Florida: Crossing the Gulf of Mexico

Days 157 - 158
NM Traveled: 152

After days of stewing over the wind and wave height numbers, Clark finally declared that it was time to take the plunge and cross the Gulf of Mexico to Florida's West coast. We connected with Oceanus who also planned on making the crossing at the same time as us and travels at comparable speeds.  Finding a compatible vessel is key as some boats are much slower than others due to their design, and some are much faster as their owners are in a hurry. After arranging our plans with Oceanus we discovered that our friends on Nuclear Fishin' planned to travel as part of our little pack.

Oceanus On Route to Cross the Gulf of Mexico

 Besides our group of three, we learned of several other boats crossing as "buddies" including Sea to See with Namaste and Manana with Something Special. The desired speed of the latter two was not quite as compatible with our preferred speed. The former two would be traveling at sailboat speeds which are much too slow for us - our diesel engines get upset with us if we go too slowly. So, although we planned to all be out there at the same time, our communication would mostly be with our two buddy boats on a pre-arranged VHF radio channel.

 We left our marina at 3:30 p.m. on 11/28 heading for Dog Island and the East Passage to the Gulf of Mexico. Waters were amazingly calm and we patted ourselves on the back for the wise decision to wait the extra 24 hours before leaving to cross the Gulf.

I took the extra time allowed by waiting one extra day to prepare the boat for the crossing. Although the prediction was for calm seas, I wanted to leave nothing to chance. I stowed all lose items as well as some things I had gotten lazy about putting where they belonged. We did some last minute bread shopping so I could make sandwiches to eat as we went along. I packed tons of snacks to eat all through the night. I put pillows and blankets together to take up top for sleeping in shifts as we crossed. I even made sure my MP3 player was well charged so I could listen to music while I piloted and Clark slept.

On the day of departure I dragged all my stuff up to the upper helm to minimize trips up and down on potentially dangerous waters. We have two bench seats on the upper helm. One was completely taken over by me and my bags. After waiting for hours, the time had finally arrived for us to pull in our lines and fenders and start out most challenging adventure thus far on this voyage.

On our way - Farewell to C-Quarters Marina
in Carrabelle, Florida

It took about an hour or so to get past Dog Island and through the East Passage. Not too long afterwards we were rewarded by a beautiful sunset.

Sunset on the Gulf of Mexico

 Sunset was our last picture near Florida's Panhandle. After that darkness set in and the camera could not be held steady enough for any more photos. Given the total blackness of the night sky we had no more photo opportunities anyway. Too bad we could not photograph the stars that came out after sunset. They were magnificent and plentiful. We headed for Orion's Belt and watched it rise in front of us as we traveled.

Clark decided that we should set an alarm to "wake" us every 15 minutes which seems to be something that sailors crossing the ocean do to make sure they scan the horizon every 15 minutes for any other vessels or obstructions, etc. We quickly found that every 15 minutes was about every 45 too soon and extremely annoying so we switched to hourly alarms.

On the hour we noted our Longitude and Latitude and contacted our two buddy boats to let them know we were still on route with no difficulties. They reciprocated with the same information. In communication with Oceanus we both realized that we would arrive too early at the other end with our current course line and speed. We made agreed to adjustments to lengthen our travel time to avoid the crab pot issue in the morning that I mentioned in my previous post.

The other thing that I did every hour on the hour was feed Clark. For a thin person he needs a lot of food to keep him going. He started around 6:00 with the sandwiches I made for him as supper. (We had a big meal at lunch time with meat, vegetables, and potatoes.) Then when the timer went off on the hours, he enjoyed one item from a variety of treats which I fed to him along the way including potato chips, cheese and crackers, pumpkin pie, cookies, fruit cup and probably some other items I have forgotten I even had for him. For myself I had my own favorites including things like trail mix made up of raisins and peanuts or whole-grain Scoops chips for salsa. Between the number of peanut butter sandwiches I ate and the amount of trail mix, I have to say that I think it will be a while before I crave peanuts or peanut butter.

When we got to a point about 12 miles out from Dog Island, Clark took out the binoculars and scanned the horizon in all directions. We did not have the exact long / lat of the crippled boat from two weeks prior, but we knew it had become disabled at around 12 miles out. We found no signs of the boat. Speculation is that it either sank from the stern anchor arrangement, or it floated away to parts of the world unknown. Anyway, it was gone! Ironically the name of the vessel was LunaSea. How bizarre that a boat with that name would be out on such dangerous seas that no one in their right mind would tackle?!

