Tarpon Springs

We left Clearwater Beach on Thursday and headed north to Tarpon Springs where we will have the boat hauled out for some work while we fly to Utah and then home for the holiday’s.  We will return on New Years Day. 

Views of some homes coming into Tarpon Springs

Cute tug boat 

We are staying at a very nice facility which has a heated pool and hot tub.  It is away from all the fishing and sponge diving boats yet the sponge docks are just a short walk away.

As were tying up Thursday afternoon, we were hailed by Southern Belle who was going to stop by on their way to Pasadena marina.  They are also having some work done but it won’t be for a few weeks.  We got Kerm in the hot tub and he finally warmed up, he is always complaining about being cold. 

Southern Belle and Passport together again.

Friday we took a long walk to the service yard which is on the other side of the river and toured the sponge docks.Tarpon Springs was once knownas the “Venice of the South”, it is located along the Ancolte River where it intersects with the Gulf of Mexico. Tarpon Springs became an important center for sponge diving when Greek divers came to the area in the 1900”s.. There are many sponge boats still today and many Greek restaurants.  In the afternoon we took the bikes to West Marine for a few items.  On the way back we found a whole other part of the town, which we planned on touring on Saturday.  We had some very good fresh Grouper for dinner that we picked up at the local fish market.

Fish museum in Tarpon Springs

Sponge boats, note the Christmas decorations on the pier

Boat parade

Saturday morning we awoke to a light drizzle.  Southern Belle left for Pasadena just before it started to pour.  After the rain stopped we took the bike around a few of the bayou’s and went into town.  They were having a food festival and had closed the main street.  After dinner we went back to the sponge docks to watch the Christmas Boat parade. Stopped for some Greek pastries after the parade and we both decided that they looked better than they tasted.

Sunday we loaded all of our laundry onto the bikes and went searching for a laundromat.  The one we found on line did not exist so we had to ride a bit further to one we had seen the other day. At least we wore off some of the calories from the not so good Greek pastries from last night.  In the afternoon we launched the dinghy and toured the many  bayou’s and river front. Spring Bayou is suppose to be the winter home to manatees and dolphins .  It is also the site where men dive for the cross during the Epiphany Celebaration in January.   We did not see any on our little trip but will keep looking.  We went to a place named Rusty Bellies for dinner, the name comes from a local fish.  Walked back to the boat and since we have no cable for TV and have finished our books, it was bed time. You can tell we are getting older.

Nesting pelicans 

Rusty Bellies Resturant

Pirate ship getting some work done 

Shrimp boat in Tarpon Springs

Tarpon Springs 

Ready to fly 

Work in progress

Looking for a job in the circus

Because of the tides we will be leaving the marina Monday afternoon and tying up at the service yard instead of waiting to move over there Tuesday morning.  We are very anxious to leave for Utah and then home and have been packed since yesterday. Our flight is Tuesday afternoon, can’t wait.  Hope to see most of you over the holidays but if we don’t, John and I wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year.

Clearwater, FL

As it tuned out we stayed in Hudson until Monday when we had a very nice and smooth crossing to the municipal marina in Clearwater, which is near the beach.  Kismet was still here and helped us get into the slip.  They crossed over with us but ran a little faster and came all the way to Clearwater rather than stopping at Hudson.

Two of the many sticks into Hudson from the Gulf.

After our delicious celebratory dinner the night after the crossing, we borrowed Kerm's truck and went to West Marine to look for a replacement VHF radio for the bridge.  The original radio had been problematic for a couple of months and stopped transmitting during the crossing. We had two hand held VHF radios so were ok.  After much deliberation John chose one which has an AIS receiver.  AIS is a system that will identify commerical ships via radio waves before you can see them.  It would have been great to have had this on the rivers.  Better late than never I guess.

Friday night there was a second celebration for Kerm and Chris at a place right on the water with a great view of the sunset.

Southern Belle's gold flag with their mascot Waren and the Christmas tree Mary from Mary Frances gave them.

                 
                                 Having celebratory drinks of champagne aboard Southern Belle

The second night of celebrations.

                                                       Sunset views from the restaurant.

We had originally planned to leave on Saturday with Mary Frances and Duddon Pilot but needed another stop at West Marine and Chris and Kerm suggested we go check out the Pasadena Mariana where we were going to leave the boat while we go home for the holiday's.  Well it was quite a long road trip all stop and go and Kerm's truck is a stick with a very stiff clutch.  We had decided to have the boat hauled to have the bottom painted and an engine sea strainer installed at a yard that Kerm recommended in Tarpon Springs.  We figured if Kerm had work on Southern Belle done there it must be good.

