Florida!

We crossed from Alabama into Florida on November 19 on The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, a navigable inland waterway running approximately 1,690 km from Carrabelle to Brownsville, Texas. We entered the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway at Oyster Bay (on Mobile Bay) and travelled approximately 350 km to Carrabelle.

Some parts of the intracoastal waterway are not that far from big water; just on the other side of this thin sandy stretch of land is the Gulf of Mexico.

And here as well – the Gulf of Mexico is just on the other side.

Travelling with DougOut on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.

Fishing boat on the Intracoastal Waterway; note all the red markers – it is very shallow outside the markers.

We have been enjoying the dolphins – they seem to be everywhere!

*They especially seem to like to swim at the bow of our boat – the bow wake helps propel them along allowing them to go further faster.* You can see the reflection of our bow in the water.

We anchored out along most of the route but stopped in both Apalachicola (where we enjoyed some oysters) and Carrabelle (home of the World’s Smallest Police Station).

Apalachicola, Florida – I love seeing all the different plants.

While this is not in use anymore, it was indeed used as the police station and apparently made it into the Guinness Book of World Records.

Carrabelle is the spot most boaters wait for a weather window to cross the Gulf of Mexico to Tarpon Springs. We had been watching the weather reports for over a week and several sources gave Monday, November 25 as a good day to cross. We had a final meeting on Monday morning with several other boaters and determined that the weather window was indeed favourable. We left with two other boats at 3:00 p.m. for an overnight crossing. It is 269 kilometres (a 20-hour trip at our optimum speed of about 8 to 9 knots).

Here we are at the start of our journey with calm seas.

The first 12 hours of the cruise were glorious – calm seas, beautiful sunset, billions of stars, great travel companions (fellow Loopers on Dream Seeker, and non-Loopers on Bight Me).

At approximately 2:30 a.m. the winds started to pick up (exactly as forecast) and by 4:30 we had waves of about three to four feet. An uncomfortable ride for about four hours but very manageable (we had seen worse on Lake Michigan). I had prepped the boat for bumpy conditions and everything that could be secured was.

We timed our trip so that we would have enough daylight to see the crab pots and avoid them (hence the overnight cruise – you do not want to arrive at Tarpon Springs in the dark – or you will be without props)! We arrived at the marina in Tarpon Springs at 11:00 a.m. – tired but exhilarated!

After an overnight cruise, Tarpon Springs in the distance.

We are in no hurry to leave Tarpon Springs. We have a good spot at the Municipal Marina which is right in the downtown core. Tarpon Springs is the ‘sponge capital of the world’.

Sponges still on the fishing boat at the harbour.

Greek immigrants were lured here by the sponge fishery in the early 1900s and the city is very influenced by Greek culture – we have sampled some Greek restaurants and heard a lot of Greek spoken on the streets.

We celebrated American Thanksgiving with our friends Doug and Lynne.