We got up this morning and we had the day to pass before we would leave for Tarpon Springs. The plan is to leave late in the afternoon and travel overnight so that we arrive in Tarpon Springs with the sun high enough to be able to see all of the reported thousands of crab pots that line the coast off of Tarpon Springs. We calculated that we should leave around 4:00 PM and that is what we did. I walked down the dock this morning to watch a fisherman unload his catch into a buyer truck from a local fish market. He had red grouper, red snapper and black grouper. I'm sure there were others but that is what they identified to me. Each one of these plastic totes below weighed in at around 110 lbs and there were about 6 of them. The fish were all well packed in lots of ice and some actually looked like they were half frozen, anyways still very fresh. The fisherman was about 70+ and he goes out with his wife to fish. They usually stay out for 3-4 days and then come in and unload. He takes care of the boat and she does the fishing. Looks like a very hard life and I was amazed in what good shape the old guy was in. I'm sure the sea toughens you over the years.
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| Red Grouper |
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| The cold chests with all of the catches |
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Red Snapper
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We had a big lunch aboard so we wouldn't have to deal with cooking tonight while underway. I even had a couple of beers hoping that I could have a siesta after lunch. The siesta never happened and we ended up busy with new arrivals coming in and finally two boats came in that needed our spots as they had reservations and the marina had been very gracious in allowing us to stay almost until 4:00 PM. A late check out if you will.
I hope SeaTow has another boat here because this one doesn't look too good. There are quite a few abandoned or sunken boats in Carrabelle and I'm guessing the economy is not very strong. It's sad to see the parts of old Florida falling apart.
We worked our way out of the river into the sound and then passed through East Pass which is the deepest and best marked of the three passed out of the sound. There are a couple of jogs as you follow the deep water through the pass and then it is a straight line to R4 off of Anclote island near Tarpon Springs. The beginning was a beautiful afternoon cruise and then the sun went down and we were well out of sight of land and it got dark. Not just dark, really dark. So dark we could hardly see the burgee on the bow pulpit and nothing else. I don't know about others but I didn't feel all that comfortable plowing along at 10 knots and not seeing a thing. I kept thinking that others have done this for centuries and that's just the way it is. We also have radar which to my thinkng is a huge comfort and AIS which helps too. BUT neither of them will show you a half submerged container or sunken boat!! Anyways we didn't hit anything and all was well.
Around 8:00 PM the moon rose as a huge orange ball and turned a bright white as it rose in the sky. Once it was up it cast a light across our path and you at least felt there was a chance of seeing something before you would hit it.
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| Heading out onto the blue yonder |
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| The sun setting to the west, nice calm seas and a west wind to push us along |
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| The guiding moon |
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| Sometime in the middle of the night. The radar is set on a 12 mile range and there was no one else out there |
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| The view of the navigation and instrument panel |
Debbie and I took turns standing watch and trying to get some sleep. We had chicken vegetable soup with left over pasta as one of our many snacks and then later on we had popcorn. No drinking on this cruise that would need to wait until tomorrow. There was some very good music playing on Sirius radio and it made the time fly along while it lasted. I love it when you know every song and like it too. We got to a point where the water starts to become shallower and it is a well known place for the fisherman to place their crab pots. We didn't want to run into any and risk fouling the props, so we stopped the engines and drifted until the sun had come up enough for us to see. The problem we expected was that the sun would come up and blind us from being able to see anything on the water until it got high enough. Good sunglasses helped a lot and also we were heading about 30 degrees off of the sun so it really wasn't too bad and we made it to an anchorage where we stopped and slept for a few hours before going in to Tarpon Springs. The main reason we didn't go straight in was that with the almost full moon the tides were higher and lower than normal and we saw some very skinny water coming in behind Anclote Island and when I called the marina to confirm our reservation she suggested we wait until 3:00 PM when the tide would come up before we made our way up the river to Turtle Cove Marina in Tarpon Springs. Somewhere in the morning I thought I had picked up a crab pot line or just a line and when we anchored I dove under the boat to check. No lines and everything seemed good. I cleaned off the scaling from the zincs so they would work again and checked to be sure they were all in place. Everything looked good and I spent about a 1/2 hour in the water which was very refreshing. Debbie and I had a nice nap after and woke up around 2:00 PM to head into Turtle Cove.
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| The sun will be up soon |
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| There is the sun. Good Morning |
We checked into Turtle Cove and unloaded the bicycles so we could go out for an early dinner at Costa's Greek Restaurant. We showed up around 5:00 PM at Costa's and ordered Greek Salad (one of their specialties. I ordered the Greek Combo Platter and Debbie had the Soutzoukakia. Debbie had wine and I had 4 sangrias. We were so stuffed we rode back to the boat and rubbed our bellies hoping that we would feel better soon. It wasn't too long before we went to bed for the evening, but before we did we had a visit from the Harbor Host Herb Seaton who won the True North award as the Harbor Host of the Year. He delivered a map and showed us where everything is and also brought us a box of Streusel Cakes. What a guy! Thanks Herb.
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| The menu from Costa's |
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