The initial thought was to have Kerm & Chris move the boat from Tarpon Springs to Pasadena but after realizing how far the Pasadena marina was we decided to just leave the boat on the hard while we are gone.  So we decided to go to Clearwater first then head back to Tarpon Springs after stopping at Caladesi Island which is a State Park and highly recommended as a nice stop.  The boat will be hauled first thing Tuesday morning, which will leave us enough time to get to the airport for our afternoon flight to Salt Lake City and the grand kids.

Sunday was supposed to be a do nothing day, well sort of.  We washed the outside of the boat again, it seems to attract salt just sitting still. John put die electric grease on all the exterior electrical connections. Mary cleaned all the windows.  We lowered the dinghy and had a leisurely tour of the canals with Chris and Kerm.  They showed us their lot and then took us to a bar along the canal for a beer and fresh peel and eat shrimp appetizer.  We then went back to their boat for a farewell drink.

We desperately needed to do laundry which was a bit of a challenge due to only one working washer.  On Tuesday after finishing up the laundry, we took a long up and down the beach. When we returned Grianan had just arrived.   We had last seen Greg and Kate when we left Panama City after Thanksgiving.  Shortly after they arrived 5 other Loopers arrived.  Even though they had a smoother crossing than ours they still had stories to tell.  It is quite a feat to cross over 160 miles of open ocean in a small boat.

Wednesday we worked on the shower sump that stopped working this morning and took another long walk.  Carol and Rich from Salt and Sand came in late last night from their crossing so it was good to catch up with them.  We plan on having dinner with them and Ross and Nancy who we last had seen up in Sturgeon Bay when they completed their loop.  They have a condo in St. Pete so they are not traveling with their boat this time.  Its fun to run into friends we have not seen for awhile.

Palm trees decked out for the season.

Downtown Clearwater.

Cute well kept 1950's apartment motel.

Long legs.

The captain's new crew member.

John and Mary

Hudson, FL

Tuesday 11/29/11 to Wednesday 12/1/11

We were in Apalachicola with eight other Loopers and awoke to a rainy and cold day on Tuesday. The initial thought was to stay another day. First one boat decided to go to Carrabelle and all of a sudden there were four going.  We along with Southern Belle and Duddon Pilot decided to wait another day.  As we were paying for the extra day Mary got a call from friends from our marina in Mackinaw City who were already in Carrabelle and Buddy was now saying that there would be a window on Wednesday.  We left at around 10:30 am with Southern Belle and Duddin Pilot and headed to Carrabelle.  

Leaving Apalachocila

Oyster fishermen using two big rakes to harvest the oysters, sure looks like a hard job.

The docks in Florida are a little different than what John and I are used to coming from Michigan.  The pier that you would tie your boat too is very short and there for it is best to stern in, backing your boat into a slip.  This was the type of dock that we came into in Carrabelle.  We tried to back the boat into the slip but with the current and wind conditions it was not to be.  Buddy the dock master said all Mainships are wider than stated and moved us to another slip, which we decided to just pull in forward as usual.  Once we were in  and we were paying for the night,they told us  that the first slip would not have worked for us as it was not wide enough in the first place.  From now on I think we will tell them that we are 16 feet wide. 

Given all the difficulties we were glad to be tied, even though it was very difficult to get off the boat with the very short finger pier. 

We were told that the harbor master, Buddy who is quite the expert in giving advice regarding safe days for crossing the Gulf would hold a meeting at 6 am on Wednesday.  We had a brief meeting / happy hour with the other Loopers, 11 boats in all that were planning on crossing in the next day or so and then all headed out to a local restaurant for dinner together.  Kerm is very anxious  to get home and offered to buy everyone the first round of drinks  once we  across the Gulf.

We all met with Buddy at 6:00 am and his advice was to leave ASAP as he didn't see another weather window for quite awhile. His suggested that the best  route was to head east and follow the coast at about 30 miles off shore as opposed to a direct open water crossing.  He felt that would offer some protection from the winds and be deep enough to miss the crab pots.  

There were 2 to 4 waves  predicted, we had heard  lots of speculation on the actual size of the waves.  Some have said they were as high as 8 foot.  Being from the Great Lakes all we can say is if we were in 8 footers, they’re not like a Lake Michigan 8 footer.  Regardless of the size there was a lot of rocking and rolling, nothing that we ever felt threatened just very  uncomfortable.

Two boats stayed in Apalachicola and left from there on Wednesday, fueled up in Carrabelle and did the open crossing to Clearwater.  One of the boats had a delivery captain aboard as a mate who has made the crossing many times before.  He said it was the worst one he had ever experienced.