In preparation for our voyage, we talked about taking turns driving the boat, but like driving the car, Clark does not share well. He piloted the boat from when we started at 3:30 p.m. until 2:00 a.m. before handing the wheel over to me. Somewhere around midnight I tried to get some sleep in preparation for my turn, but sleeping-on-demand does not seem to be something my body does well. At any other time I can sleep on the boat at the drop of a hat, during the crossing sleep totally eluded me. Perhaps it was all the excitement and activity and chatter on the radio, or maybe it was the tossing and turning of the boat on the waves that made me need to hold on to the railing while trying to sleep that precluded sleep. Who knows -- but sleep? Not happening!

So although I rested and maybe even dosed (doubtful), I did not sleep, and all too soon it was my turn to drive so Clark could sleep. Besides Orion's Belt as a navigation aid, we had the running lights from Oceanus to guide us across the Gulf of Mexico. Oceanus has an autopilot. Unlike most other looper boats, Sea Moss is not equipped with auto-pilot to control the steering to a set course. Clark likes to say "I am the auto pilot" as he likes to pilot the boat instead of having it done for him. I wish I could say the same.

Where it was fine as a normal course of events during the night, I did not enjoy my stint at piloting the boat when it came time for the on-the-hour routine. Trying to keep the boat on course while reading and recording the longitude and latitude in the dark on rocky seas was not fun. I would take my eyes off Oceanus for a few seconds, and look up and they were off to the right, or off to the left, or "where did they go?" panic, panic. Correct course, copy more of the longitude-latitude degrees / minutes / seconds numbers (which by now had changed in seconds), continue pattern ...

Then after finally noting the site, I had to get on the radio for the "health" check with our buddies. I am not as familiar with the instruments as Clark, and I do not have the VHF button positions memorized. Without a flashlight I could not see the buttons and did not know if I was communicating on the correct channel. Holding the steering wheel and a flashlight and pushing buttons on the VHF was an impossibility, so I had to feel for the buttons on the radio and push the "correct" ones. At one point I pushed a button to try to scan channels and put the VHF in intercom mode instead. This maneuver resulted in a missed message from one of our "buddies".

While I piloted the boat, Clark laid down on the bench seat next to me at the upper helm. I do not think he slept any more than I did. He did get a break from "being on duty" as he put it, so he did get some rest at least. Unfortunately the hourly check-in disturbed his dosing, and later, at some point, a message appeared on the chart plotter about us entering a 'restricted area', so I thumped him on the leg to get his attention. Turned out to be a restriction against fishing in that area, but I did not know what was being restricted and I got nervous. What can I say?! At 3:00 in the morning I did not want the USAF coming out after me for being in restricted waters.

I piloted the boat from 2:00 until 5:00 a.m. at which point Clark decided he had rested enough to get up and take over. I was so pleased to be relieved of duty that I went down below to make him breakfast for his next hourly treat. Where we had mostly calm waters during the night with a few swells, We did have some times where the waves came up and rolled us around a bit more than expected. One of those more bumpy times was when I was in the galley cooking Clark his breakfast.

I decided to make him my "Evvy McMuffin" treat that he likes which is eggs and cheese on toast. It is really pretty simple unless the boat is bouncing around all over the place. For example, I had to make sure to secure the eggs in something on the counter to avoid having them fall and produce a ready-made omelet on the floor. I needed a plate from the cupboard. My timing was unfortunate. When I opened the cupboard to retrieve one plate, I got 4 or 5 extras along with 8 bowls that bombarded me as they flew out in all directions crashing around me. That is why all my bowls and plates are unbreakable plastic.

It made an amazing sound though and sounded like everything was breaking into a million pieces. I later learned that Clark even heard the crash up top. He said he wanted to call me on the intercom to ask if all was okay but had his own problems to deal with. I never did ask what they were. Long story short, I managed to make his breakfast and bring it up to him. He was most appreciative of the hot breakfast and real food. For him, pies and cookies don't qualify as real food.

I managed to make my way back downstairs to the galley for my own breakfast. With morning came fog and with fog came wet steps and railings. Everything was very slippery and exceedingly dangerous especially with the rocking and rolling of the boat. I had a tight grip using both hands while going up and down those steps, and I still feared slipping and falling. Getting the milk from the fridge for my cereal was challenging, pouring it over my cereal more so. Eating the cereal without wearing it, well ...

