We woke in Apalachicola after a rough night, still struggling with COVID, but Karen and Rob said that it was a good day to head to Carrabelle and we felt capable of making the run. There was a haze in the air that was almost foggy but it was not too bad so we were off. We were advised by the marina in Carrabelle to arrive at slack tide, which would be around noon. In an effort to time our arrival accordingly, we did some of the run at 8 knots and some a little faster, which also helped to manage the sea conditions. The run is fairly open to the Gulf of Mexico and it got a little uncomfortable for us. The point of timing your arrival is that there is a river in the channel with a current, then a current from the flow of the tide, and then wind. We were going to fill up with diesel before we docked but we had to tie up and wait and then relocate to the fuel dock so we just decided to do it later. That was a mistake. That meant that we were in advance of slack tide for docking. Cam got the boat all lined up to dock and started backing in and we just blew down the channel, carried along with the tide. We tried again, and again. Then Cam finally used the post at the end of our slip to pivot the boat in and I managed to get a couple of lines to the two men on the dock who had to pull like crazy to get our stern in. We spent ages tying up our lines as the tide was three feet with the current against our beam. We would need to adjust our lines daily. This was easily our most challenging docking on our entire loop! This section of our trip is covered in our video called Apalachicola to Carrabelle.
We would be in Carrabelle for eight days waiting for a good window to cross the Gulf of Mexico. We laid low for a couple more days to quarantine according to the COVID rules at the time, visiting with people on the dock from our boat. The first day we couldn't even get off our boat until early afternoon! The tide and current were so strong that we were more than three feet off the dock and we could not pull ourselves in. The tide peeked at a four feet while we were there. On one day that was pretty calm, we thought we would take advantage of slack tide and go and get fuel and a pump out. We were untying lines when they told us that there was a boat on the way in and they would be getting fuel before us. Clearly, the incoming boats had priority, and after watching several boats arrive, go to the fuel dock, and then attempt docking, we decided to abort. We would get our exercise walking to the restrooms on shore and get our fuel at our departure time.
There was not a lot to do in Carrabelle and we did it all. One day we walked to the World's Smallest Police Station...a phone booth! Apparently, one of the two police officers in the town would sit by a phone in a call box on the wall of a building waiting for calls. If he had to take a call, he might get rained on. Eventually, they put it in a phone booth in the shade so he wouldn't be exposed to the elements when using the phone and could sit in the shade watching for speeders while listening for calls. Unfortunately, people would sometimes use the phone to make unauthorized long distance calls so they eventually removed the dial so they could only receive incoming calls.
The next day, Heather went with Off Leash and Water Witch and found four gift stores and two hardware stores in town to explore. One night, we went to dinner with Karen and Rob at the Fisherman's Wife. Cam and I shared the seafood platter which was pretty good. After dinner we came back and played pool in the club house. Another night we went with about 20 Loopers to the Fathoms restaurant. Cam enjoyed shrimp and grits and Heather had a feast of crab legs.
Cam has really been struggling with dizzy spells. We're not sure if it was triggered by COVID or something else. He feels completely better and then it hits again! He hasn't felt up to much and it has been frustrating! We did go back to a couple of the shops in town and we found a dolphin sculpture on an artistic polished would base. It's a lovely keepsake. On our last day, we got the bikes out and biked across the bridge to the lighthouse with Off Leash. We ran into Todd and Mary from Liming there and they joined us for the rest of our touring. There was a little market at the lighthouse and Cam bought a cinnamon bun and some pound cake. There was a gift shop in the lighthouse museum and Heather found a Christmas lighthouse. The top lifts off and so it is now filled with life saver mints...what other mints would you serve on a boat? It appears to be second hand and originally came full of candies.
From there we all biked to the beach, sunk our feet in the sand and our toes in the ocean! Our final stop was the Camp Gordon Johnston WWII Museum. While it was a very small town museum, it was interesting as the troops trained on the beaches here for the invasion of Normandy. Once we returned we had a final grocery run and Cam picked up a smoked port butt that we split with Off Leash. A group was doing a fundraiser for the town and you could smell them smoking the pork butts for quite a distance. We literally followed our noses to find them!