Everyone was out of the marina by 8:00 am and our flotilla split into three groups. The fast plaining ones, the ten knot ones and then the 7 knot ones.  We were in the slow group and our main problem was the crab pots.  All groups encountered a small field of them in the morning.  We then encountered what I was later told was the "snow crab field" well into the night.  We were over 30 miles off shore and in 30 - 40 feet of water.  Southern Belle has fixed spot lights and was in the lead we were in the rear and by the time we would get to where they had identified a pot we were not quite sure where it might be.   So we got out our hand held light and Mary held it outside of the eisenglass, panning the water for over three hours.  For every pot Southern Belle spotted we saw 4 or 5 more.

The ONE neat thing of the trip was all the  dolphins we saw. 

Southern Belle's home port was Hudson so we stayed a bit closer to shore than the other two groups who went on to Clearwater so I'm not sure if they also ran through the field.   One thing Peter, from Dudden Pilot mentioned was a theory that those of us with single screws have a better chance of running over a float and it just being pushed aside of our deeper and lower props than a boat with twins.  This seems to make some sense, but it was still spooky running through them, especially at night.  

We had left Carrabelle at 7:30 am and were tied to a dock by 4:50 am Wednesday.  We were thankful for Kerm’s expert local advice and guidance in getting us through the channel and into the marina.

We had a quick celebratory drink aboard Duddon Pilot, John stuck to ginger ale and were in bed before 6:00 am.

Wednesday morning / afternoon we awoke to a bright, cool and sunny day.  We looked over and who should we find but the Fast John and Mary from Mackinaw City tied up a couple of slips away.  They were concerned about their fuel supply and decided not to go all the way to Clearwater.  They had arrived at 4:30 pm as opposed to our 4:50 am.   We do miss the speed of an express cruiser at times. Though I heard John say he used over 200 gallons of fuel while we were around 40 gallons.

The other John & Mary's boat in Hudson.

Mary made a great bacon and egg breakfast, which we ate around noon.  John then washed all the salt off the outside of the boat while Mary cleaned and put the inside of the boat back together as things had gotten moved around a bit.  John cleaned the shower sump and thought it was about time for lunch, looked at his watch and realized it was after four.  I guess that’s what happens when you get around noon.  Neither one of can remember the last time we were up all night, must be a sign of getting old.

 

The fast John and Mary had everyone over to their boat for a crossing your wake happy hour and we then all piled into Kerm’s pick up truck and went to their favorite restaurant, Inn on the Gulf for dinner.  Kerm had told us that “when God eats, he goes there and has the stuffed grouper” I’m not sure if God has ever been there but the grouper was excellent.

Everyone at Kerm & Chris's  wake crossing celebration, and yes Kerm did buy the first round.

We plan to move to Clearwater beach on Saturday and will be leaving the boat in the area while we go home for holiday's returning on New Year's Day.  We have reservations for a month in Key Largo beginning January 23rd.  We will then move up to Lake Worth and look for another weather window to cross over to the Abacos in the Bahamas.

John & Mary

Trip statistics to date:

Since Leaving Mackinaw City on August 18^th we have traveled 2,623 statute miles. Put 355 hours on the main engine and 39 hours on the generator.  Changed the Racor fuel filter twice and changed the engine and transmission oil once.  We have used 932 gallons of diesel fuel and only have had to add 2 quarts of oil to the engine.

We have spent 128 nights at marinas, 1 night at a free wall, 4 nights at free docks and 14 nights at anchor.

The least we have paid for a slip was $26.25 and the most was $98.00.

We have traversed 33 locks, the shortest drop was 4' in Chicago and largest was 84' on The Tenn-Tom.

We have gone out for dinner 21 times, lunch 6 times and surprisingly only had ice cream three times.  By design we did not bring a scale onboard so we are not sure how we will do at our physicals in December.
We have only been at Starbucks four times (two were in Chicago) and John is afraid that he may loose his gold Starbucks card.

Apalachicola, FL

Tuesday 11/21  to Tuesday 11/29

After arriving in Panama City on Monday and washing all the salt spray from the boat we enjoyed a great sunset and then had a quiet dinner on board Passport.

On Tuesday we decided to take the public transportation to St. Andrews a town not far from Panama City.  We thought we would try out a local restaurant for lunch.  Ended up at Uncle Ernie’s and we both had the grouper witch was very good.  We then began our odyssey with the public transportation.  We wanted to go to a Publix grocery store to get the items we needed for the pot luck Thanksgiving luncheon we planned on attending .  After a bit of navigation by John with the map and bus schedule that we had been given by the marina  we did make it to the grocery store,  John thought that if we walked a few blocks with our bundle of groceries we would be able to catch a bus that would take us right back to the marina.  Well it was very much more than a few blocks and when we finally arrived at the bus stop, we learned that we had an out dated bus schedule and none of the four buses their were going any where near the marina.  What was even more frustrating none of the drivers seemed to know where we could get a bus heading in that direction.  After more navigation on John’s part and another very long hike we did finally meet up with a bus and made it back to our boat.  It was a long day and we were worn out.  Southern Belle had arrived while we were gone and we got together aboard Passport for drinks and to catch up on the each other’s travels for the past few days.  The day did end on a good note.

