Nows and Forevers

One of the things I hate most about living inland is being far from the sea.

I am two hours from a Great Lake, but it’s not quite the same as the Atlantic and Pacific oceans I grew up along. And for this week or so only, I am back close to the Atlantic and I have been taking advantage of it as much as I can.

But one of the things that I don’t really have my arms around is the Intercoastal Waterway, which is an inland waterway route that stretches from the Florida Keys all the way up to, purportedly, Massachusetts. (It’s, er, complicated.)

And yet here it is, in front of me, an unwinding river way two boats (or more) wide, with docks and all the trappings of the ocean without natural waves. The only waves are the ones from the boats, some of them quite large, that pass by, like right now.

According to the sign, it goes from Massachusetts Bay to Key West. Although I had only been vaguely aware of it before I encountered it in South Carolina about two decades ago. My bad: I have barely been that way. I am a Northeast kinda guy.

It does look like fun, though.