Our last day in Apalachicola was awesome!  Mike, Kent, Heather, Ross (Ranger Tug 29) and I all met onshore at the dinghy dock around 3:00 to take our respective walks.  We agreed we’d all meet at the “brew pub” around 4:30.  Mike told me he planned to meet me around 3:40.  I had a beautiful walk around the town and water, and arrived at our favorite pub around 4:10.  I wasn’t surprised Mike wasn’t there yet as his 30 minutes usually means 60 or 90.  Shortly after 5:00, and while into my second beer, Kent came into the bar and advised me that everyone was waiting for me at the “brew pub”…the brewery.  Not the bar.  Oops.  I finished my beer, and met the crowd there.  We all came back to the bar (Ice Company of Apalachicola) after the brewery for a beer and, lo and behold, in comes a dude with a raccoon on his shoulder.  We had seen him around town previously.  Who the hell has a raccoon for a pet????

Wednesday morning, we departed Apilachicola to head to Dog Island which is just south of Carabelle, FL, and a popular launch point to cross the Gulf.  Weather forecast wasn’t great, but looked to be the best window for a while for a gulf crossing.  We arrived Dog Island around 12:30pm.  Winds were howling and the seas were humping as the wind was from the North.  Dropped the hook for a few hours and tried, unsuccessfully, to take a nap.

We departed Dog Island @ 4:00pm 11/28/18.  The trip around Dog Island was lovely, resplendent with dolphins which, to me, are a symbol for a good trip!  Local fisherman had advised many boaters doing the crossing this night to alter course about 16 miles to the East prior to heading south.  We heeded this.  The first hour was great.

Didn’t have a picturesque sunset, but watching the sunset on the water is alway special.  Heartbeat is behind us.

The second and third hour were so so, but with better things to come.  Once we turned toward the south, we had a lovely following sea, and hoped we were in for a good night.  I, unfortunately, was unable to nap before, nor sleep during, our crossing.  Finally, around midnight, I forced Mike to go below to try to get some sleep.  The moon had risen to the East which provided a little light, as it was behind the clouds.  Although the boat was slewing a bit, the seas were mostly following, even with a pretty brisk and consistent ~20 knot wind on our port beam.  Good news was that we were in deep (~50 foot) water, and had very little traffic.  Heartbeat was a quarter mile behind us, and we had radio check-ins with them every 30 minutes.  When you are underway at night, you turn all your lights off, and turn your instruments super low.

There was another group of boats who were an hour or two ahead of us who reported the first crab pot sighting…40 miles from shore!  F**k!  This was maybe 5:00am.  The next 5 hours absolutely sucked.  Trying to see, and dodge, crab pots, while in a super shitty, rolling sea with no sleep was super not fun.

Because of the clouds, the sky didn’t brighten until almost 7:00.  When it did, it was lovely.

We saw a ton of dolphins during sunrise which is always amazing. It was exhausting navigating around the minefields of crab pots while facing into the sun in a choppy, roll sea.  Needless to say, Mary was not a happy camper during this part of the trip.  Mike was a boy scout as usual, but even he (I think) tired of it a bit.

Really fortunate neither of us suffers from mal de mer!

Because of our following sea, we arrived close to Tarpon Springs right around low tide.  Mike and I decided to drop the hook adjacent to one of the cays just before the entrance as we were too damn tired to deal with coming into the river during low tide.  When we say “low tide,” we mean maybe a foot or so of water under our keel! We dropped the hook at Anclote Cay at 11:30, had an anchor watch beer, then took a nap for a couple hours.  Picked up anchor at 3:00 and traveled along the Anclote River toward Tarpon Springs.  Arrived Turtle Cove Marina @ 4:00pm after a 153 nautical mile trip.  Interesting mangroves during the river.

Met up with the crew of Heartbeat and Alysana and walked to the Rusty Belly in Tarpon Springs for Dinner.  We were all so punch drunk, but had a great dinner.  Kent pretty much articulates what we were all feeling.

Tarpon Springs is a super cool little town, with an unparalleled history in sponge fishing.  The town is heavily influenced by Greek immigrants.

St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church:

On Thursday, our dear friend Jim Bumiller, a Florida native who had a stint in So Cal for a time, came and had lunch with us.  Was SO awesome to see him.  We will hook up with him again this week.  Saturday night, Mike and I took the trolley with John and Gina on Alysana down to Dunedin to watch the Christmas boat parade.  Went to a lovely bar on a blustery but warm evening where there was wonderful live music and cold drinks.

The marina where we all stayed was right across the water from Hellas Bakery.  Early in the morning, you would smell all the sweet deliciousness coming from the bakery and have a hankering for sweets the entire day.  One night, Mike and I went to Hellas and had a dessert for dinner.  It was absolutely perfect.

Tarpon Springs was adorable at night too.

Last night, had an amazing dinner with John and Gina.  John opened up some amazing, and beautifully aged, bottles of wine.  Incredible wine with truly wonderful people.  We have met some fabulous folks on this trip.

Although the weather has been super windy, we took off this morning to head to Clearwater.  Unfortunately, our previously clean boat was again glazed like a donut.  🙁  Nonetheless, an interesting trip south.  Here are some pelicans hanging out in the mangroves.

After a brief bash south, we arrived in Clearwater around 2:10.  Dropped the hook in South Clearwater Harbor.  Was not happy with that, so picked it up and re anchored a bit north.  Wind was blowing over 20 knots with made for crummy anchoring.  Finally got set, had our anchor beer out of our new beer fridge…oh wait!  I forget to mention our new beer fridge!  One of the reasons we stayed in Tarpon Springs so long…Mike had to electrically plumb our new fridge.  This will open up SO much space for me in our actual fridge, and keep our beer and champers oh so cold.  I’m very excited about it!  We even bought it its own blanket!

This, my friends, is over 30 beers, a bottle of bubbles, a bottle of wine, and 6 bottles of sparkling water!  All at a lovely temperature of 34 degrees!  It’s the little things.

Mike working on wiring it.  God love him!

Had a beautiful sunset in Clearwater.

Had Kent and Heather over for amazingly marinated tri tip.  A great day!  Still blowing a bit, but hoping for a good night.  Cheers!  M&M