T&T: Intracoastal waterway naming conventions...

[Bob Austin]

The NOAA small craft series of charts call the waterway along the Gulf Coast
the "Intracoastal Waterway".  There is no Gulf Coast on the charts themselves.
Many of us who live on this waterway, call it the "Gulf Coast Intracoastal
Waterway", but  formally (Corp of Engineers) it is the "Gulf Intracoastal
Waterway".

Mile Zero starts at the Harvey Locks, Mississippi River, New Orleans, and
progress upward each mile both to the East and West.  This is because the
center of commerace historically started at New Orleans.  Mileage is
designated EHL(East of Harvey Locks) or WHL(West of Harvey Locks)

Come on down and let us give you a tour--it is much different than the
Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway!.

As for the stretch along the West Coast of Florida--it has little commerce,
and basically ends at Tarpon springs at Anclote Key, where one must go out
into the Gulf to progress further North or West. There is only open Gulf of
Mexico here.    The same is basically true to the South and West of Ft.
Myers--but you would have to go out of one of the passes around Sanibel
Island.  I have heard this called the "West Coast Florida Intracoastal
Waterway"

Basically the Intracoastal waterways on the Gulf are inside a series of
barrier islands--for the most part.  The Mississippi part has relitatively
small and few barrier Islands.  The Florida Panhandle has many barrier and
long barrier Islands--with a number of engineered cuts.  Although the plans
for a Gulf  Intracoastal waterway was first started about 1819, there was no
real implimentation until 1875 when the first plan was submitted and the  GICW
was not completed until 1949!  There is still a lot of commerce on the Gulf
ICW.  The most is near New Orleans, but even in Pensacola we watched about 3
barges an hour last Sunday as we ate dinner on a restraunt on the ICW.

A map of the waterways of the Corp of Engineers is at:
http://www.usace.army.mil/usace-docs/misc/nws83-10/map.pdf
The official history is at:
http://www.usace.army.mil/usace-docs/misc/nws83-10/c-4.pdf

Bob Austin