Doing the Loop is such a huge topic that I'd recommend watching lots of YouTube videos posted by those who are doing it, or recently done it. Years ago when we bought our first bigger boat and started thinking about the Loop someday, YouTube blogs (or "vlogs") by Loopers weren't nearly as common as they are now, but now there are piles of them out there. In fact watching videos and reading a lot eventually made us decide to skip the bottom half, concluding that we could spend the rest of our lives just from Duluth and "over the top" to say Chesapeake Bay, and never get to the bottom half. I've always thought though that even if I could single-hand (although locks sure don't look easy to solo), if my wife and maybe our boys aren't with me, that would be a lonely trip. I'm no Moitessier or Joshua Slocum.