The Crossing

The weather wasn’t great last Thursday but we knew it wasn’t going to get any better for a few days so we decided to go for it and left at 11:11am. We’d been at Scipio Creek Marina for five days and felt that was a couple days too long already. Besides we’d already eaten at Papa Joe’s. Evidently you haven’t experienced Apalachicola if you haven’t eaten at Papa Joe’s Oyster Bar and Grill. Our dock was adjacent to the restaurant so we almost had to go there once. We could only get wifi service by taking our laptop up to the marina office and the shower/bathroom facilities were pretty crummy, so we were ready to go. Paul’s brother, Jim, had joined us on Monday for the trip across the Gulf of Mexico. He has owned several sailboats in the past, so it was great to have another experienced crewman on board. Em was especially happy to have him along so she didn’t have to be out in the cockpit during the coldest part of the night!



We had one bridge to clear in Apalachicola Bay. The channel heading out to the Gulf must have silted in from the storms earlier in the week because we definitely hit the bottom IN the channel (again). Heading through the Government Cut in St. George Island was pretty exciting. The waves coming through there were huge and the seas were very confused from the stormy weather the previous few days. So we started off with water pouring in under the dodger; we’ve found that when things get soaked with salt water they never really dry out until they’re washed in fresh water.

Our heading was 130 degrees to the southeast with a destination of Tarpon Springs. The wind speed was variable from 15 knots down to 5 knots and the seas were confused and we couldn’t make very good headway by sail alone so we kept the engine running. The winds eventually settled on a 10-15 knot northwesterly direction, primarily off our aft quarter. After trying to use both sails, then the main only, we found just having the genoa partially furled worked the best. The seas were still 5-6 feet with a few bigger ones occasionally passing by so it was a rolling ride. The good thing was the waves were pushing us along so the engine didn’t work too hard to keep our speed in the 6 to 6.5 knot range.

After entering the Gulf of Mexico we didn’t see any boats. We had heard that when it got dark you would be surprised how many lights from other boats you would see, we didn’t see any! We were hoping the moon would be out to help light our way but after flirting with us for a few minutes the clouds obscured the moon. We had a little light coming through the clouds, but not much. The moon went down about 2 am and it was also misting a bit so it really got dark, like pitch black! We have never experienced such darkness before. We just had to have faith that we wouldn’t hit anything, which we didn’t. We did shine our spotlights occasionally, but that really didn’t help very much. Em was reminded of a scripture verse she had found earlier in the week – Psalm 139 verse 12: “Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” Very comforting!

We were rolling so much because of the wave action it made it difficult to stay down in the cabin for very long without getting a bit queasy, so we all spent most of the night up in the cockpit taking naps when we could. The food Em had prepared for the journey wasn't so appealing somehow and we mostly just had small snacks. Paul and Jim switched off taking turns at the helm every hour or so. We had the autopilot engaged so being at the helm mostly involved monitoring that everything was alright and making minor course adjustments because of the wave action. It was a long night but didn't seem endless like I thought it might. Sunrise was not until 7:25 am and it really didn’t start getting light until about 6:30 am. No gorgeous sunset or sunrise to photo as I had hoped, sorry!

We had also been told to watch out for the floats for crab pots when we got closer to Tarpon Springs. We weren’t too concerned about them when it was dark because the water depth was about 100 feet which we figured was too deep to be placing them. After it got light the water depth dropped to about 45 feet and we started to encounter the floats. We had to dodge them for about 20 miles until we got past Anclote Island, the barrier island near Tarpon Springs. We didn’t hit any floats, but came really close a few times.

We got to our waypoint at Anclote Island at about 11 am having gone 150 nautical miles about 24 hours after leaving Apalachicola. Needless to say for us it was a record for a non- stop trip, about three times the distance across Lake Michigan.

The trip wasn’t over yet, however. We had to travel around Anclote Island to the channel to take us up the Anclote River approximately 5 miles until we actually got to Tarpon Springs. We tied up to the city dock at about 1pm, had lunch and went to bed!


Some of the interesting sights we saw on our way into Tarpon Springs!


This is a statue to honor the sponge fishermen of the area. Tarpon Springs is well known for the harvesting and sale of sponges. There's a heavy Greek influence and tons of Greek restaurants. We enjoyed two of them: Mykonos and Mr. Souvlaki's.

We moved to Anclote Isles Marina on Saturday and have been here the past two nights. Here's some pictures of the extreme low tide due to the full moon and high winds. We think the water will be up enough so we can make it out of here by noon. There was a dandy storm on Saturday night, torrential rains and high winds out of the north so the water was blown right out of the marina! We're heading for Clearwater, FL where Jim will rent a car to go back to the comforts of home. Thanks again Jim!



We got to watch the Packer - Giants playoff game on the boat last night and are bummed along with all the Packer faithful at the outcome. But what an unexpectedly great season they had!