My sister Elizabeth and I (Katie) are circumnavigating the eastern third of the United States in an open hull 16-foot aluminum Duroboat. The 6,000-mile route, known to boaters as “The Great Loop,” is a full, counter clockwise circuit, down the Mississippi river, the Tenn-Tombigbee waterway, into the Gulf Coast, around Florida, up the eastern seaboard, through Canada, and across the Great Lakes.