CROSSING THE GULF

“Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours”……….Gordon Lightfoot
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Well okay, maybe our Gulf crossing wasn’t quite that dramatic. But it definitely ranked pretty dang high on the creepiness scale.

We had made sandwiches and coffee ahead of time because we knew it would be too rocky to be cooking. We prepared for the trip by setting most things on the floor and wrapping towels around breakables. Our “overboard bag” in the event we had to abandon ship was packed with water, flares, vhf radio, flashlight, waterproof mascara, etc. What?

Ross went up to the office for one last weather briefing and we decided to cross incase the bad weather moved in earlier than predicted. When we left Carrabelle on Sunday morning, there was ice on the railing and deck of the boat. Yes, I said ice. We were travelling with two buddy boats so we weren’t making the trip alone. One of the boats sped up and left. So it was just us, and the Spirit Dancer. We plodded along in the 3-5 foot seas most of the day. When the sun set, the world became very dark. At this point you are trusting God and your navigation system because you can’t see anything! You pray that there isn’t anything floating around out there to run into. No lights anywhere except those of Spirit Dancer. It was reassuring to look out and know someone was out there. At one point Spirit Dancer radioed us and said they had lost an engine. That gets your adrenaline going. It turned out they had blown a coolant hose. They were prepared and had it fixed and we were underway again in no time.

Once our course took us south rather than east the waves hit us from the side rather than from the front. So we were rolling side to side. Not pleasant in the least. We rotated being at the helm and would try to nap in between watches, but it was impossible to do at that point. Later in the night as the seas settled a bit we were able to take some naps. Our trip went faster than predicted so we ended up at idle speed for the last 3 hours waiting for daylight. There are crab traps everywhere once you get close to shore and you need to be able to see them to avoid them. The traps themselves are on the bottom but connected to a heavy line and a large floating bobber on the top. If you hit one, the line wraps up around your prop and you are in trouble. Most of our crossing was in 40-60’ water, but we encountered our first crab trap at 32’ as we were entering Clearwater.

We arrived at the Clearwater Municipal Marina 24 hours after we left Carrabelle. Our bed never felt so good!!!!!