Sunday, November 27, 2011

Sunday, November 27, 2011

We had planned to leave early today and make it to Apalachicola, a distance of 60+ miles.  But it was windy with gusts up to 40 mph...and we had our coffee...and we read the Sunday paper...and we hemmed...and we hawed about wanting to leave our nice comfy anchorage with its good internet connection to go out and battle the wind when it was already so late that we couldn't make it to Apalachicola today.  But there's rain in tomorrow's forecast and I suggested that perhaps doing one short day of just wind and a second short day of both wind and rain would be better than doing one long day of both wind and rain.
So we decided to leave today but it was nearly 11:00 before we got going.
We didn't really need fuel, but we did need water and a pumpout, so we decided to get all three at a place that has diesel for $3.70 a gallon, which is probably 50 cents a gallon less than we can expect to pay for it when we get to Florida.  We topped off the fuel tanks, got water, and got rid of our garbage, but the pumpout station wasn't working so we'll have to wait till we get to Apalachicola for that.
Although it was certainly windy, once we got going the cruising conditions weren't as bad as we had feared and we made about 20 miles today.

I was holding the camera horizontally in this photo and you can see how much we were listing to port because of the wind--it was like that the whole time we were out today.  We didn't see any other boats at all today, just birds and an occasional dolphin.
About 2 pm we anchored just off the channel by Farmdale Bayou.  We had to dodge our first crabpot doing it.  We'll probably see a lot more of those when we get to the Tarpon Springs area.
About 8 pm it started raining and it poured for about an hour, but things have quieted down now.
The National Weather Service is predicting rain for tomorrow morning with clearing in the afternoon. The strong winds will continue, but we only have about 40 miles to go tomorrow so hopefully it won't be too bad.  When we get to Apalachicola we'll get a pumpout, then find a good anchorage for the next few days until we make the Gulf crossing.

No comments:

Post a Comment