For those unfamiliar, the Intracoastal Waterway, colloquially known as the 'ICW,' is a 3,000-mile (4,800 km) inland water route that stretches along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts of the United States. It begins in Massachusetts and runs south along the Atlantic Seaboard before it curves around Florida's southern tip. From there, it continues along the Gulf Coast to Brownsville, Texas. The ICW is a mix of natural inlets, saltwater rivers, bays, and sounds, not to mention man-made canals. For many boaters, it offers a safer navigational route compared to traveling on the open sea.
But, much more than that, the ICW is an enormous achievement of politics, ingenuity, and engineering that started almost two hundred years ago. It was only completed midway through the past century, but can be enjoyed by all boaters today. The ICW offers a spectacular display of coastal landscape while providing hundreds of miles of pleasure boating. At the same time, it also provides a corridor of relative boating safety stretching over half the length of contiguous coastal United States.
That’s all well and good but it isn’t quite that simple, either. There are actually three parts to the ICW and they are not connected to each other. One part on the East Coast starts officially at Mile Zero at Portsmouth, Virginia (or at Norfolk, VA, a half mile away, so take your pick), and was authorized under the 1939 Rivers and Harbors Act. It runs south approximately 1,100 miles to Key West, Florida. This section is officially known as the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (AIWW). The portion of the AIWW north of Portsmouth (Norfolk) up to Massachusetts apparently doesn’t count, but it does exist and is connected.
Then there are two parts of the ICW on the west coast of Florida and south coast of Texas along the Gulf of Mexico. There is no ICW, per se, from Key West up to Fort Myers, Florida where another part of the ICW starts and continues north along the west coast of Florida up to Tarpon Springs just north of Clearwater. Then there is another extended break up to Carrabelle, Florida at the beginning of the Panhandle where another part of the ICW carries west through Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana to Brownsville, Texas, right on the border with Mexico. These two parts of the ICW along the Gulf coast are officially known as the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW).
But why did it all happen in the first place? This is where is gets complicated but interesting, and of course political. Shortly after the American Revolution (also known as the War of Independence) from 1775-1783, the British who happened to (at least in their own minds) rule the sea, tried to blockade shipping into and out of what were then known as the Thirteen Colonies. These thirteen colonies bordering the Atlantic Ocean south from New Hampshire to Georgia became the first thirteen States of the Union following the war. Technically these colonies became states with the Declaration of Independence in 1776 while the war was still in progress, but you knew that.
Everybody was too busy to do anything during the war, but after it ended politicians and military leaders began discussing the need for a protected waterway for shipping to connect the thirteen states. Why, you may ask? Well back in those days inland roads were next to non-existent and not contiguous. Railroads did not exist until 1827. The first railroad was only three miles long. It was only the open ocean that connected these states for commerce and protection. The open seas offshore were dangerous from both weather and military considerations.
Strangely, mostly nothing concrete was done in the intervening years to solve the dilemma. Yes, there were ongoing discussions, until in 1808 U.S. Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin undertook a major study of the problem and presented his report “Public Roads and Canals.” It was a ten-year, twenty million dollar proposal to Congress that promoted inland water-related public works including the creation of a north-south inland protected waterway along the Atlantic coast. Congress did not approve his plan, but it became the basis for the ICW and hundreds of similar projects many, many years down the road.
Then along came the war of 1812. Bad blood had been festering between the British and the Americans since the War of Independence, and it came to a head after too many British ships raided and seized too many American ships. The United States declared war on England, and of course Canada -- as a British Colony -- was drawn into the battle. The U.S. wanted Canada as another state. And once again, the powerful British navy tried to blockade U.S. shipping.
The war ended in 1814 in a relative stalemate, but nothing was done about Gallatin’s proposal until the General Survey Act of 1824 utilized many of his ideas to upgrade, improve, and even construct sections of the waterway. At this same time, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), founded in 1802, was given the responsibility for maintenance and improvements of what would eventually be called the ICW. The U.S. Coast Guard, which was America’s oldest military force founded in 1790, was also assigned certain responsibilities and supporting functions. As a result, some of the Chesapeake section of the waterway was in use as early as 1829.
