Today's cruise was VERY interesting, to say the least. I'm not sure whether to blame it on the time zone change which made us sleep in late, or the late night we had enjoying live music in Apalachicola, . . .
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| One of the best bands we've heard on the trip! These guys were playing in a bar that was housed in an actual garage! |
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| This bar had some VERY funny decor!😄 |
. . . as well as the unique liquor store that we just had to visit since
it was open until MIDNIGHT!!! . . .
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| "Honey Hole Liquor Store" - Dave was able to stock up on beer very late at night! |
. . . or maybe it was the mocha that I have been CRAVING, and Captain Dave PROMISED me that I could get this morning, even though the coffee shop didn't open until 9:00 a.m.!
Well, whatever we want to blame it on, you can see where I might be going with this; we should have left VERY early like yesterday morning due to extreme wind conditions! As we left the dock at 9:25, we had 14 mph winds and within an hour, they would be 20 mph; not good, since we're about to cross Apalachicola Bay. Even one of our books tells us that there is no real protection from strong winds in this bay, so mariners should watch the weather and plan accordingly (hmmm . . . good thought!)
It sure looks okay when we leave the dock, but once we turn the boat to go under the bridge, we begin to get hit by 4 to 6 foot waves on the side of our boat; making the boat "roll" (my tummy was not too happy) and Captain Dave REALLY had to work at steering the boat!
Here's the aft of the boat after we passed through the bridge;
things were REALLY rough for two LONG hours!
It's no wonder we didn't see any other boats out on the water today! Oh, wait, there was that ONE shrimp boat, but he was a little more well-equipped to handle the heavy seas!
Just when we got to the point in the bay where we could make a "left" turn to get to our final destination, Carrabelle, Dave says we need to head to the Gulf Pass to make a pathway on the navigation screen to follow when we head out to cross the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday very early morning (4:30 a.m.!)😨 UGGH!!! Captain Dave tells me that the waves will be behind us so we will no longer have that "rolled" feeling, so I feel a little bit better.
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| Our boat is at the bottom of the middle of the screen. The blue line in front of us is where we're headed. The green is the land, blue is shallow water, and white is 12 feet or deeper water. |
Here we are heading to Dog Island where we make our right turn
to head out to the Gulf.
Here we go!
Gulf Pass
Gulf of Mexico!!!
Once we turn around, we are now heading right into those big waves!
The winds are now gusting to 35 mph!!!
FYI, it is NOT raining out!!!
Through the wet windshield, we try to find our green and red buoys to guide us into the river channel to Carrabelle. It doesn't help that seagull poop disguises the color of the buoys!!!😲
I've never been so happy to see a river!
You can see the river line in the color change of the water.
Ahhh . . . CARRABELLE!😍
Dave tells me that I should have a strong phone signal by seeing the cell tower at the entrance of the town. I glance at my phone and tell him I only have two bars and no 4G;
the short tower must be our Verizon tower!!!😉
There are some VERY skinny homes here!
Oh yah, and there's this . . . ouch!
As we pull into Moorings at Carrabelle Marina, our looper friends from "Rambunctious", Walt and Midge, are there ready to help us tie our lines! We haven't seen them for over a week, so we enjoy our reunion with docktales, walking to town, and dinner.
On the way to the restaurant, we see an unusual sign about a DECEMBER Boat Parade . . . brrrr!!!
The restaurant is known for their oysters; so we all indulge in "Oysters Rockefeller"!
The next morning Dave and I get some exercise with a walk around town. Oh no, what did I do?😄
Turns out that Carrabelle claims to be home to the World's Smallest Police Station. In the early 60's, policemen made phone calls from a pay phone located on the outside of a building. In 1963 the phone was placed in a call box/phone booth, which is now referred to as the smallest police station in the world! It has been featured in multiple television shows and one movie.
On the way back from our walk, we discover this tribute to the Armed Forces.
Tomorrow morning, we leave at 4:30 a.m. with "Rambunctious", to make the Gulf of Mexico crossing!!! We have been following "Eddie's Wag", which is a fellow boater that tracks the weather (in particular the winds) to make predictions as to when the best times are to cross the Gulf . It's a 177 mile crossing that will take us 13 hours. We only have 11 hours of daylight, so that is why we will need to leave in the dark at 4:30 a.m.(and why we made the track on our navigation screen). Being that we have never been to our destination, Tarpon Springs (just north of Clearwater, Florida), we will want to make sure that we have daylight to navigate this area. We are excited for a calm day on the Gulf with enjoyable seas!!!
I leave you with the following stats by Captain Dave (again, these are since Prescott):
Miles traveled: 1,950 miles
Average speed: 9.4 mph
Engine hours: 231 hours
Fuel consumed: 1,442 gallons
Miles per gallon: 1.4 mpg
Generator hours: 55 hours
Number of days traveled: 59 days
