Monday – Tuesday Nov. 11&12

227 miles

0830 (Monday) – 1100 (Tuesday)   Panama City to Tarpon Springs, FL.

We left Panama City Marina with our friends Jim and Karen. Our first leg of the journey was 61 miles to Apalachicola, FL. Pretty uneventful except the dolphins playing along side the boat several times.

 

 

 Mom and Dad Bald Eagle.

 

 

We stopped in Apalachicola to top off the fuel tanks for the next leg which took us 166 miles across the Gulf of Mexico to Tarpon Springs, FL. The reason for such a long cruise is that there are really no places to stop along the panhandle of Florida. The hours of daylight are too short to make it across so you need to travel at night. You also need to time your arrival at Tarpon Springs around 10:00 in the morning because you are traveling east and you want to make sure the sun is high enough to see the hundreds of crab pots that are all along the coast of Florida. Fisherman take crab pots/cages which are tied to a little (and I mean little) ball and set them all over in the water. We started seeing these balls about 30 miles off the coast. So for the last several hours we had to dodge these lines. You don’t want to run over one and get it tied up in your props. Our crossing went very well. It started out being 2-3 foot waves which we were going right into and by 10 pm they dropped down to 1/2 foot.

Looking west leaving Apalachicola.

 

 Looking east.

 

 Looking back.

 

 Sunset

 

 Sunrise

 

 

 Land at last!

 

 Channel coming into Tarpon Springs.