Second Wind on the Great Loop and Beyond

Wednesday – Sunday, November 25 – 29
Thanksgiving in Tallahassee with Scott and Anne involved everything that makes life good –- enjoying easy, fun time with our kids and eating a banquet of fine food. It was delightful to visit with their good friends too. Anne spent hours hauling us around town to run boat errands, and Scott spent a day with Bob working on boat repairs. We also managed to get in a little bit of Christmas shopping and were finally able to look at lots of Anne’s paintings. We picked out our favorite of her works, and we can’t wait to install this exuberant collage of colorful paintings. Now this Thanksgiving visit can be added to the list of memorable happy holidays with our family. We just wish Susan/Keith, Jim/Martha, and Allison and Mackenzie could have joined us too.

The upcoming Gulf crossing remained ever on our minds, and finally the day came when Scott and Anne brought us back to Second Wind in Carabelle, Flordia, where we were soon to depart. I’ll have to say that Bob and I were both pretty apprehensive. Scott and Anne hung out with us for several hours, just to give us moral support. We never cruise at night, and we were about to head out across the Gulf of Mexico as the sun was going down! What were we thinking!

Our plan was to rendezvous with two Looper boats, Doug and Kathy on Nonchalance, and Bill and Jane on Loose Stones. We had met them only through email, but they were willing to let us tag along, even though they were leaving from Apalachicola and we were departing Carabelle. Bob figured out a point where our routes could intersect around sundown, and we cast off our lines at 3:20 p.m. on Saturday the 28th. Sure enough, just as the sun set, we spotted two black dots on the horizon. (you can barely see them as tiny dots in the sunset photo.) And were we ever glad to be in the company of two other boats as we cruised in the dark all night long. Seeing the lights on their boats was comforting to say the least – and we had someone to talk with as we struggled to stay awake.

Dark, boring, cold, and interminable best describes “The Crossing” experience. Somehow I never imagined how dark it would be, nor did I realize that reading would be out of the question. Any light at all ruined our night vision, and we HAD to be able to read the chart plotter and radar. Because it was cold, we drove from the cabin pilot station instead of the flybridge. We thought turning on the XM radio would provide some entertainment, but we couldn’t really hear it over the roar of the engines. Because our buddy boats had super powerful radars, they could spot other boats miles before we could see them. A “sighting” was something to look for and discuss, so we welcomed them. Bob and I each napped off and on, drank hot chocolate, and snacked all night long. We felt quite lucky that the seas were fairly calm most of the way. As we got closer to land, we had about an hour where the waves kicked up a bit. While that one hour was bumpy, we realize how lucky we were that the weather was kind to us.

By 10 a.m. on Sunday the 29th, we were safely tied up at the Clearwater Municipal Marina, thankful that we had safely completed this milestone. We checked in, washed off the first layer of salt, and crashed the rest of the afternoon. Later that evening we finally met our “Crossing Buddies” face-to-face. Just as we expected, Doug & Kathy and Bill & Jane were delightful. We hope our wakes cross again.

(We are still having problems connecting to the Internet.)