Clearwater Beach to Bradenton, 12/21 thro 12/22

Sunday, December 21

Emerging from the cabin this morning, we noticed that all the piers had a pelican sentry guarding our slip.  Our personal pelican protector (PPP) made us feel much safer.
 

The Pelican Sentry at Clearwater Marina

After chatting with Jim, he helped us get underway.  We left Clearwater Beach at 8:45 AM, hoping to get to the Don Cesar anchorage in 5 hours.  It was a bright and sunny day.  The channel into the anchorage was shallow, but was a nice anchorage. 

We made it in the predicted in the 5 hours.  The anchorage was out the back door of the brightly lit Don Cesar, a huge pink resort hotel on St. Pete Beach.  Surrounding us were waterfront homes.  It felt as though we were in Prestigious West Bloomington (a suburb in the Twin Cities Metro area).

Monday, December 22

Tim plotted two courses.  One course seemed a sure thing, and was well documented by Active Captain and other resources.  The other was  a “looks okay” course with several charted shoals and shallow water warnings.  The “looks okay” course was shorter by an hour or more.  Unless of course we ran Sea Fever aground.

We decided on the sure thing and set out at 7:45. 

After 3.5 months of this journey, we sometimes forget to take pictures. After all, how many pictures of water and trees can one take!  However, today, we snapped a photo of a brown pelican rookery.

Pelican Rookery by Don Cesar Resort

The fatigue of the last week, both from the anticipation of the crossing of the Gulf, and the actual crossing was still haunting us, but we were getting excited to get to Bradenton. It was our last destination that was time sensitive.  We really wanted to be there for Christmas Eve.

We knew at the onset of this trip, that we would miss our friends and family back home a lot.  But missing our Thanksgiving week food fest, starting with pizza with friends Thanksgiving Eve, and continuing nonstop through the weekend, and our Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve get togethers was hard.  Some of these celebrations had been going on since before any of us got gray hair!

Spending Christmas Eve with the Finneys, their daughter, son in law and grandson (Granthams), who Tim has known for decades, and Kathy has known for over 13 years was the closest thing to being home that we could possibly hope for!  Good, loving people, all of whom care about us, and for whom we care. And hey, there is even a kid who loves Christmas (and presents), and a dog that loves everyone.  Could Norman Rockwell have done better?  We don’t think so.

It was important to both of us, and we were going to make it with days to spare!

When we went under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, we knew we were close. There have been many times that we sat on the dock in the bay with Mike and Jackie and watched the cruise ships go by the bridge with their lights bright in the darkness.

Sea Fever heads under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge

The calm seas that we had been experiencing disappeared as we passed under the bridge.  Holy smoke!  The winds came up, the bay got very rough.  We were getting tossed to and fro.  Waves came over the bow as we struggled to keep Sea Fever on course. The one saving grace is that the sunshine stayed with us.

We passed the Finney’s home, waved, and headed up the Manatee River to our destination, Twin Dolphin Marina. 

We hailed the marina on our radio, were given our slip number, and asked for someone to help us dock. One of the marina’s staff helped us dock successfully.  Tired of ham sandwiches in the cockpit, we decided to eat a proper lunch at Pier 22, the restaurant attached to the marina. We were joined by Jeff, Elizabeth and Daniel, our friends from Brisa (Twin Dolphin Marina is now their home port).

We called the Finney’s, who invited us to come on over after lunch and when we got our car. 

We called Enterprise Rental for a pick up. It turned out to be much easier than the pickup with Don the Driver in Panama City! Now mobile, we headed out to the Finney’s house. Everyone got hugged. A little wine was shared, appetizers eaten, and the Kathy had some fun playing with Yoshi, the dog. About 8 PM we slunk to our car, headed back to the boat and crashed!

Recovery from our long sojourn across the Gulf seems to be taking longer than we expected!

A day in Clearwater, FL 12-20-2014

Saturday, December 20, 2014
We slept in, and decided to make do with what we had for breakfast.

