Date: January 23, 2014
Day on the Cruise: 216
From: The Moorings Marina, Carrabelle, FL
To: Sea Hag Marina, Steinhatchee, FL
Statute Miles: 85.2 SM
Time: 8.67 Hrs
Cumulative Miles: 5,459.8 SM
On Board: Susan, Chuck, Maggie, Trooper, Peanut
Note: I updated yesterday's Blog to talk about our decision to scrub the direct crossing for last night and pursue Plan B! Please read.
Tonight we are at Sea Hag Marina at Steinhatchee, FL. We have crossed the Gulf!
I did not sleep well last night. I realized at some point during the night, that we were taking our boats on a route that might not be for everyone. My concerns? How fast these boats could go and the limited amount of daylight available at this time of year.
The ride from Carrabelle to Steinhatchee was doable for all the boats with us. The route down the West Coast of Florida from Steinhatchee to Tarpon Springs is different. The first Marina from Steinhatchee South would be at Crystal River which, dock to dock, is 100 miles. Add the difficulty of getting out to the Gulf from Steinhatchee and getting into the town of Crystal River from the Gulf, and all of our boats had to be able to kick up their speed to do the trip in the daylight.
Tossing and turning last night, I was worried that we would get "Perrigrine" and maybe "Free at Last" into a jamb once we got to Steinhatchee. So, I began to question Plan B.
Up at 5:00 this morning, adrenaline flowing. I emailed Rick on Sun Gyspy and suggested that we had to get a face to face commitment from Ron on Perregrine and Steve on Free at Last to run the speed and burn the fuel that would have them with us.
Outside in the freezing cold at 6:00 AM, the four of us met on Steve's boat to do a final check of the weather and get buy-in and understanding of life beyond Steinhatchee. Weather was still OK, maybe a little better than it was last night. Tom Conrad had weighed in at Rick's request and suggested that we should stay North of Dog Island and hold along the Northern Coast before we turned South to Steinhatchee at noon. We did not think that this idea would get us to Steinhatchee before dark. The weather was predicted to be not as rough at the beginning of the trip as it was predicted yesterday. Still going to rock and roll in the middle of the Gulf. Flat at the end.
Rick put the speed commitment to Ron and Steve. No problem with Steve. His boat can do 10 mph if it has to, but like Blue Moon, it comes with a huge downside on fuel burn. Not so with Ron. He can't get close to 10 mph. Man, I just didn't want to see us get him to Steinhatchee then not be able to get him to Crystal River and then Tarpon Springs in the daylight in order to get into the Rivers leading to the marinas.
When Ron said he could not travel the speed needed, I just recommended to him that he not do Plan B. I think he understood. He had just started the Loop at Pensacola. His boat was new to he and Kathryn. He had not seen it perform in much of any kind of conditions, let alone being in the Gulf in waves and wind. Reluctantly, he stayed behind.
"Free at Last" and "Sun Gypsy" left about 6:30 and 7:00 respectively. I got a pump out with the cold-sensitive pump at the Marina, then caught up to Sun Gypsy as she entered the Sound from the Carrabelle River. The sun was just coming up at 7:30, but we could see OK at 7:15. As we left the River, there was a dang sail boat anchored in the channel for the night just as pretty as you please. SMH!
The seas were fine going through the East Pass and into the Gulf. Blue Moon took a course South at the Pass to Red Buoy 2. From there, we struck a course of about 100 degrees to a waypoint that we had set about 10 miles West of the entrance channel to Steinhatchee. This gave us a 62 mile leg across the upper Northeast corner of the Gulf.
Sun Gypsy traveled a mile and a half or two miles Northeast of me. I could see them the entire trip. Free at Last traveled in front of me, again by about a mile and a half, and I eventually passed them before we got to the Steinhatchee channel.
We started out in the Lee of Dog island, and the wind was blowing from the Northeast. Once we got out of the protection of Dog island, the wind picked up and the waves started to white cap. We thought the wind was blowing at 15-20 mph here. The waves gradually picked up. It was hard to tell what were waves and what were swells. I could see them rolling across our path from the NE to the SW. We took them on the forward port quarter, and they rolled us some. The swells were 3' at least with some bigger ones mixed in. We took a lot of spray across the fly bridge as we had in Currituck Sound in Virginia, but the boat was not pounding as much as we had been in the Chesapeake and in lake Michigan.