After six days we were forming a plan. We subscribed to Eddie's Weather WAG from the AGLCA and Marv's Weather, and we spoke to Kim at C-Quarters Marina. Kim is a captain with a lot of experience crossing the Gulf and interpreting the weather. We had met with other Loopers in the lounge at 4 PM for a few days discussing the weather, and who wanted to go where. There are roughly three options: cross overnight leaving around 3 or 4 PM, running around 7-8 knots, and arrive around 10 AM at the entrance to Tarpon Springs or Clearwater; cross in the daytime over two or three travel days following the Big Bend route and stopping in Steinhatchie and Crystal River; or do a fast daytime crossing from Dog Island to Tarpon Springs or Clearwater. For us the plan was shaping up well for a fast day crossing to Clearwater on Monday with Off Leash and Liming, who we met in Orange Beach. Egret was planning a fast crossing but heading for Anclote Key, an anchorage near Tarpon Springs. They didn't have a buddy boat for the crossing so we planned to maintain radio contact with them as long as we could. They would be leaving later than us too as their boat is much faster. As it turned out, they were out of radio contact the whole time but we did receive a couple of text messages while they had cell signal.
We finally headed over to the fuel docks for a pumpout, diesel, and dinghy fuel. We were expecting rain around noon so we went around 11 AM and it absolutely poured rain while we were there! Weather predicting is not that precise! We hung out waiting for the rain to stop and that was enough time for Cam to buy a t-shirt to commemorate our Gulf Crossing. Then we headed out to Dog Island to stage for our crossing the next morning. We took the dinghy to shore on the island and enjoyed a great beach walk and lots of shell collecting. Then we connected with a few of the other boats. Around 3 PM, we watched a parade of 14 boats leaving to do the overnight crossing. Will 'n Joy reported back that there was a slight swell but it was very comfortable. We packed our ditch bag and made food for the long day ahead. The tough part would be getting sleep!
The Gulf Crossing
We were up at 4:15 AM to get the coffee and tea going. It was absolutely pitch black out. Cam used the red lights on the bridge so as not to ruin his night vision and Heather had to wear the head lantern to see well enough to bring up the anchor. The original plan was for us to take the lead of the three boats but we were the last to get our anchor secured so we pulled up the rear instead. We followed our charts closely, running with our radar on, and the only things we could see were the lights of Off Leash and Liming, and the flashing red lights on the buoys. Some of the green buoys had lights, but not all. Once we were out of the channel, we ran at 9-10 knots until sunrise. The sunrise was beautiful with the sun peaking out between the clouds.
Before we sped up, we had a nasty task to complete. It is legal to dump your black water tank, or the poop tank, when you are more than three miles off coastal waters. We would have to do this in the Bahamas as there's almost no facilities for pumping out there so we needed to ensure that ours would work. We did our first black water overboard discharge and it worked perfectly! Before leaving, our three boats decided to go at 18 mph. We brought our engine up to 2400 rpm and the most we managed was 17.7 mph. The seas were flat with a slight swell. After a while it picked up to a half foot chop. While the conditions slowed us down a bit, our timing would still be good. It was essentially perfect crossing conditions!
While underway, Cam did an engine check and discovered a lot of water in the bilge. He stuck his phone behind the engine to video record it and discovered that the water pump on the starboard engine was squirting water! This meant that we needed to do very regular engine checks, and keep an eagle eye on the engine temperature. Cam jerry-rigged the emergency bilge switch so he didn't have to stay in the engine room and hold it the whole time. We were able to talk to Scott Whalley, who was travelling with Off Leash, so we felt confident that we were okay to continue. I had hoped to take a nap, but that did not happen with such frequent engine checks!
Later in the day, Rob slowed down to do his overboard discharge so we slowed as well. Suddenly, a pod of dolphins swam directly to our bow! Cam got some great footage of them swimming along in our bow wake for about 15 minutes! It was so cool! I guess we were going at the perfect speed for them. They seemed to just glide and play as they moved along with the boat making very little effort to keep pace with us. It's pretty cool to watch this in our video called The Big Crossing.
For most of the trip the water was a half to one foot chop. For a short time we had some 1.5 to 2 foot chop but it was all very manageable. On our approach to Clearwater through the channel we were literally slaloming around the crab pots! We had been warned about the crab pots and we were on high alert. They usually appeared in a line, but sometimes there were multiple lines of them which intersected. We were happy to be done with those and we finally reached the harbour entrance and slowed down. After 11.25 hours, we pulled up to our slip at the end of a t-head, and docked, unassisted, at 4:15 PM. Not bad! Then we caught Off Leash's lines and helped them tie up.
After some boat tidying, we went to dinner with Off Leash, their crew, and Will'n Joy, who did the overnight crossing. We were exhausted, plus Heather had a bad case of disembarkation syndrome. That means that she was pretty dizzy and rocky following the long trip and had to hold onto Cam to walk on the dock. Anyway, we were all happy to celebrate after the 170 mile crossing!
Comentarios