Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019

Everglades City to Marathon, Crossing Florida Bay

The crossing from Everglades City to Marathon is not as dramatic as the crossing from Carrabelle to Tarpon Springs, but still needs some planning. The water coming out of Everglades City is very shallow, so tides must be taken into account and you must, must, must make sure you stay in the channel. Another must… wind speed and direction to be accounted for - since the shallow water allows waves to form quickly if the wind picks up. The trip to Marathon is 93 miles which requires 9+ hours of good weather while moving at 10 mph. The entire trip can be made in the daylight, which is important in order to avoid the gazillion crab pots scattered throughout Florida Bay. 

We departed Everglade City at 7:54am just as the fog was lifting. The tide was low, but almost as high as when we entered the channel a few days before and made it through without bumping the bottom. It would continue to rise during the morning (just in case we got hung up somewhere, we could float off in time as the seas rose). 

We found actual sea conditions out in the bay to match the forecast - winds under 10 knots, seas less than 2 feet. It seemed very strange to be traveling so many miles offshore, yet cruising through water less than 10 feet deep!  This link to the video will show the conditions: https://youtu.be/dv4gkNJ8xPs

Later in the day we had following seas (waves approaching us from behind the boat) causing us to roll a bit during the trip. Bo did not care for the rolling and was constantly snuggling up to Sue for comfort.

There was daylight to spare when we arrived at Marathon Marina at 5:30pm. Bo was very eager to find some grass when we docked after our 9.5 hour journey.