Gulf Crossing - Sat/Sun, Dec 5th & 6th. 2009

It was another chilly morning with a gusty northwest wind. We spent some time on the daily chores as we listened to the marine weather forecast. Gale was thinking about taking out across the Gulf today since he didn’t want to wait around for the 28°F freezing temperatures that were forecast overnight – Maureen was tending toward waiting until Sunday or Monday when the seas wouldn’t be as rough. In the end, the Captain convinced the First Mate to leave this morning so we called Craig and Dawn, Maureen’s brother and sister-in-law in Clearwater, and left messages with Gale’s son, Casey, and his friend, Bob, to let them know that if they didn’t hear from us by sunset on Sunday night, to call out the Coast Guard.

We gathered our foul weather gear, including sweaters, hats, gloves, boots, rain coats and the survival suits,
and went through our usual sailing checklist before pulling the anchor at 11 am and setting our sights on Clearwater. We motorsailed all the way and averaged about 7 knots for most of the trip. The skies were clear and the waters were rough – we experienced 6 to 8 foot seas throughout the night. The moon came up about 9 pm which helped to light the way but it wasn’t enough to keep the seasickness at bay for Maureen.
She was okay during the day and did all the driving when she could keep her eye on the horizon, but once the sun went down it was all over. She was able to relieve Gale for an hour or so a few times, but not as much as she would have liked. Gale had a bout of seasickness during the night which, thankfully, passed after he was able to get a brief rest.





With a 10 to 23 knot northwest wind behind us, we made the 180-mile crossing to the ICW at Tarpon Springs in 23 hours and then spent another couple of hours traveling the last few miles to Clearwater where we found the dock at Frenchy’s Saltwater Café just before 1 pm and tied up for the afternoon. Lucy was happy to get off the boat and go for a walk – she had not rested since we left Alligator Harbor!

After our walk, we napped for an hour, took showers and then left Lucy on the boat to rest while we enjoyed a nice meal at Frenchy’s. Gale had the Grouper Reuben sandwich and Maureen chose the She Crab Soup and salad. Excellent!
After dinner we moved the boat a few yards north of the café’s dock and dropped anchor for the night. We were in bed by 7 pm and slept the clock around in this quiet anchorage.