Day 62 - welcome Brizo — Captain Father John

Miles cruised 0, fuel purchased, slip fee TBD, daily high temperature 64*F.

Several readers have inquired why we are not taking the ICW around the NE corner of Florida instead of waiting for a weather window to cross the gulf. The answer is the ICW ends at Carabelle. The gulf is too shallow to hug the NE corner. That area is only 1 – 2 feet deep. That forces every boat on the Florida panhandle to wait for a weather window to cross the gulf to Tarpon Springs or Clearwater. Some boats take a shorter route to Steinhatchee but that presents shallow water problems when heading south from there.

When crossing the gulf there is a fast crossing and a slow crossing. Fast crossing is 18 mph or more which allows the boat to cross in daylight. Slow crossing is usually trawler speed of 8 – 9 mph and takes all night. If you cross at night it is recommended that you not arrive in Tarpon Springs before 10:00 am. There are 1,000’s of crab pots in and around the channels. If you try to enter the channels before 10:00 am the sun will be in your eyes and you will not be able to see the crab pots. Running over a crab pot results in the rope getting caught in your propeller which is a bad thing. A rope on your propellor can stall your engine and bend your shaft. We have rope cutter blades on our shaft. Theoretically if we pick up a line in our prop the rope cutter will do its job. If it does its job we will never know. We will only know if it does not cut the rope.

The distance from Carrabelle to Steinhatchee is 70 miles. The distance from Carrabelle to Clearwater is 170 miles. If we travel at 25 mph we can get to Clearwater in 7- 8 hours. There are 10 hours of daylight this time of year so we could do a daylight crossing. If the weather window is overnight we would cruise at 9 mph and it would take about 20 hours. We would depart at 6:00 pm and arrive around 2:00 pm. Of course we could speed up at some point and arrive around noon.

Marv’s weather report indicates there there is no weather window until Saturday at the earliest. A smooth crossing would have winds less than 13 mph and waves less than 2 feet. We will spend another week in PSJ.

There is some uncertainty regarding Thanksgiving dinner. The Piggly Wiggly has sold out of precooked dinners and the Sunset restaurant is not taking any more reservations. I checked with the restaurant at the marina and they are closed. However, they said “Chip” a Looper ordered a turkey from the chef. Now we need to track down Chip and try to crash his party.

We still have the rental car so we drove to Apalachicola to do some sight-seeing. On the way we stopped at the Indian Trading Post. They have an honor system for ordering drinks. Just take the beer bottles from the cooler or pour your own draft beer and keep track yourself and pay on the way out.

Bonus photo – Brizo the Portugesse water dog. Proud parents Susie and Greg Berner of Lake Bluff, Illinois. Brizo (Greek) derived from the Ancient Greek word meaning to slumber is an ancient Greek goddess who was known as the protector of mariners, sailors, and fishermen.

Carl (Chef) Wooden – quite for the day.

“Never a ship sails out of bay but carries my heart as a stowaway.”
Roselle Mercier Montgomery