loop Cruising Association, https://www.greatloop.org/ , has an abundance of additional information.
The timing for cruising the Loop is generally scheduled to take advantage of the best seasonal weather as shown in the illustration below. Our plan is to start from Houston around Nov. 1 after hurricane season is over. We will cruise along the coast to Florida and the Bahamas for the winter; up the eastern seaboard in the spring and into the Great Lakes for summer. The usual timing calls for leaving the Great Lakes at Chicago at the end of summer. This section will be closed at that time in 2020. There is a great deal to see and do in the Great Lakes including the side trip into eastern Canada. Therefore, our plan is to spend summer of 2020 there, store our boat, and return early summer 2021 for a second summer before heading south in the fall. Around Gulf Shores, AL, we should cross our wake and complete our loop in Fall 2021.
That is the plan in the broadest terms. Along the way, we will be taking breaks for trips home for special events or as needed to catch up with personal business, family, our land homes, etc. We want to maximize the opportunity to linger in a spot when we feel so inclined. The vagaries of unpredictable weather conditions, needed repairs, personal needs, mean that it is very difficult to impossible to predict exactly where we will be and when. This adds to the adventure with planning a bit on the fly a day or two at a time. Many loopers complete the trip in about one year while others have stretched it over as many as 12 years. Our plan is for two years with a significant break in the middle.
Loopers are a very social group and a large percent are in the same part of the loop at the same time. This results in many new friendships and fellow voyagers to share sections of the journey. It is probably possible to do the entire trip without ever feeling “alone”.