Panama City Florida to Tarpon Springs Florida - We successfully crossed the Gulf of Mexico! - Nov 11, 2016

Nov 9^th – It was a cool and rainy day.  It was the first rainy day that we’ve had in a long time.  We left our Panama City slip early this morning to travel 91 miles to Moorings Marina in Carrabelle Florida.  It was an extremely long day travelling at 10 miles an hour in the rain.  Once we arrived we fueled up, pumped out and then went out to dinner with a bunch of other Loopers that are also planning to cross from Carrabelle to Tarpon Springs which is a 170 mile crossing that will take 17 hours at 10 miles an hour.  The weather prediction is that there will be a crossing window tomorrow, however we’re waiting for Eddy’s Weather Wag to confirm it before we leave.  Everyone is a little anxious since it’s the only overnight crossing required on the Great Loop.  You must plan your departure to arrive at Tarpon Springs sometime after 10am in the morning the following day so you can see the mine field of crab pots waiting for you on the other side.  It is possible to do a day light crossing, however I would have to run at 20 miles an hour for almost 9 hours.  The overnight option will be easier on the boat but harder on us.

Nov 10^th & 11^th – It was a sunny cool day today.  Today is the big day where we start our overnight crossing from Carrabelle to Tarpon Springs which is a 170 mile crossing across the Gulf of Mexico.  We went up for our free breakfast with a number of loopers and talked about the crossing that would begin at 4pm.  After breakfast we visited a number of Loopers to discuss the crossing and then went shopping for provisions from the local IGA.  We spent some time putting away all the loose objects on the boat to minimize the falling items overnight if the crossing becomes lumpy.  At 3:30pm we headed out to the meeting point to the R2 marker with 15 other Looper boats.  Originally it sounded like the exit strategy would be very organized, however it was very confusing and everyone just did their own thing.  One of the Loopers had to turn around and return to Carrabelle since he was experiencing chest pains.  We later learn that they couldn’t identify the cause thus he returned back to his boat and now must wait for the next crossing date. We organized a group of 3 boats that would go at a quicker pace than the slow group and an additional boat joined us as we went by them.  Maria and I took turns driving throughout the crossing and it got really lumpy and people were reporting things falling in their galley and throughout their boats.  Our boat was prepared well thus we had only minor things fall and no damage to anything.  Our group challenged each other to trivia questions over the VHF radio on topics such as music artists, cartoon characters, movie titles and told some jokes.  This keep our spirits up during the 20 hour crossing of which most of the crossing was done at 9 mph.  At the end of the crossing we encountered string after string of crab pots which you have to avoid like a mine field otherwise you’ll get one wrapped around your prop and your boat would be dead in the water.  Finally we arrived at Tarpon Springs, however the Tarpon Springs Municipal Marina was closed since it is a holiday here thus we could not go to our reserved slip so instead we anchored out in Anclote Key for the night and we’ll pull into our slip tomorrow morning.

Hmmm ... who wants to buy a cheap sailboat!

Looper dinner before our big crossing to Tarpon Springs

Lime tree at the marina

Sunset during our Gulf of Mexico crossing

Sunrise during our crossing

"Lucky Ducks" and "Mikey Likes" travelling with us across the Gulf

Can you find the crab pot markers?  They are everywhere!