Carrabelle & Gulf of Mexico Crossing

Since our last post we have been to Port St Joe's, a very nice small town with a wonderful marina. There was a manatee that was injured at this marina, but was rescued the day before we got there.  They said it weighed approx. 1,000 lbs.  They can get as large as 13 feet and weigh as much as 3,000 lbs!  I guess that's why they call them "sea cows" slow moving and huge.

As we were going down the ICW,  I found this house that I thought was interesting, double click on this picture and look closely, yes that's a tree growing thru the middle. I wonder if that's a selling feature down here.

When we left Port St. Joe's, we headed for Apalachicola, where we spent 2 nights.  They are world renowned for their oysters.  I think Jim has eaten more than his share of oysters on the half shell, and he agrees they are the best.

From there we went to Carrabelle, they had a lighted boat parade the evening we were there. Carrabelle is the leaving point for the Gulf crossing that is necessary to get to Clearwater.  It is the part of the trip that I have been dreading.  We have been travelling with a trawler and a sailboat, they travel at about 7  1/2 knots (roughly 9 miles per hour).  Our boat can go real fast, about 35 mile per hour, but at a huge cost in fuel.  So we have opted to slow it down and conserve on the fuel cost. So back to my story of the Gulf crossing, running at 7  1/2  knots it took us 22 1/2 hours for the crossing.  I am not a fan of night boating in unfamiliar waters.  That was my big concern, then it was compounded by "pea soup fog" which never lifted.  We left Carrabelle at noon on Sunday, with the fog so heavy you could only see about 2 boat lengths in front of you.  It can be very eerie out there when you can't see, then night came, and it was inky black out!  No moon or stars, needless to say, I was very happy when daylight came, although the fog was still there, but not as thick.  We were not the lead boat, the trawler was first, and the sail boat and us were on either side but back  bit.  We kept each other on the radar, and used our instruments.  I am glad that part is over.

This will be our last entry until after the New Year.  We will be heading back home for the holidays on Thurs. We finally get to the warm part of Florida, and we leave to go back where it is cold. The attraction is obviously family and friends, whom we miss terribly.  Happy Holidays to everyone and we will continue with our adventures next year.