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| Preparation for Thanksgiving including picking wild cranberries for the sauce. |
Three weeks back in Maine included a wonderful week-long visit by our daughter Elizabeth, Matt and granddaughter Charlotte, Thanksgiving, a beautiful wedding of our daughter Caroline and Noah, and a snow storm. Our trip back to Salty Paws included travel by car to Canton, MA to visit Caroline and Noah, by train and bus to Logan, by air to Atlanta, subway to visit Elizabeth and family and rental car back to Orange Beach, AL. Phew!
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| The wedding couple. |
In our absence Salty Paws seemed to misplace various items, and it took us a couple of days to reacclimatize to the boat. Before us was 250 miles in mostly protected waters in the Florida Panhandle to reach Carrabelle, the launch point for the often challenging 170 mile open water passage across the Gulf of Mexico to Tarpon Springs, FL. This passage requires an acceptable weather window, and we subscribe to Marv’s Weather Service that includes a long-range forecast and passage recommendations. It did not look good, but there was a possible weather window for 12/15 or maybe not until 12/24 or maybe not at all in the foreseeable future.
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| The Fort Walton Beach dock included the first evidence of last year's Hurricane Matthew as we shared our slip with a sunken boat. |
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| We strolled around Fort Walton Beach in 45 degree weather. We metlocal John McGee who treated us to dinner. |
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| Evidence of Matthew was even more apparent as we approached Panama City. |
The miserable weather didn’t help Molly’s spirits as she began having anxiety over the coming open water crossing. After a night and cold walk around Fort Walton Beach we took off to test the waters of 25-mile long Choctawhatchee Bay only to find quite uncomfortable conditions in the 15-20 knot winds.
After just a few miles we took a rough detour to go into the safe harbor of Destin and spent the rest of the rainy day and night at anchor. This provided more time to fret about the passage across the Gulf. I began communicating with other Loopers on their plans, and a meeting in Carrabelle was scheduled for Friday the 13th (!) to discuss the possible passage. We traveled 90 miles each of the next two days, including a lunch stopover in the interesting town of Apalachicola and finally arrived in Carrabelle in time for gathering with cruisers from 10 or so boats.
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| The restaurant had the only old sink filled with ice urinal I have ever seen! |
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| We much enjoyed our southern lunch at the Hole in Wall in Apalachicola. |
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| In preparation for the passage we moved things from the cockpit and cabin to the v-berth. |
We compared weather forecasts (NOAA, Marv, Chris Parker) and passage recommendations. The forecast suggested a possible weather window from late Saturday afternoon into Sunday. Waves would be decreasing from over 5 feet to 2 feet or so and the winds would go from 15 knots to 5 knots and shift from the west to the east. The conditions were far from ideal, and there was also the concern that “group think” might result in an unwise decision as some of the boats had already been waiting for a week to make the passage. We did work out a tentative plan and included radio check-ins each hour and other safety precautions such as wearing life jackets and having an EPIRB that automoatically alerts the U.S. Coast Guard.
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| Not know if we would be going fast or slow, we brought extra gas so that we would have a 30% reserve with most anything that would happen. As it turned out, we didn't need any of it. |
Most of the boats are trawlers, typically traveling at a maximum speed of 8-10 mph. The passage usually takes 20-24 hours with a recommended late afternoon departure in order to arrive at Tarpon Springs in the afternoon. A morning arrival is not recommended because the sun will make it much more difficult to dodge the many crab pots that dot the waters 20 miles out from the Florida west coast. A few boats, including Salty Paws, can go fast, but we get significantly lower gas mileage and the sea conditions would likely have us go typical trawler speed anyway.
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| The TowBoat US boat in Carrabelle was being decorated with their Christmas Boat parade as we left the dock. Later, it would seem that evenings celebration may have slowed the response time to the disabled boat, Dancing Bears. |
With some trepidation, and knowing that we could always turn back,
Soon it was dark, and we decided to head north of the desired rhumb line to Tarpon Springs so that the seas were coming more aft rather than broadside. This separated us from our desired buddy boat, Short Vacation, but other boats were behind us doing the same thing.
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| The sun went down quickly as we began to get off shore. |
About 25 miles out, the boat Dancing Bears radioed
that they had smoke in their cabin and that their engine had overheated. They requested that boats stand by to offer
possible assistance. Dancing Bears was about
2 miles behind us, and soon they were bouncing around, dead in the water. We and other boats turned around, only to
face very rough sea conditions with the wind on our bow. Fortunately, first Bella Donna and then
Samantha, ended up close to Dancing Bears, and coordinated calls to the U.S.
Coast Guard and TowBoat US.
Dancing Bears, as it turned out had an inexperienced owner of his newly purchased boat, and one crew member, now seasick. In addition, they should never have left the dock as a low voltage alarm had been sounding. Their radio seemed to be malfunctioning (although it was likely that the squelch was set to max, eliminating their ability to hear much communication), and they needed guidance as to what to do. They were told to anchor in the 60 feet of water and await a tow, which was still 4 hours away.
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| Our actual route across. |
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| At one point a large orange spec appeared on the horizon. It proved to be the moon, which lit the seas all night. |
We now found ourselves alone and soon out of radio
contact but we did do hourly GPS text messages with Samantha as we both had the
Garmin inReach service. The crossing was
uncomfortable, but Molly’s anxiety had dissipated. She did her share of being at the helm, and
we were both appreciative of the autopilot.
Hand steering in the dark requires constant attention to the compass,
and the boat can easily go way of course in just a few seconds.
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| Dawn! |
Suddenly, two large rogue waves in succession hit our boat, knocking out all power. We were able to continue, but now hand steering by compass. Molly took the helm while I checked the fuse panel, boat battery connections.
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| Buoy R4 marks a successful crossing. |
Finally, at 12:30 pm we reached red buoy R4, the common navigation target north of Tarpon Springs. In an hour we were anchored off the southern end of Anclote Keys. We celebrated with a mid-day cocktail, lunch and then a nap. Mine lasted 3 hours.
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| Molly slept for 15 hours! |
All anxiety is behind us. We know that our little boat can take a lot. We had dinner last night with some of the other intrepid boaters who made the same crossing for a debriefing. We shared stories and had many laughs with new friends. We are now ready to enjoy the Florida Coast.
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| The next day we went into Tarpon Springs and joined many of our larger Looper buddies at the dock. |
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| Here with Diana and Duane from Bella Donna next to a Tarpon Springs sponge boat. It was a wonderful 90 degrees. More to come on the next blog post. |