The statues were carved into the branches of this old cypress tree.

The Fishing boats in St. Andrews,

Ahoy mates Owen Jack & Will do you want to go sailing with me?

We are seeing lots of palm trees.

Believe it or not this boat is on it's way to Guatemala for a refitting.   

On Wednesday we did a walking tour of the Panama City area.  As with a lot of towns we have been through the economy has affected many businesses. That evening we all got together to watch the Panama City sunset out on the dock

Thanksgiving Day luncheon was hosted by the Harbor hosts in Panama City Carl and Greg Vernon at there beautiful home on Watson Bayou .  There were about 30 other Looper’s who attended.  Our hosts provided the turkey, ham, and drinks and we all brought side dishes.  It was a wonderful meal and the company was great.  It made being away from home over Thanksgiving a little easier. Thank you Carl and Greg!  John and I did miss all of our family as friends cannot replace them. Looking forward to seeing all at Christmas.

There's John in his shorts on Thanksgiving. 

The Thanksgiving group.

Friday morning we along with Southern Belle left Panama City to make our way towards Apalachicola and then on to Carrabelle in order to get in position to do the “crossing “ across the Gulf down to Clearwater.  We made it in to Port St. Joe on Friday.  Chris and Mary were able to walk to the grocery store and we both bought grouper to prepare for our dinners and split a cherry pie with whipped cream for desert. Yum!

Some of the many deirlick boats we are seeing along the way.

Kerm getting his super short hair cut.

Saturday was cloudy in the morning but the sun came out later in the day.  We had a nice run to Apalachicola.  We are at Scipo Creek Marina, which could use better organization in directing boats to their dock. There are seven other Looper's here spread out between three different docking locations.  We all got together for dinner at the oyster house on the dock.

Sunday was bright, sunny, warm and windy.  Expect for the wind just what you are looking for in Florida. We took a walk to town before the Captain’s meeting to discuss the gulf crossing.  The inter coastal waterway which we have been on since Mobile ends in Carrabelle and does not start up again until Tarpon Springs.  This waterway runs between the barrier islands and the Gulf in bays and rivers so we have not yet actually been in the ocean. 

With the waterway ending in Carrabelle you need to make a 170 mile crossing across the Gulf which will take at least 20 hours if the weather and waves are just right. There lots of crab pots along the shore when you complete your crossing so you need to arrive there after 10am, which means you need to leave no later than 2pm the day before.  There are many sources everyone looks at to find a good weather window to make the crossing.

As with any group it took awhile to meet some form of consensus.  We did agree that we would all move to Carrabelle once the winds died down and leave on the crossing from there.  All of the boats run a different speeds, but it seem there will be two groups, on running around  8 – 10 knots and the other a bit slower at 6 – 8 knots.  While we could run with the faster group we will stay with Southern Belle who has some speed limitations.  We also agreed to report each boat’s position every two hours via VHF radio to the group.

After the meeting we got the bikes out and went back to town and found a few of the shops open.  We rode around the town a bit and toured a home built in the 1830’s which was lived in by the same family until the 1990’s.  It is now a Florida state park and the ranger there gave a fantastic tour of not only the home but also the town of Apalachicola. 

The town has had three boom periods, first it was a major cotton exporting sea port,  then timber  was a big export and finally it was oysters.  There are oyster shells everywhere, paths, parking lots, etc.  We even saw a pile over 10’ high.  Commercial fishing is still a big industry here.  On our bike ride we came across another marina with over 30 fishing boats in it.  Unfortunately we forgot our camera so no pictures today.  After our bike ride everyone got together aboard Southern Belle for happy hour.

Christmas decorations and palm trees .

An old oyster fishing boat.

John trying to do a "Don" artsy photo.

We were surprised by an afternoon visit from John & Mary (the fast one's) from Mackinaw City.  They have been in Carrabelle since Thanksgiving waiting for a weather window to cross the gulf.  Some friends had stopped by and being Monday all restaurants in Carrabelle are closed so they drove over to Apalachicola for lunch.  Mary said their marina was better but there was much more to do our town.  

John & Mary and Mary & John

Here we are at Scipio Creek Marina.

On Tuesday the weather had changed overnight and it started raining shortly after we went to bed.  We awoke to a loud bang around 5:00 am, the wind had shifted and we had to add another fender and adjust the lines to keep from hitting the pilings.  The tides are something new to us that we will have to be dealing with until we get on the Erie Canal next summer.  At the Captain’s meeting (in the rain) it was agreed to wait until tomorrow to move on to Carrabelle.  There is more to do here in Apalachicola, but the marina in Carrabelle is reported to be a little  nicer.  

Mary and John