It was rough out there. We had to hang on, but Susan was able to go down into the cabin occasionally. We did not think it was as rough as the Chesapeake or Lake Erie, or Lake Michigan. It was probably more like Currituck rough. Still, Blue Moon does not like rough water nor do her owners!
Maggie stayed with us on the fly bridge. We put her in her life jacket and zipped the door closed to the stairs going below. We managed to keep her contained except for once toward the end of the trip. She panted a lot during the rough stuff. Maggie does not like rough water either.
From 11:45 to Noon, and at 40-42 miles from the Moorings, we started seeing strings of crab pots out in the middle of the Gulf. We did our crab pot weave and missed them.
At 12:35 PM, and 50 miles into the trip, the wind and the waves started to calm down, and it just kept getting better and better. Soon after this, the wind died down, and the seas became flat like the bay. A great ride!
We made our first waypoint right on the money, and then started to get into more and more crab pots. At first they were on strings that were more or less predictable. For the last few miles before we got to the channel, it looked like the pots had been dropped like carpet bombs. No rime or reason! They were everywhere. We did the crab pot weave for almost an hour.
Then it was into a very well marked channel that took us about 5 miles to greater downtown Steinhatchee and the Sea Hag Marina, where we docked at 4:10 PM. Sea Hag was expecting us. They had dock hands out and helped us tie up and refuel. Yes, Blue Moon did burn some fuel on the trip over! The docks at Sea Hag are floating and are MUCH better than those awful fingers at The Moorings. Much easier to get on and off the boat! Especially for Maggie and her Old Man!
Susan volunteered to rinse off the boat. It was CAKED with Salt. We haven't been in salt water since last June going around Sandy Hook into the Verazanno Narrows at New York. Today was some of the heaviest salt buildup that we had ever seen. It came right off with a thorough rinsing. Is the Gulf saltier than the Atlantic? Any takers on this one?
Rick and Leila had us over for docktails on Sun Gypsy where Rick made Margarita's. Steve and Meredith and son Ricky were there also. Ricky flies back to Cali tomorrow from Tampa. It was nice being able to get to know him. It was also great that he got to cross the Gulf, albeit on Plan B! Good luck on future endeavors, Ricky!
No one has to rock us to sleep tonight. It is very cold here and may go down to freezing. We are warm in the boat and much happier to have finished our blue water crossing of the Gulf.
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| Route of Gulf Crossing from Carrabelle to Steinhatchee |
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| Here we are at the Sea Hag Marina in Steinhatchee, FL |
I did not sleep well last night. I realized at some point during the night, that we were taking our boats on a route that might not be for everyone. My concerns? How fast these boats could go and the limited amount of daylight available at this time of year.
The ride from Carrabelle to Steinhatchee was doable for all the boats with us. The route down the West Coast of Florida from Steinhatchee to Tarpon Springs is different. The first Marina from Steinhatchee South would be at Crystal River which, dock to dock, is 100 miles. Add the difficulty of getting out to the Gulf from Steinhatchee and getting into the town of Crystal River from the Gulf, and all of our boats had to be able to kick up their speed to do the trip in the daylight.
Tossing and turning last night, I was worried that we would get "Perrigrine" and maybe "Free at Last" into a jamb once we got to Steinhatchee. So, I began to question Plan B.
Up at 5:00 this morning, adrenaline flowing. I emailed Rick on Sun Gyspy and suggested that we had to get a face to face commitment from Ron on Perregrine and Steve on Free at Last to run the speed and burn the fuel that would have them with us.
Outside in the freezing cold at 6:00 AM, the four of us met on Steve's boat to do a final check of the weather and get buy-in and understanding of life beyond Steinhatchee. Weather was still OK, maybe a little better than it was last night. Tom Conrad had weighed in at Rick's request and suggested that we should stay North of Dog Island and hold along the Northern Coast before we turned South to Steinhatchee at noon. We did not think that this idea would get us to Steinhatchee before dark. The weather was predicted to be not as rough at the beginning of the trip as it was predicted yesterday. Still going to rock and roll in the middle of the Gulf. Flat at the end.
Rick put the speed commitment to Ron and Steve. No problem with Steve. His boat can do 10 mph if it has to, but like Blue Moon, it comes with a huge downside on fuel burn. Not so with Ron. He can't get close to 10 mph. Man, I just didn't want to see us get him to Steinhatchee then not be able to get him to Crystal River and then Tarpon Springs in the daylight in order to get into the Rivers leading to the marinas.
