Great Loop & Cruising Adventure Blog

Carrabelle, in the Panhandle of Florida, to Tarpon Springs is a 160 mile trip if traveled straight through. It would take 16 hours at 10 MPH so in order to arrive in daylight you’d need to leave at midnight to arrive before dark the next day. Yesterday we decided to break our trip up into two days. We left with Wanderin’ L&M at 4 AM to find the coastal waves to be less than three feet and winds less than 10 knots. We traveled the first three hours in the dark. An odd feeling to not be able to see the waves that are rocking you around.

As the sun came up we were greeted by continuing calm waters and by the time we arrived at Cedar Key, twelve hours and 120 miles later, the waters were dead calm.

One of the hazards of coastal travel in Florida are the many crab pots and their floating buoys. It’s a land mine of sorts and one has to be vigilant looking out for these obstacles. It makes night travel almost impossible in these shallower waters. The problem is that the lines will wrap around your prop and if it is bad enough and you are traveling offshore you have to take care immediately, even with big waves, just in order to continue on your way. We were fortunate enough to dodge all we have encountered so far. But others we have talked to have not been as fortunate and have had to brave the waters or pay a diver to take care of the problem.

After a peaceful evening enjoying the sunset over the Gulf we retired early as we had another 71 miles of coastal travel and more crab pots to negotiate on Saturday in order to make Tarpon Springs for a seven-day stay.

As we pressed on the next day, our luck continued as the water and wind Gods delivered us another good travel day. We arrived in Tarpon Springs at 4PM to the City Marina which is right downtown next to the sponge docks. This is one of our favorite stops because this town has a lot of character not to mention the great food.

Carabelle is only a short 31 miles southeast of Apalachicola and it is the last stop on Florida’s Panhandle and ICW. From here you have to either cross southeast out into the Gulf of Mexico to Tarpon Springs (160 miles) or hopscotch around the “Big Bend.”

The Big Bend is three to four travel days with the advantage being that you’re closer to land in case you want an exit strategy from the Gulf in a hurry due to worsening weather. If you went the whole trip around the Big Bend you would stop first at Steinhatche then Cedar Key and finally Crystal River.

We’re in a waiting pattern right now however it looks like Friday is shaping up to be our day to make the crossing to Cedar Key, Florida which we have choosen to break up the trip across into two days instead of one humungous long one. We have opted not to take the whole Big Bend route as this time of year there are just not enough good weather days close together to count on not getting stuck at one of these places waiting for a week, or sometimes more, for a bad front to move through.

Apalachicola, Florida was a 61-mile run from Panama City Beach on Florida’s ICW. It was a beautiful meandering cruise through absolute wilderness most of the way. We saw eagles and many dolphins on this run through pretty swampy looking territory.

We went through this cut during low tide as you can see in the photos below.

Apalachicola is considered one of the top oyster centers in the country and when you’re there Papa Joe’s, in our opinion, is the place to go. It is located right at Scipio Marina where we docked our boat. We can’t attest to the raw oysters cause we haven’t been brave enough to try them but, we love the fried variety and had plenty of them during our stay here.

Catching Oysters…

We only stayed one night as it appeared a weather window was opening up for us to make a Gulf crossing so we needed to get to Carrebelle posthaste, but we didn’t leave until late on Wednesday, about 1:00 in the afternoon since we wanted to walk into town where we stumbled onto one very interesting shipwreck store.

Apalachicola is a small town with a lot of character and some of the nicest gift stores, with a lot of water related items, that we have seen in a while along with some cute house boat businesses and old fishing boats that line the docks right downtown. Of course we had to get one more order of those fried oysters, to go, before we pushed off.

Today we traveled to Panama City Beach, Florida. Our timing could not have been better. A front came through the day after we arrived bringing high winds and big white caps, even in the marina. It was reported that there were up to fourteen-foot waves on the Gulf. Good time to be tied up to a dock. We planned a three-day layover at Bay Point Marina which was touted as a good stop and we have to report that it was. They have a couple of swimming pools and a hot tub as well as a golf course for those interested and the marina staff drops off a newspaper and weather report every morning.

Lisa’s second cousin, Norma and her husband Herb have wintered in Panama City Beach for twelve years and we wanted to get together with them as we did on our last trip. This has become one of top visits of our trips since they are great people and we always have a lot of laughs when visiting them, we kind of relate to both of them in a special way. We had them to our boat, they lent us their car and also had us over to the condo, on the Gulf, for a wonderful dinner with their friends from Canada, Joy and Lionel.

Some people call this cut, in the Panhandle, from East Bay to Apalachicola the Grand Canyon of the Florida ICW but we don’t think it is really anything like the arid canyons of out west but for us it is more reminisant of the sand dunes in the Leelanau Penninsula near our hometown in Michigan.

This is my (Lisa’s) favorite part of the trip south. The winding cut through this portion has a more intimate feeling than some parts of the waterway. The cut is narrow and you feel as if you can almost reach out and touch the colorful sandy dunes.

As we got almost half way through this cut a fog bank appeared in front of us and lasted quite a few miles. The only thing we could figure was that for some reason in this area the water became warmer than the rest of the cut since the air temp remained the consistant all the way through. The water was silky smooth and like a reflection in a mirror the sandy cliffs revealed their beauty for miles upon miles. The sight simply took our breaths away.

While waiting for the turkey to cook we took the dinghy down for a tour of the harbor and a walk on the beach. It was the perfect day. Just a slight breeze, no bugs and lots of sunshine. We stuck our toes in the Gulf and squished our toes in the fine, white sand.

Once settled into our anchorage Lisa prepared a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, home-made pumpkin pie, stuffing, gravy and mashed potatoes.

We put the roaster on the back deck to keep the heat and moisture out of the boat which also left more room in the kitchen to prepare everything else. The temperature today was in the high seventies and we were able to have the doors and windows open all day and into the night. We got our small little Christmas tree out and put the mini lights on. It added to the mood of the day in our little home on the water.

Jim watched the Lions loose and we both called family to chat. It was a very special way to spend the day, one we’ll never forget, however, we both agreed we would prefer to be with our families on Thanksgiving to share with them everything we are thankful for.

Thanksgiving day was spent motoring another six miles to the harbor in Destin, Florida to anchor out again.

On our way we came across a school of dolphins playing in the crystal clear, sandy bottom, waters in the Destin Channel. We had five dolphins playfully swimming in front of, beside and under our boat, as Lisa captured it all with her camera. Remember what we said about nature providing entertainment?