Day 218-221- November 21-24 Carrabelle, FL to Clearwater, FL

DAY 218 to 221

November 21-24

More time at Carrabelle, FL waiting for calm winds to cross "the bend." 
One captain described it as "spend a day at Carrabelle 
you have spent a month there."

So what do you do??

Paul baked bread. We both drank. We ate. We walked uptown.
We crawled the walls?? No, but we were ready to move on.


The day before we left Carrabelle our friends, Susan & Bill, arrived on their boat, Soul Shine. We had last seen them on the way to Nashville. 
We enjoyed catching up and and having a long lunch with them.



It is a GO!! We can leave this afternoon.
The jump...  We've been waiting for the weather to do this.  In real terms, any waves more than a foot are bad.  Wind over 12 knots is bad.  It's been bad forever.  The weather prognosticators message for Saturday was, "it's mostly OK, but Sunday is better." 
But each forecast update showed improvement, so we left.

We got underway at 3:30 PM with the plan to run overnight and arrive at Clearwater sometime after daylight.  It was just a little, and I mean a little, rolly at first, but within a couple of hours it flattened out and the wind dropped to zero overnight.  You could almost read by the starlight, with the Milky Way lighting up the sky before a half moon rose at 0115.

We swapped out 3 hour watches so reasonable sleep was achievable.  We lost cell service and internet not long after we got about 20 miles from land.  Ole Elon Musk figured out we were at sea and turned off the starlink, the rat.  The furthest from land was about 60 miles for the trip.

Sunrise perked us up and we arrived in Clearwater at 0900.  Nap time.

The "Before" picture.  There is no "After" picture because the cameraperson was bleary enough to point the camera the wrong way. 
That wasn't exactly true. We saw our reflections in the selfie lens, the 5 second timer counter down and took the picture, but, the photo was from the back of the phone, not the front??!!? We didn't look too bad for pulling an overnighter. You will have to trust me on this one. 

I had to get a few pictures before darkness set in.
Dog Island, off Carrabelle.

I'm going to ride my bicycle, I'm going to ride my bike.


These trees were in permanent hurricane mode.

The sun goes down...


It was a beautiful night.

The rules for the crossing were-
1. Stay in the boat
2. DO NOT fall out/off of the boat

I opted to follow the rules and not try to take pictures of the sky.
It was beautiful.

The sun comes up.  Always a great sight, sunrise at sea.
Only about 3 more hours to the marina at Clearwater.

We are back in civilization.

We wished these guys "good luck" with their fishing expedition,
 on their really small jet ski.


These birds didn't even say congratulations on the crossing. 
We didn't even care. We made it. 

Let's get this boat tied up and enjoy a nap!
3 hour shifts are like having a newborn baby.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Paul comments in this font
Cheryl comments in this font





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