Jim is our neighbor in the slip next to us here at Clearwater Beach Marina.   Jim is a little older than we are. And he was a talkative sort.  He built boats, and did all sorts of things in his life.  It was fun listening to his stories.  Jim’s current boat is a catamaran sailboat on which he lives aboard full time since breaking up with his girlfriend awhile back.  He was keenly interested in Sea Fever, and wanted to know all about it. And he seemed anxious to tell of his adventures throughout his life.  Mostly, he struck us as a lonely guy and he loved to chat with Tim about boats.
 

Among the many things he told us, Jim said he would like to do the Great Loop and have this kind of adventure…but he didn’t want to do it without someone with whom to share it. As a matter of fact, sharing his life expanded to other activities as well, from movies to dinner out.
 

It made Kathy sad that he felt so alone. We have each other and a cadre of folks, both friends and family supporting us through the joys and the adversities on this journey.  We hope Jim finds someone with whom to share his journey.
 

After sharing stories with Jim, we needed to replenish our depleted larder.  Our list included yogurt, milk, ½ and ½, bread, and, of course, a treat for Tim.  One of the most consistent challenges throughout our adventure has been finding a grocery store within walking distance as well as carrying the supplies back to the boat.  We learned there wasn’t a grocery anywhere close, but the Walgreens across the highway carried groceries. Walgreens for groceries?  Does this bring a new high (or low) to the Walmart grocery shopping experience?  Kathy went off to investigate, with boat-bags in tow.
 

It was the weirdest Walgreens ever!  It was two stories high and encompassed an entire block. The grocery portion alone was as big as some grocery stores.  It also had a huge liquor store (or as they say in the south, package store).  They had everything on our list, except the ½ and ½.  But that was okay, we have a stock of Mini Moos (the little single servings of ½ and ½ that one usually gets in a restaurant) for just such an emergency. 
 

In addition to groceries, this mega-Walgreens carried books, CDs, souvenirs, the usual drug store medicinals, and fashions (no, Nancy, Kathy didn’t buy any),  It was amazing!  So she got the required stuff.  And a mini Hagan Daz as a treat for Tim.
 

We were still very tired so naps were in order, again, but we were determined to eat out tonight.  
 

When we got up from our naps, we got a further low down on the area, and some recommendations on where to eat.  We chose a restaurant called Frenchy’s that Tim remembered from his last trip.

Frenchy's Café, a Clearwater Beach institution

It was right behind Walgreens…what a surprise!! Frenchy's has been in business for decades. It was clear from the crowd that “the season” when the snowbirds from up north descend on Florida had begun in earnest.  In addition, Christmas holiday vacation time was coming up, so there were a lot of families.  It was packed. The food was very good. Kathy’s crab cakes were not as good as those in Fairhope, AL, but pretty darn good all the same! 
 

We walked back to the boat, and hunkered in for the night.  Off to Bradenton in the morning.
 

Crossing the Gulf, 12-18 thro 12-19, 2014

Thursday and Friday, December 18 and 19

The big trick to a relatively pleasant Gulf crossing is finding a rather benign weather window for the passage.  The fast-boat crowd can make this crossing in one day, arriving before dark. In our case, we require 30-35 hours to make the 170 mile trek from Carrabelle to Clearwater at our usual breakneck 5-6 mph cruising speed. That meant we needed two consecutive days of fair weather and placid seas.

Our “fair weather” definition is winds of 10-15 knots or less, preferably from the north, and waves that are 3 feet or less. To find this magic combination we consulted NOAA, Accuweather, Weather Underground and passageweather.com as well as data that is sent in real time via the web from government weather buoys out in the Gulf (our favorite is weather buoy 42036).

We also rely on a guy named Eddy.  Eddy is a pilot and avid cruiser who volunteers to predict the weather in this little corner of the Gulf during the fall and winter months for members of the American Great Loop Cruisers Association (AGLCA). He uses all the above resources and more. 

