Maps with blue along shore fading to white or no color off-shore

[#1]

Hello

I am rather new to Illustrator and only have the CS3 version.

I am working on making some map illustrations for a publication. The land mass delineated with a black stroke will be filled with a light brown color. For the water around to land mass, I want to have a slight blur of light blue right along the coast fading into a white or even an empty swatch color further away from the land mass. I don’t necessarily have a border around the entire map, but I guess I could if that was necessary.

Can anyone help me do this?

Much appreciated!

[#2]

Try Outer Glow.

Or create a brush for it. Note that there can't be gradients inside a brush. You will need to create a blend instead.