Wednesday Jan. 16 – Thursday Jan. 17, 2019

The Crossing

“The Crossing” has sort of an ominous feel. Considering the night-time, lonely boat in the middle of the Gulf with no land in sight genre, it could be a frightening tale! Thankfully it was not scary at all. The worst of it was the all-nighter aspect. Hmmmm … When was the last time you pulled an all-nighter? Brian’s was many years ago due to a work emergency. Sue’s was many years ago too, when Brian was out of town, the kids were quite young and they both had a stomach bug – ugh! 

Mother nature provided a three day weather window to make it to Tarpon Springs. Doing the Big Bend route and stopping at harbors along the way would have required us to enter them late each day and depart very early the next morning to make it to Tarpon Springs before the weather turned rough. We would not have seen much of Steinhatchee, Cedar Key or Crystal River. So, the decision to do “The Crossing,” rather than traveling around the bend became our best option.

Buddy Boats

Many Loopers that do the crossing try to team up with a buddy boat heading to the same port and planning to travel at about the same speed.  We were aware of three boats making the crossing from Apalachicola the same day that we were leaving from Carrabelle. Several Loopers buddied-up to take the “several days around the bend” route and left the marina at sunrise. Around noon, a couple of Loopers commenced their crossing since they intended to travel further south, to Clearwater and Tampa. That left only one other boat in Carrabelle planning to run at our speed to make the overnight trip to Tarpon Springs. Unfortunately, they had a mechanical issue just hours before our planned departure, so Farhfromwurken took off alone.

The crossing begins

At 2:30pm on a mild, sunny afternoon, Wednesday, January 16, we left C-Quarters Marina in Carrabelle, FL.  We set a course to Tarpon Springs that would keep us in deep water (more than 65 feet) until sunrise, then we’d head in toward shore. We had a quiet ride out to the Gulf of Mexico with a light breeze and smooth seas as was predicted. By 5pm we were out of sight of land, serenely watching a gorgeous sunset, not another boat in sight. As the sky turned dark and the stars and moon came out, we traveled peacefully through the night at a calm 9.5 mph.

It is surprising how a very small amount of light in daylight will be glaringly bright in the darkness. In order to view anything beyond the flybridge windows, we had to reduce as much light as possible coming from our instrument panel. We darkened our chart-plotter screens and used red light flashlights & headlights (the kind you wear on a strap around your forehead) to be able to see outside the boat, as well as each other. All interior lights were also turned off to prevent a glow from the lower windows.  We observed that the night sky is actually not as dark as the water, at least not while the moon and stars are out.

We were not alone!

Around 10:30pm, we spotted another boat on radar about 6 miles behind us and off to starboard. Over the next couple hours we could see its lights and by radar it was slowly coming closer to us. (Oh no! Not the dreaded Gulf pirates!) About 12:30am, they were within 2 miles and we heard a hailing call, but not to us, though we recognized both boat names as ones that started the crossing earlier in the day. (To hail another boat, you use VHF channel 16 and say the boat’s name you are calling 3 times, then the name of your own boat.) There was no answer to their hail. Then they hailed a second boat, another name we recognized, but again with no answer. We decided that they were possibly thinking we are one of those boats, so we hailed them: “Mon Ami, Mon Ami, Mon Ami. This is Fahrfromwurken.” They answered our call and confirmed what we had suspected. A quick chat on another channel (Channel 16 is only for hailing and emergencies, the Coast Guard frequently makes announcements with this message when they hear idle chatter on 16.) determined that they were on a slightly different course going closer to shore. A short while later our radar and AIS picked up another familiar Looper boat near Mon Ami and by 2:30am, with both boats running closer to shore than us, we lost them from our radar screen. Again we were alone at sea, just the moon, stars and us. The moon went below the horizon a couple hours before dawn giving us an incredible view of the millions and billions of stars.

Rougher seas and crab pots

The winds and waves kicked up a little around 4am, with 2 to 2.5 foot waves, rather than the 0 to 1 foot waves over the past 13 hours. The choppy water was handled well by all, though Bo needed a little assistance from Benedryl. Around 5:30am we noticed a pale blue glow in the southeastern sky – true dawn. Shortly after that we arrived about 20 miles off the coast of Anclote Key, just outside of Tarpon Springs. We had to slow down for a while to let the sun get a little higher before beginning our run through the shallow water where crab pots are a hazard.

As every Looper is warned, crab pot floats typically begin appearing in about 30 feet of water. The floats are about the size of a 16” softball, painted in various colors, and are connected to crab pots on the seabed with a line that poses a potential problem to any propeller unlucky enough to snag it. Having the sun in the sky is essential to avoid catastrophe. 

Looking forward to a nap

Even before the sun broke the horizon, there was enough light to begin our journey towards shore. As we watched for crab pot floats, we viewed a magnificent sunrise over the sea. It took a couple hours of crab pot dodging to make our way into Anclote River and on to Tarpon Springs. We were safely tied up at the Tarpon Springs City Marina by 11:00am Thursday. Our crossing had given us an experience that we hope not to repeat, but we were happy to have done it - 176 miles in 20.5 hours. Then we all took naps!