The Crossing

The longest stretch of open water needing to be crossed on the Loop is the Gulf of Mexico in Florida's panhandle to west coast.  It can be terrifying or boring, depending on weather conditions.  We had been watching the forecast since leaving Pensacola and saw a good 48 hour weather window coming up. During the winter it can easily be a week or two before another good chance might occur.  Our anxiety rose as the engine problem delay was chewing up the days before the window would close.

We had been lucky to find Tony and fortunate that he came out on Christmas Eve Saturday to help us.
The holidays caused another delay by not getting our replacement pump delivered Tuesday morning as expected.  A couple of other looper boats we met at the marina left Tuesday headed down the ICW to join a larger group for the crossing together the next day.  Our anxiety level rose.

After explaining our urgency, Tony drove 2 hours to Mobile, AL to retrieve an available pump and brought it Wed morning to install.  It was in an awkward position and took 3 hours, plus a few cuss words, but the dreaded "check engine" light was gone and she again purred like a kitten.

Since the good weather window was open, we decided to go for it. There was a heavy fog that made looking for channel markers very difficult and there were many reports of shallow areas to avoid. So instead of threading our way carefully down the ICW, we opted for going straight out into the gulf.

We left at noon and the fog stayed with us until sundown.  But once clear of the inlet, we encountered only one other boat about a mile away, and few other obstructions to avoid.  We relied on our radar both in the fog and at night and it proved quite reliable.  It was a moonless night, so very dark with lots of stars to watch march across the sky.  Our only cause for concern was when a boat light on the horizon did not show up on the radar.  Peace and calm were restored when it was determined to be a new rising star and not a stealth boat.

The forecast proved correct as we found calm water (1-2' waves) and light wind (4-9 kts)for the entire crossing.  Angie and I traded off piloting and napping about every 2-3 hours.  Happy Daze performed wonderfully.

We arrived at the Clearwater inlet at 9 am and took another hour to get to our slip and tie up.  The trip from Panama City to Clearwater covered 240 miles, took 22 hours, and consumed about 140 gallons of diesel.  We spent about 4 hours at 17-20 mph and the rest at 8-10 mph.  Below is a track log since we left Pensacola on Dec 20 and 340 miles into our Loop.  We are over 1/20 of the way!