John Cletheroe's
USA and Canada Holiday Hints

Intracoastal Waterway

The Intracoastal Waterway is a navigable interconnected thread of passages running between the mainland and offshore islands, along rivers, through lakes, lagoons, bays and canals, stretching for over 2500 miles around the southern and southeastern coast of the USA.

The Intracoastal Waterway is in two sections. One section, the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, runs between Brownsville on the southernmost tip of Texas to Apalachee Bay in northwestern Florida. The other section, the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, runs from Key West on the tip of the Florida Keys up the east coast of the USA to Boston, Massachusetts. The Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway includes the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and the Cape Cod Canal.

The Intracoastal Waterway is suitable for barges and other shipping with a shallow draft. It can cope with vessels requiring a channel depth of eight feet for most (probably all) of its length and twelve feet for a considerable part of its length.

I do not know for certain whether recreational vessels can use the Intracoastal Waterway but I suspect that this is probably the case. If so, then I have no idea if any charges apply.

The route of the Intracoastal Waterway from New York to Brownsville is marked on many good maps of the USA, for example on most (possibly all) editions of the Rand McNally Road Atlas.

The Intracoastal Waterway is operated by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, who are also responsible for many other major civil engineering works including numerous large dams and associated locks.

Alabama