Integrity Cruise

Day 240: - Apalachicola to The Middle of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico

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Day 240: Thursday, December 22nd: Apalachicola to Tarpon Springs, FL would sound easy to do if you were in a warm car on the lovely back roads. It would take about a day, we would guess.

The way we did it was another story. We were going by boat - our boat, and it would take the better part of two days. We stowed everything that could go adrift in heavy seas, latched the cabinets, put breakables on the lowest deck, and made final checks. This is Bill making final engine checks (like oil level):

We left our marina in Apalachicola about noon with "buddy boat," Lola Marie, in tandem and headed out the channel toward Government Cut, the passage into the Gulf of Mexico. Half way to the Cut, this dredge was clearing sand and silt out of the channel. You can see the "sucking in" end, nearest us, and the "blowing out" end in the background. These rigs are HUGE!

The rig was sitting in the intersection between the Intercoastal Waterway and the channel to Government Cut. A call to the captain of the dredge said, "Just go around us." Big help:

We went around the rig and headed to the Cut. It looked docile and pretty out there. It was about 182 miles to our destination; at eight miles per hour we could hope for safe harbor in about 22+ hours:

Lola Marie was following in our wake:

The weather was predicted to be clear skies, winds out of the northeast at 10-15 knots, veering to the east and decreasing to 5-10 knots. Seas were to be 2-3 feet subsiding to 1-3, then less than one foot by noon tomorrow. It didn't happen that way.

The day was very nice with 1-2 foot seas off the port bow until about suppertime. Then as nightfall came, they moved around to be on the beam. That made us roll a good bit but not too badly. As darkness came and it got cold on the bridge, we shifted the watch to the main saloon and the lower helm station. The engine keeps the saloon warmer (about 60 degrees).

We took two-hour watches and tried to sleep on the off watch. Ha ha.

The seas seemed to get worse…

Position tonight: N28 55.773 W083 43.341

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