Gulf Crossing.

11/30 to 12/1/07

This is the first open water we have seen since Chicago. The trip across is from Apalachicola to Clearwater Florida. It is 180 miles and will take about 23 hours. We chose not to hop from town to town around the panhandle because our keel is too deep. The harbors up in that area are pretty shallow. Also some of the bridges are not high enough to get under with the mast up. So we bite the bullet and head out to sea. As I said our friends Steve and Pat, who are a very seaworthy couple, are going with us to help with watches.

We started out at 10:40 after emailing Todd our float plan. The weather forecast was light winds of 10 to 15 kts with 2 foot seas from the northeast. That sounded like a great sail. The winds were light when we started and it was warm and sunny. I think that is how a lot of sailing stories start. We had to power for a while until the wind picked up to 15 kts. Then the sails went up and away we went.

Pat was good enough to make a warm supper for us of sweet potatoes and a turkey casserole. It was warm and tasty. I applaud her ability to do it at this point because the longer she stayed down there the higher the waves got. By the time it got dark the winds were continuing to build and we reefed the main. At bedtime we started our watches. We haven’t been out a lot sailing at night with this boat so while I was below trying to sleep I was thinking that this is quite a bit noisier below than I expected. Of course when we went up we saw why. The wind had built to 20 to 25 kts. Steve & Pat were sailing with the reefed main and full jib. So we were tooling along about 10 mph plus, which is quite a nice clip for you non boaters out there. No wonder it was a little noisy. They were very proud of their speedy abilities. The waves had built to about 4 feet with that occasional rogue 6 footer that would get your attention. For a while we took in the jib and were clipping along at 7 with just the main up.

For those of you that do not sail, what you do at night is try not to hit anything (ships or towers or crab pots) and keep the boat sailing. Our boat has good electronics, as expected from gadget man. so we just need to keep an eye on the course to see if we are headed in the right direction. The boat does the rest.

We got into the channel at Clearwater at 10:30 the next morning. We did touch bottom for a little, but were able to work our way off quickly. That is a little bit of a sinking feeling that after sailing 23 hours you run aground. So we got to the Yacht Club. Had our breakfast celebratory beer, a nap and shower and we were ready to go.

All in all, a pretty good trip. Steve said the stars that night were more than glorious and we agree. Pat said it was a good experience to have under their belt but would not be signing up again anytime soon. We are glad to be back in the part of Florida that we know and have cruised in. We are looking forward to some sunny and hot days.

This picture of us is after our naps and showers before heading out for dinner. I wish I would have thought to get one when we landed because it would be quite a “before and after” shot.