When Ron said he could not travel the speed needed, I just recommended to him that he not do Plan B. I think he understood. He had just started the Loop at Pensacola. His boat was new to he and Kathryn. He had not seen it perform in much of any kind of conditions, let alone being in the Gulf in waves and wind. Reluctantly, he stayed behind.
"Free at Last" and "Sun Gypsy" left about 6:30 and 7:00 respectively. I got a pump out with the cold-sensitive pump at the Marina, then caught up to Sun Gypsy as she entered the Sound from the Carrabelle River. The sun was just coming up at 7:30, but we could see OK at 7:15. As we left the River, there was a dang sail boat anchored in the channel for the night just as pretty as you please. SMH!
The seas were fine going through the East Pass and into the Gulf. Blue Moon took a course South at the Pass to Red Buoy 2. From there, we struck a course of about 100 degrees to a waypoint that we had set about 10 miles West of the entrance channel to Steinhatchee. This gave us a 62 mile leg across the upper Northeast corner of the Gulf.
 |
| View of St. George Sound this Morning |
Sun Gypsy traveled a mile and a half or two miles Northeast of me. I could see them the entire trip. Free at Last traveled in front of me, again by about a mile and a half, and I eventually passed them before we got to the Steinhatchee channel.
We started out in the Lee of Dog island, and the wind was blowing from the Northeast. Once we got out of the protection of Dog island, the wind picked up and the waves started to white cap. We thought the wind was blowing at 15-20 mph here. The waves gradually picked up. It was hard to tell what were waves and what were swells. I could see them rolling across our path from the NE to the SW. We took them on the forward port quarter, and they rolled us some. The swells were 3' at least with some bigger ones mixed in. We took a lot of spray across the fly bridge as we had in Currituck Sound in Virginia, but the boat was not pounding as much as we had been in the Chesapeake and in lake Michigan.
 |
| Heading East Across the Gulf Taken Through the Isinglass |
It was rough out there. We had to hang on, but Susan was able to go down into the cabin occasionally. We did not think it was as rough as the Chesapeake or Lake Erie, or Lake Michigan. It was probably more like Currituck rough. Still, Blue Moon does not like rough water nor do her owners!
Maggie stayed with us on the fly bridge. We put her in her life jacket and zipped the door closed to the stairs going below. We managed to keep her contained except for once toward the end of the trip. She panted a lot during the rough stuff. Maggie does not like rough water either.
From 11:45 to Noon, and at 40-42 miles from the Moorings, we started seeing strings of crab pots out in the middle of the Gulf. We did our crab pot weave and missed them.
At 12:35 PM, and 50 miles into the trip, the wind and the waves started to calm down, and it just kept getting better and better. Soon after this, the wind died down, and the seas became flat like the bay. A great ride!
We made our first waypoint right on the money, and then started to get into more and more crab pots. At first they were on strings that were more or less predictable. For the last few miles before we got to the channel, it looked like the pots had been dropped like carpet bombs. No rime or reason! They were everywhere. We did the crab pot weave for almost an hour.
Then it was into a very well marked channel that took us about 5 miles to greater downtown Steinhatchee and the Sea Hag Marina, where we docked at 4:10 PM. Sea Hag was expecting us. They had dock hands out and helped us tie up and refuel. Yes, Blue Moon did burn some fuel on the trip over! The docks at Sea Hag are floating and are MUCH better than those awful fingers at The Moorings. Much easier to get on and off the boat! Especially for Maggie and her Old Man!
 |
| Blue Moon at Sea Hag Marina |
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| Looking Toward the Gulf at The Sea Hag Marina in Steinhatchee |
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| The Sea Hag Marina |
Susan volunteered to rinse off the boat. It was CAKED with Salt. We haven't been in salt water since last June going around Sandy Hook into the Verazanno Narrows at New York. Today was some of the heaviest salt buildup that we had ever seen. It came right off with a thorough rinsing. Is the Gulf saltier than the Atlantic? Any takers on this one?
Rick and Leila had us over for docktails on Sun Gypsy where Rick made Margarita's. Steve and Meredith and son Ricky were there also. Ricky flies back to Cali tomorrow from Tampa. It was nice being able to get to know him. It was also great that he got to cross the Gulf, albeit on Plan B! Good luck on future endeavors, Ricky!
No one has to rock us to sleep tonight. It is very cold here and may go down to freezing. We are warm in the boat and much happier to have finished our blue water crossing of the Gulf.
Thanks for Reading!
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