While I made and ate breakfast the sun came up over the Gulf of Mexico. With the beautiful sunset, magnificent display of stars, an 80% of full moon, and the gorgeous sunrise, mother nature outdid herself for our voyage.

Sunrise on the Gulf of Mexico

 Shortly after daybreak, we could see clouds collecting on the horizon and obscuring that beautiful sun that had so recently risen in the east. In the picture below you can just make out the sun through the cloud cover. We wondered if bad weather was coming with the clouds, but we had had no internet or even cell service since 6:00 the previous night, so we had no apps to tell us if we were going to see some rain in our future. Clark's assessment that it was only fog turned out to be a correct one.

Fog Cover in Morning

 For a while we lost our buddy boats in the fog and had to turn on our radar again which we had turned off after daylight came in. The cloud obscured the sun which was helpful for a while since driving into the sun is blinding, it gave our eyes a bit of a rest in preparation for the "find the crab pot" game to come.

We had heard that we would see thousands of crab pots. Given we encountered 5 in total on our trip into Tarpon Springs, I have to wonder where these other folks went on their journey. Clark stayed out in the Gulf until we hit 40 foot depths and then turned into the channel. Seems like the guys with the traps avoid the channel for obvious reasons - they don't want people to hit their traps any more than boaters want to hit them - so as I said, we found very few and wondered if the ones we found had relocated themselves as they seemed to be in deeper water in random places.

As we came into the channel to enter Tarpon Springs, the fog cleared and the sun was back in full blinding glory. We said our farewells to Oceanus who headed off for a different, final destination than us, and we made our way down the channel. Shortly thereafter Nuclear Fishin', our other buddy boat, called us on the VHF radio. The conversation went something like this:

Nuclear Fishin (NF): Sea Moss, Sea Moss ... looks like the dolphins like this channel
Clark: Dolphin likes this channel???
NF: Not the radio channel, the water channel
Clark: Oh, I thought you meant they like channel 71. I will watch out for them.

I had a good laugh over that one. I guess I was not the only one becoming confused by lack of sleep!

Entering Tarpon Springs, Florida

 When we got almost to our marina, we had a bit of an issue. Seems that the sailboat Namaste requires more water under the boat than they found in the channel, and they were stuck and somewhat blocking our passage into the marina.  It was a tight squeeze, but Clark managed to wiggle around them so we could come in and get into our slip. As we passed them they asked us how much water we had under us. Clark told them 5'6" which should have been enough for them to get through. They said they would try to back off and apparently they succeeded as shortly after we docked we saw them come in to the marina as well.

After docking, we looked around and found other looper boats that had arrived at the marina either the day before or just before our arrival. Even though we could not see or hear them, a lot of loopers chose last night to make the crossing. Besides those mentioned above, we also came across Friar Tuck, Valentine, and Tranquility as some of those who recently made the trip.

I held my own for a while, but at some point the lack of sleep hit me. After checking it at the office I walked back to the boat with Clark and told him I was heading straight to bed. He, on the other hand, decided to wash the salt of the boat. So that he could rinse the boat and I could sleep with all the windows closed (it is hot here), he put on the air conditioning for me. Man did I sleep - out cold!

I finally woke up enough to drag my body out of bed at 5:00. I needed to find the washroom which I knew was a long walk away. Clark went with me for the walk, and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset along the way.

Sunset in Tarpon Springs, FL

When I got back to the boat, however, I was still feeling like a zombie. Clark gave me a glass of orange juice to try to get me going. It succeeded in giving me enough energy for me to get up to go back to bed. Shortly after I laid back down, however, we heard a knocking on the boat. Nuclear Fishin' came over to ask if we wanted to go to a local restaurant for dinner since we will soon part ways as they move on to a different marina. We agreed and went out to one of the many Greek restaurants here in town - Hellas. The food was excellent as was the company.

Shortly after we got back to the boat, I sat down to do my blog. Clark finally surrendered to the need for sleep and dove into bed. Since I have a lot to do tomorrow and an early start, I plan to dive in there right after I hit the publish button on this blog entry!

As I conclude tonight's blog entry, I am thinking about my many boater friends who are making the same trip tonight that we made last night. I hope they are all safe and enjoying their crossing of the Gulf! After tonight and maybe tomorrow night as well, the weather window will slam shut and no one will be able to cross the Gulf until another window opens up. Consequently, many folks are making the leap now as we did.