All of our weather resources agreed that the window was open. So, at 7:26 AM, we set out with great trepidation through Dog Island Pass, and into the great Gulf of Mexico.

Our route from Carrabelle to Clearwater Beach

Sure enough, the Gulf was placid as we motored along. It was not, however, warm, The temperature was 41 degrees.  We wore all of our foul weather gear, and several layers of fleece under it…and we were still cold.. Hopefully things would warm up a bit.

We were not far (perhaps 3 miles) into the Gulf when our Verizon phones and hotspot had no connections. Our VHS radio was our only way to contact the world outside of Sea Fever. This was another one of those “we-are-on-our-own” moments that make cruising in a sailboat both scary and interesting (they generally become more interesting and less scary if you survive).

To keep the moments interesting, we had some rules for our small crew:

>  When on deck always tether yourself to the boat.
>  Aways wear a life jacket when not ion the cabin.
>  Never leave the cockpit unless both of us are on deck.

Kathy tethered to the boat...new hat!

Tim trying to stay awake

Since the crossing would be long, we would have to spell each other to get some rest.  After all, we aren’t college students any more, where all-nighters were the norm.  So, unlike other folks who set 4 hour watches, we just agreed to stay at the helm until fatigue set in, at which point the other person would take over.

The weather did warm up a bit as the day progressed. The seas remained calm and there was little wind, so we motored through the day.  From time to time, we had dolphin friends accompany us.  We saw few boats, and little by little, the coast line drifted away until we were completely surrounded by big water.
 

Sunset while crossing the Gulf

As dusk came on, the sky clouded over. It was a dark night. Very dark and rather eerie since the horizon line was obscured, leaving us engulfed in darkness. The moon and the stars didn’t appear until about 2 AM on Friday to provide some relief.

Our autopilot was broken, so we had to steer the boat ourselves. It was a burden to maintain a course, but it gave us something to do. With an autopilot, you can just set it and forget it. Many a sailor has met with trouble by dozing off while the autopilot steered the boat into trouble.  The GPS was invaluable, pointing the way to Clearwater and providing assurance we were on the right course. We also kept our compass bearing at 150 degrees south.

At one point, in the dark, and on Tim’s watch, dolphins decided to play and jumped completely out of the water right next to the cockpit.  After virtual silence for so long, it scared Tim out of his wits!

Kathy took her turn at the tiller, while Tim slept. She saw two boats pass her, but nothing else.  After about two hours, Kathy roused Tim and asked if we were getting close to shore since she could see bridge abutments and a shore line. Tim allowed as how we were still in the middle of the Gulf. Time for Kathy to take a break!

Tim manned the boat to sunrise, and then we both stood watch. As we neared Clearwater, the wind picked up and we hoisted all three sails and for the second time in many months, became a motor sailor.  Of course, after about an hour, the wind died, and we needed to take them down.

About noon on Friday, we had our west coast Florida destination, Clearwater Beach, in sight. As well as a mine field of crab pots that we needed to avoid.

We stopped the boat just offshore from Clearwater pass and got it ready for docking. We reattached the fenders, made the dock lines ready, and headed into Clearwater Pass to Clearwater Beach Marina. Once at the marina, we fueled up, and tied up at our slip by 2:07 in the afternoon only 30 hours and 37 minutes after leaving Carrabelle.  Once the boat was tied up, we went below, and fell onto our berths to take short naps.



Kathy and T2 taking a well deserved nap

The crossing did not live up to our fears and trepidation.  The weather was about as benign as it gets and the seas were mostly flat. The boat performed well. So, we don’t have a horror tale to tell other sailors over rums and Coke. That’s fine with us.

We awoke just before the sun went down and wandered down to the beach to watch the sunset. 

Kathy and Tim at Clearwater Beach at Sunset

We were pleased to have finally made it to south Florida after such a long journey.  And we were happy to finally be warm again.

