Cheri’s Perspective
What is The Crossing? Since we have been doing the Loop in segments, our plan was to explore the Florida coastline going around the bend and heading South along the western coastline. We have enjoyed exploring every aspect of the loop that we can. Unfortunately, this year 2 Hurricanes – Debby and Milton wreaked havoc and destruction to the towns and the marinas as they went up the west coast of Florida and the bend as well. The marinas were either destroyed completely or damaged leaving them in dire situations. Some have been able to slowly rebuild over the last few months, but they are not completely functioning. They might not have diesel fuel, their water supply is either contaminated or still not functioning or they are unable to do a pump-out of the holding tank. These are all critical factors when looping! So instead of exploring the bend in Florida, we chose to do The Crossing. We basically cut the corner of Florida at an angle and went from Carrabelle to Tarpon Springs. This was an 18 hour overnight journey. We connected with 4 other boats who were also doing The Crossing.
We started the adventure on Monday, January 27th by anchoring out behind Dog Island early afternoon. The AGLCA forum had suggested to anchor there and take a nap. We were too excited to nap. The lead boat, Shamrock pulled up anchor a little before 4:00 pm and we followed suit along with the other boat that was anchored there – Endeavor. We fell in line after Endeavor, then Sweet Anne joined in and bringing up the rear was Makin’ Hay. It was a beautiful night and all our information indicated that it would be a good weather window to cross. Looking back, the trip was great and doable. But sitting in the dark and rocking and rolling and being unable to see outside the boat was a little unnerving. Pete and I took turns driving the boat and napping. I had snacks, smoothies, and food prepared.
We were the only boat heading to Tarpon Springs as the other 4 were going a little further south to Clearwater. Throughout the night we wore slowly veering away from the 4 other boats. But everyone puts their running light on so other boats can see you. As we moved further and further away from the group, their lights in the distance were like a lighthouse beacon to both Pete and I to know that we weren’t all alone out there in the dark expanse! Mick and Dawn from Shamrock had done The Crossing last year so they were our fearless Leaders and organized our group. One of the things they did was to contact everyone every hour on the hour. Hearing voices in the dark was also very comforting! The pictures below depict our travel group, the night sky slowly changing, Pete in the engine room checking to ensure our engines were doing great, the sun coming up, the crab pot buoys we had to avoid and the Roll Cloud that we experienced as we were approaching Tarpon Springs!
The Gulf Crossing – Pete’s Perspective
Looper Lore usually mentions certain legendary Rites of Passage: HOPPIES on the Mississippi River – 4 rusty barges tied to the shore to which you tie up for fuel and docking, BOBBY’S FISH CAMP on the Tombigbee River – it’s been around for over 50 years and a fuel stop for coming down the rivers, and THE CROSSING on the Gulf of Mexico! The first 2 are optional, but the Gulf crossing is mandatory to complete The Loop. There is no inland or intracoastal sheltered route.
There are three ways to travel the Gulf.
- The Big Bend route – you are closer to shore, but it takes 3 days and you are still exposed to the Gulf weather the entire time.
- If you have a “fast boat” capable of maintaining 12 kts or faster for 140 miles, a daylight direct, straight across route.
- Otherwise, you are doing the most common option; 18 to 20 hours crossing overnight where you leave late afternoon and arrive around 11am the next day.
With any of the options, you typically leave from Carrabelle, FL in the panhandle with a destination of Tarpon Springs, which is just north of Tampa. The weather in The Gulf can be quite dangerous, so you need to wait for a good weather day to do it. And it is best to ensure that you have good weather for several hours before you leave until several hours after your planned arrival time. During the November to February time span, there’s usually only about ¼ of the days that are suitable for doing the crossing. So you wait – for a good weather window. Having patience is important! Weather forecasts are usually accurate about 72 hours in advance. When it looks like there’s going to be a good weather window, you see lots of boats starting to head towards Carrabelle. As with all things involved with doing The Loop, our America’s Great Loop Cruising Association has a daily “You Make The Call” briefing that provides another resource for reviewing the weather and making your own decision on deciding to go or not.
The straight across run takes you about 30 miles off the coast of Florida for most of the crossing. So you are truly on an open water, offshore crossing. You are beyond cellphone coverage and out of sight of land for most of the time. Of course, most of the trip is at night, so you really feel you are doing something different than most of the other days on The Loop. And it brings along many additional considerations. Add in that this is mostly at night, safety becomes a major consideration. Our navigation is based on GPS and that works fine on the open ocean. We don’t rely on cell phone coverage to reach out to the Coast Guard if something goes wrong. The Coast Guard radio system is designed to be able to communicate with boats out to about 60 miles from shore. But if anything goes wrong, it will probably be a few hours before any assistance can arrive.
We assembled a “ditch bag” which contains things like identification, medicines, water, flashlight, radio, and basic survival gear. So if Spring Fling suddenly starts to sink, we can grab our life vests and the ditch bag and “abandon ship”. We have a dingy, so the afternoon before we left, I made sure it was fully inflated and made sure the outboard motor would start. Our dingy is on a lift that keeps it out of the water and hydraulics lowers the dingy into the water. Cheri had the excellent suggestion to make sure the controls for that were ready to use on a moment’s notice. Smart girl my co-captain Cheri is.
The weather turned out to be a little bit rougher than forecasted for the first 1/3 of the crossing. So you needed to have 3 points of contact with the boat as we moved around the boat. And with it being dark, you can’t anticipate the movement of the boat as you can’t see the oncoming waves. Every hour, I would go down into the salon and open up the heavy, soundproof hatch that covers the engine room. Trying to avoid being bumped into the engine room by the motion of the boat was a little tricky. But it was good to look down into that compartment and to make sure that Frick and Frack, our two engines, were happy. This was another safety check that we incorporated during The Crossing that we don’t usually do on a regular day on The Loop.
I’ve been retired from flying for about 12 years at this time, but in many ways, the crossing felt like a trans-Atlantic flight that I did while working as a pilot. I did many of the same things I did on one of those flights. I monitored our engine readings and fuel consumption to make sure it was what we were expecting. I made sure we were staying on course, and played “what if” games with how we would handle any emergencies that might occur. Additionally, checking for the closest port that we could head towards if something happened.