What is the probability of paddling down the Mississippi river from St. Louis to Belize? I know this can be done, just wanted some feedback.
Choosing the right material for the
deck reinforcement at the machine gun mounting plate will be important. I would choose my stops carefully in the U.S. as well, it seems an expeditioner last year was rolled in some jerk water along the Miss. On the other hand, what great adventure has been without risk? I would just rather it came from mother nature, but I suppose drug cartels are part of mother nature too. Bill
Read Don Starkell’s book
Paddle to the Amazon. Its been done. Who is Don Starkell?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Starkell
Its much easier to fly down and rent a Wenonah Kevlar canoe in Belize City. They have a neat trans Belize race.
also see…
Verlen Kruger’s “Two Continent Canoe Expedition”.
That one went from the Arctic to Cape Horn.
probability is an excuse
St. Louis to the Gulf . . .
. . . is not bad. Very industrial, lots of barge traffic. Ocean going ships after Baton Rouge. After you get to the gulf fresh water to drink is probably the limiting factor.
You can go inside (intercoastal waterway) all the way to Brownsville.
Too bad Cuba’s no go
because otherwise I’d say the better route would be down the Mississippi to the ICW, take the ICW east to Florida, take the Florida Gulf Coast to the Keys, and the Keys across to Cuba. Then truck it to Guantanamo, then across the Windward Passage to northern Haiti, then truck it quickly through Haiti, through DR down to the southeast tip of the DR, then across the Puerto Rico, truck it across PR, and then island hop as far as you want to go - down even to Venezuela.
nice route
Going over towards Puerto Rico seems a little circuitous but hey, why not?
I’d be more inclined to follow the mexican coast but i don’t know how the beheading situation is though there.
The Keys to Cuba then across the Yucatan Channel would offer those nice crossing challenges if your into that kinda thing.
Probability?
Well… the lower the probability of success, the sweeter the victory, eh!
Well, first off…
The Mississippi doesn’t go to Belize! Geez…
Second… TAKE ME! TAKE ME!!
Paddle easy,
Coffee
I was thinking along the lines of
– Last Updated: Mar-11-11 10:39 AM EST –
limiting the distance of each blue water passage to a manageable amount, also while maximizing the coolness of the stops along the way. I'd do the Yucatan Channel in a sailboat, but not in a kayak. I've done a fair bit of cruising in the Virgin Islands (also in the Leewards), and it's just one after the other short protected passages between cool little islands with great anchorages, and many with great beach bars, like the Soggy Dollar Bar, the Bitter End Yacht Club, or Foxy's on Jost Van Dyke. On the other hand, I live on the Texas Gulf Coast, and have done a lot of cruising on that coast, and while there are some cute towns, they are separated by a whole lot of nothing (especially when you get to the South Texas coast, or refinery towns like Freeport and Corpus. Then, from about Kenedy County in south Texas until at least southern Tamaulipas state in Mexico, I'd want to be way out in blue water to avoid drug traffickers. And there is very little in the way of places you'd want to stop and reprovision in Tamaulipas. Other than little fishing villages, Tampico is kind of it, but it's pretty dangerous right now. Once you get to Veracruz, things start to get cool, but there is a lot of boringness, then inhospitable landscape with few places to stop, and also danger of drug violence before you get there. Not an ideal trip.
three times for sure
Don starkell all the way to Belum Venuseula
Kruger…from Arctic Ocean to tip of Cape Horn.
Two Irish guys from Winnepeg to Belum about 10 years ago.
http://www.krugercanoes.com/pr03.htm
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