The Crossing

Friday, 15 March 2013

Today began with final preparation for the crossing of the Gulf of Mexico.  Beth was saying goodbye to her friends Lefty, the cat, and James, the helpful marina guy. (We had now been here for 7 days waiting for suitable weather)

Lefty was happy to see us go as all we did was pet him.  James was happy too..you see, we kept borrowing tools from him.

Part of our preparation was to have the boat holding tanks pumped out, however, Dave (of Dave and Jerry (Two Sailboaters)) had been pumping out their sailboat when Dave dropped the suck out attachment into the water.  This is a critical item! James, the marina man was highly irritated and encouraged Dave, pictured here

to get into the 61 degree water and attempt to find the attachment.  He was cold and unsuccessful. Here is his associate Jerry, casting off lines to get out of town before everyone’s sh&^%t hit the fan.

Joe devised a method for us to pump out so we did not have to suffer self imposed constipation for the next 36 hours.  We were to do this Gulf crossing with Dave and Jerry following us in their 26 foot MacGregor Sailboat, powered by a 70 hp outboard.  Forecasted conditions were seas under 1 foot and winds less than 10 knots. (Ha, Ha, Ha.)

Dave and Jerry following us off to sea.

So off we went.  We were supposed to meet another boat, the M/V Loon (36 foot Grand Banks Trawler) at the East Pass at 1200 noon, however he was running behind schedule so we got to the pass and anchored to wait for him.  Joe, thinking ahead, made lunch for us while anchored.

 

 

Note that the water is smooth.  The Loon was still behind schedule, so we departed at a slower speed to allow him to catch up. (He did at about 2:00 am) The weather was beautiful, calm seas, bright sunshine as we motored south at 8 mph.  The sunset was quite stunning, with no land within 50 miles of us.

Note that the sea is still somewhat smooth.  Soon after sundown, the wind picked up and we caught a beam sea (waves from the side) that rocked and rolled us from 8:30 P.M. until 5:00 A.M. the next morning.  It was somewhat disconcerting as you could not see the waves coming in the dark.  At 5:00 A.M. I noticed on the depth finder that we were approaching the 40 foot deep line, from 80 plus previously. We were warned that fishermen started setting their crab pots at about the 40 foot line.  Now, we were still 20 miles offshore.  I lit up the spotlight, and sure enough, within two minutes we went right past a crab pot float.  A crab pot consists of a baited cage with a line attached to a float.  The cage sits on the bottom of the ocean and the float naturally marks the location.  The problem with this is if you catch the line in your prop or prop shaft, it will wind the line up and smash the cage into the bottom of the boat with unpleaseant results.  We called all other boats nearby (about five of them) and reported what we had found and everyone slowed down and started using their spotlights.  The radio chatter ws quite amusing as various strategies were used to manuever around hundreds of these death traps. (at least to crabs)

It became light enough at 7:00 A.M. to see without the spotlight. We got into the Port Tarpon Marina at 11:00 A.M. Saturday morning.  25 hours after setting out the day before.  This crossing for us was 168 non-stop miles.  The map below with our actual course highlighted.