To celebrate we had a glass of wine and dinner at a little bistro, went home to Sea Fever, and fell promptly fast asleep. 

The dreaded Gulf crossing was over.

Day is done.  Sunset at Clearwater Beach

Carrabelle, FL, 12-17-2014

December 17^th, Wednesday

After two days of making our way from Panama City, FL to Carrabelle, hot showers were the first thing on the to do list, followed by complimentary continental breakfast (waffles, gravy, sausage and cereal.)

Carrabelle is a small town, population about 2700 people. While we didn’t have the chance to enjoy them, Carrabelle is known for its oysters.

Oh, and one other thing. Carrabelle is one of the most popular places to begin the journey across the Gulf to south Florida. Why so popular?  It is the nearest town to Dog Island pass which provides the shortest route across the Gulf.  It is also the place where boats wait for a fair-weather window to make the Gulf crossing. Sometimes this wait can be considerable. We heard stories about folks waiting in Carrabelle for 5 weeks. As a matter of fact, on Tim’s first trip, he spent 2 weeks here for just that reason.

Unfortunately, there is not much to do in Carrabelle for an extended stay, so we were reluctant to leave Panama City until some fair weather was on the horizon.  Tim spent the day prepping the boat for the crossing, making sure all the systems worked and the safety equipment was checked over. Kathy walked through town to the Post Office, where she had to wait until the worker guy got back from his one hour lunch break between 11:30 and 12:30.

On the way back to the marina, she stopped and took pictures of the world’s smallest police station.  According to the City of Carrabelle website:

The World's Smallest Police Station" came into being on March 10, 1963.  The city had been having problems with tourists making unauthorized long distance phone calls on its police phone.  The phone was located in a call box that was bolted to a building at the corner of U.S. 98 and Tallahassee Street.  Johnnie Mirabella, St. Joe Telephone's lone Carrabelle employee at the time, first tried moving the call box to another building, but the illegal calls continued.

Mirabella noticed that the policeman would get drenched while answering phone calls when it was raining.  So when the telephone company decided to replace its worn out phone booth in front of Burda's Pharmacy with a new one, he decided to solve both problems at once by putting the police phone in the old booth.

With the help of Curly Messer, who was a deputy sheriff at the time, Mirabella moved the phone booth to its current site on U.S. 98 under the chinaberry tree.  The booth did protect the officers from the elements, but some people still snuck into it to make long distance calls.  Eventually the dial was removed from the phone, making it impossible for tourists to make calls.

The World's Smallest Police Station

 

When back at the marina, we met a couple who had been at the Rendezvous at Joe Wheeler, back in October.  On the second night of the Rendezvous, he had a heart attack on his boat, and, also, fell and hit his head. 
 

There were 5 medical professionals who came from their boats, on the same dock, and answered the cries for help.  Within about 30 seconds, he was receiving CPR, the AED (automatic electronic defibrillator) applied and the paramedics called. His life was saved and he made it to the hospital. There, he had several stents put in, by-pass surgery and an aneurism repaired. He is now, just a few months later, back on the waterway completing the loop. We tell you this story in the hope you might consider taking CPR classes.  You may save someone’s life. 

We capped our day with a fish dinner at a small restaurant, and returned to the boat to rest for our journey across the Gulf in the morning.

On to Carrabelle, next stop to the gulf 12-16-2014

December 16^th, Tuesday

We woke to a beautiful sunrise.  It had been the first night in months that we hadn’t needed to turn on heat either propane or electric, for the cabin.  As an extra bonus, we discovered that our coffee and tea stayed warm in the cup for more than 30 seconds!

Out on the hook, we do still make coffee in our electric coffee maker, we just go about it a little differently.  A few years back, Kathy had the bright idea to turn our electric pot into a drip pot using water boiled on the stove for when anchoring out. We tried to make coffee in a French Press, but the press was very messy to clean with limited water supplies!  And Tim had to have his coffee.  A morning without Tim having his coffee is a bad morning for Kathy, indeed!