But then, once again, everything came to a crashing halt during the U.S. Civil War of 1861 to 1865. Following this war, a number of factors came into play. The first was political. In 1882, Congress signed the Rivers and Harbors Appropriations Act designed to improve waterways – not just coastal but on rivers as well to create better flow of goods both inside and outside the states. It was further decreed that waterways thus created would be free of tolls.
The second factor was scientific. The end of the century brought the invention of the diesel engine. By this time, railways had blossomed and were highly competitive, serving almost every portion of the United States. They used every trick in the book, along with some tricks not in the book, to prevent any commerce being transported by boat. The new diesel engines allowed powerful tug-style boats to push and haul massive barges that could carry bulky loads -- far exceeding anything possible on railway cars.
Congress noted this too, and in 1909, under President Theodore Roosevelt, passed the new Rivers and Harbors Act to create a connected set of intracoastal waterways from Boston to Brownsville. The waterway was to be nine feet deep by one hundred feet wide, with the construction to be supervised and then later maintained and managed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Although different sections were worked on depending on the political pull of certain states, it would be a long time until fully completed.
World War I provided some real eye-openers for Congress as the transport of bulk cargo, including farm commodities around the country, was clearly inadequate. As a result, Congress authorized the first use of standardized freight barges. In 1924, it formed and incorporated the Inland Waterways Corporation which began authorizing the construction of various sections of the ICW. Later, the sinking of many merchant ships by German submarines in open water during World War II proved the need for the completion of the ICW.
In 1937, the Okeechobee Waterway (or Canal as it is sometimes called) was built right across Florida both to shorten the distance for boats traversing between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean and to bypass the often difficult passage around the southern tip of the Florida Keys. This cross-Florida waterway extends from Fort Myers on the Gulf side via the Caloosahatchee River, through Lake Okeechobee, and then the St. Lucie Canal east to Stuart on the Atlantic coast. This waterway can handle vessels up to 250-feet in length, 50-feet in beam, and with a draft less than 10-feet. There are a total of five locks on the system.
The ICW as we know it today was finally completed in 1949, almost two hundred years since it was first considered and over one hundred years since the completion of the first section. It still handles considerable commercial bulk cargo on barges, but today it mostly caters to a growing number of pleasure boaters. The designated depth requirement of nine feet had been increased to twelve feet, but the staggering costs of dredging operations has caused this to slip back to six or seven feet in some areas.
With mostly pleasure boaters utilizing both sections of the ICW today, and with many boaters having more time and resources available to them, more are ticking off The Great Loop from their bucket list. The Great Loop is a roughly 6,000 mile (9,700 km) water route utilizing several waterways that takes you around and through some of the most spectacular scenery in Eastern North America. You can start anywhere along the system you choose and end up back at the same spot from whence you started. Once completed, you can then call yourself a “Looper.”
For example, starting in Miami, Florida, take the AIWW north past the Carolinas and the Chesapeake into New York City. Then take the Hudson River north past the United States Military Establishment known as West Point and join the Erie Canal. From there you can carry on either to Buffalo on Lake Erie or via the Oswego Canal into Lake Ontario. You then have a couple of choices -- take the Welland Canal to avoid Niagara Falls into Lake Erie and thence via the Detroit River, Lake St. Clair, and the St. Clair River into Lake Huron. Or, take the 240 mile long (386 km) 45-lock Trent-Severn Waterway from Lake Ontario across Central Ontario into Georgian Bay and Lake Huron.
From Lake Huron, boat north and eventually into Lake Michigan and into Chicago at the southern tip of that lake. The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal will take you eventually to the Illinois River which drains into the Mississippi. Follow the Mississippi River south to New Orleans or better still, up the Ohio River via the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway through to Mobile, Alabama and the Gulf of Mexico. Then head east on the GIWW and south down the Florida coast where you can continue around the Florida Keys and back to Miami, or utilize the Okeechobee Waterway to get to the east coast of Florida and back to where you started in Miami.
I have personally explored most but not all of the ICW and it is simply breathtaking. There is incredible boating throughout its length. It may have taken a while to build, and may have shifted its primary focus through the years, but it is still worth every penny. To say you’ve experienced even one small part of the ICW is a must for every pleasure boater.
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