White City to Carrabelle, FL

The Intracoastal early in the morning

This morning we were awakened at sun-up by a strong bass voice singing the Star Spangled Banner.  He was an excellent singer – turns out he was starting the fishing tournament that had formed at the little dock area where we had tied up for the night.  So we got off to an early start, waiting only until the fishermen had all gone out before we untied our lines.  It has been a nice sunny day and we came all the way to Carrabelle.

Carrabelle is the jumping off point for crossing the Gulf of Mexico tomorrow.  We will depart from Carrabelle around 11 am, drive all through Monday night and we plan to arrive at Dunedin, Florida, at the Marker One marina before 11 am on Tuesday. 

There is one person – Tom – who makes an art of plotting the perfect weather windows to cross the Gulf.  He compares all sorts of weather sources and tracks which one is proving most accurate for the time frame and then sends out a message.  In this case Tom’s message was,  “your best chance for a good crossing window is between Monday morning and Tuesday mid-afternoon”.  So we are making the best of that advice.  Looks like about 8 boats will be leaving this marina at the same time.  We will meet tonight to see which ones go fast, or slower and buddy up with like-speed boaters.   We will probably be crossing with “Allison Leigh” a boat from Mississippi that seems to go the same speed we do.  Since the weather should be favorable, the only concern is falling asleep at the wheel.  Will try not to do that.  Even with auto-pilot, one ought to at least keep watch.

No blog tomorrow, we will be crossing the Gulf all night.

Oops!!

Anybody know this  bug?