We left the Oxbow anchorage at 6:30 and headed back out to the ICWW

There was a slight mist as we left the channel and it was beautiful.

Leaving the channel.  How beautiful is that!

As we moved into the lake portion, we were impressed with how much it looked like northern Minnesota.  Oh, well, except for the Cypress trees and the Spanish moss.

We got to Carrabelle, fueled and pumped out and were in our slip by 3:00 PM.  Took a walk around of the marina, and then came back to have dinner and hunker down.

And sleep.

Back on the Intracoastal Waterway (ICWW) 12-15-2014

December 15^th, Monday

We got going by 8:15. It was chilly, but the sun was shining.  We said goodbye to the Panama City Marina, and continued on our way.

Leaving Panama City, FL Marina

 There were two options for our night’s stay.  The first was the White City Free Dock just east of the White City Bridge.  The second was an anchorage called the Oxbow. One of the rules we came to live by is that you take the first reasonable option available.  Why?  Because you never know how good, or bad, the next option will be!

We took one look at the free dock, and decided that the Oxbow had to be better.  It was another hour away, but we were making good time, and figured we could make it before sunset.

It was the best decision!  The anchorage was gorgeous.  And it was empty. It took us awhile to set the anchor, as the depths varied from 4 feet to 30 feet!  No sooner had we set the anchor than we heard this huge roar.  While we didn’t see the alligator, we sure heard him!

Kathy at anchor in The Oxbow

Trees, Spanish moss, and reflections

Reflections in the Oxbow

Miles traveled were 53 taking us about 11.7 hours.

We slept well.

Good Weather News, 12-14-2014

December 14^th, Sunday, Good Weather News

Today, the temperature reached a high of 60, and tomorrow, Monday, promises a high of 65 with sunny skies.

Even more promising, was the unexpected report that the Gulf of Mexico was to be calm toward the end of the week. Previous reports indicated that the best time to cross the gulf from Carrabelle to Clearwater Beach on the western coast of Florida was to be today and tomorrow, and then the weather would kick up the waves and the potential for storms. It appeared the hope for another crossing opportunity could be a week, maybe more, away. So the news that we may be able to cross at the end of this week is very welcome, and surprising, and means we may be able to make Christmas Eve dinner with our friends in Bradenton.

With the temperatures in the 60s, we could would make the trip to Carrabelle without freezing! 

So we swung into action, did a final load of laundry, did some quick stocking up at Publix, our now favorite grocery, and returned the car by 4:30.  We planned to leave early on Monday morning.  Our goal was to anchor out Monday night, dock at the Moorings of Carrabelle Tuesday night and Wednesday.  And prepare for the gulf crossing on Thursday morning.

Out of all of Kathy’s fears, crossing the gulf was the big one.  In our boat, the crossing would take 30 some hours of straight motoring. Best to take advantage of the fair weather forecasts and get it over with.

National Naval Aviation Museum 12-13-2014

Saturday, December 13, 2014

We headed out in our rental car to Pensacola and the National Naval Aviation Museum.  Using Kathy’s phone GPS,  we charted our route, and discovered that it would take us 3 hours to travel the 100 plus miles…whether by freeway or local routes!
So we took the local routes there, and the freeway back.  And lo and behold, it took the 3 hours either way!

The first realization that we were, after all, at a military base, was going through the checkpoint. A stern man  in, of course, aviator sunglasses, and packing a weapon stopped us and asked to see Tim's ID.  Intimidating, to be sure.  ]

We wound our way to the museum itself.

It was amazing.  First of all, it is free.  There were IMAX movies for a fee. We would have liked to have gone, but by the end of the day, we just ran out of time.

Just as we started to talk to one of the folks at the reception desk, we were informed that the trolley ride out on the tarmac was about to begin, just in case we were interested.

We hopped on the trolley, and were treated to a tour of all the airplanes that were either operational, or were being worked on.  The tour guide was a Vietnam era ace who had flown many of the planes.

After that, we returned to the museum itself, were informed that a guided tour of the museum would start at 1 PM, and we had about enough time to wander through the second floor, which was not part of the guided tour.

The second floor included several flight simulations…neither of us had the stomach for those, and the cockpits of several fighter planes.  All of which you could get into and sit.  Boy, were they small.

One of the exhibits included the actual raft that the crew from "Unbroken" lived in before being captured by the Japanese.  How tiny that was.

Actual raft that Louis Zamperini and crew lived on for 47 days

We wandered down to meet our tour guide, and was he a kick!  We figured him to be about 70 years old, and he had on his bomber jacket and all of his medals.  His name was Captain Billy.


Captain Billy making a point



Taking the tour with Captain Billy

He was very knowledgeable and very entertaining.  The exhibits spanned the time from earliest flight to modern days.  All of the planes were actual, and not reproductions.

And unlike so many museums where the “do not touch” rule is enforced, folks were encouraged to touch most of the exhibits.

A part of the Blue Angels' exhibit

A few interesting facts that we got from Captain Billy:

• The wings on early planes were made of fabric
• The tradition of fighter pilots wearing a silk scarf came from bravado.  It was unmanly to wear a parachute.  Not so unmanly to use the parachute fabric to clean oil and debris from one's face.  Hang the fabric around your neck, and it looked very natty.  The fashion caught on!
• When the exhibit of the Blue Angels was hung, it was criticized, because the planes in the formation were not close enough.  The fact was that the museum couldn't hang them as close as the planes actually fly.

While it made Kathy sad that so much was put into the effort of warIt was a high point of our trip. If you ever have the chance to visit, do so

And on the way home to our marina, we were able to see the tail end of the Panama City Boat Parade as the decorated boats made their way across the harbor.  A lovely ending to a lovely day.

More plans to be made tomorrow.

Change of Heart in Panama City, 12-12-2014

Friday, December 12, 2014

We woke early, made coffee and tea, and talked a bit about the next part of our journey.

As we talked, it seemed that the tail was wagging the dog, or in this case, that deadlines were making us move, as opposed to common sense, or the things we could experience along the way.  We had a full day planned for today, what with laundry to do, errands to run (somehow Kathy had lost her foul weather jacket, so a trip to West Marine was in order).  Packages were being delivered to the marina on Friday. And, one of the activities that was on our list of things to do was to visit the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, FL.

And the weather window to cross the gulf from Carrabelle, Florida to Clearwater Beach appeared to open on Sunday the 14th.  While in theory, we could have gotten to Carrabelle, some 100 miles away in time to make the crossing, we would have been traveling in the dark, and would have been exhausted, and not in good shape for our 30 some hour sojourn across the gulf.

Our friends in Bradenton told us that we will celebrate the holidays together when we get there and encouraged us to be safe.

The decision was made to keep the rental car through Sunday, visit the Naval Aviation Museum on Saturday, and s-l-o-w down.

So, West Marine was visited purchased, errands run, and we planned for Saturday at the museum.

The folks of the marina told us that every Friday evening in December, downtown Panama City hosts Dickens Evening.  All the shops are open, there are food vendors.  The town is decorated.  It helped get us in the holiday spirit, and downtown was packed!



Kathy in front of the Panama City Christmas Tree



But we think that the most amusing, and popular, feature was the ice slide.  Now understand, the temp high for the day was 78, and the low was 58.

Love the saucer...and the reindeer hat!

And the periodic snow fall around the ice slide. They threw ice into a machine and made ice crystals and shot it over the crowd and replenished the ice slide!

Snow in Panama City, FL

We heard one small child say to her mother that it would be SO FUN if this could happen everyday!  Tim just looked at each other and chuckled.

We had dinner, a glass of wine, and headed back to Sea Fever, looking forward to our trip the National Naval Aviation Museum on Saturday.