Day 40/41: Apalachicola to Tampa

Today's the day. Actually, our run will be from Apalachicola to Anna Maria Island in Tampa Bay, not Tampa itself! The sky is clear and the wind is calm. The temp at 1000 hrs is 15C and the High here is forecast to be 19C (66F). Around noon we'll cast off and conduct a 2¾-hr voyage up Apalachicola Bay, beneath the bridge we drove over yesterday, then turn out into the Gulf for the 165-mile (266-km) crossing to Tampa Bay. Should take us about 24 hrs. Preston gives us a briefing on safety when running at night. Rule 1: Do not go outside the cabin, or pilothouse during darktime. If you go overboard, you'll never be found. Rule 2: Refer to Rule 1. Rule 3: See Rule 2.

Having decided we would all benefit from a leg-stretch before 24 hrs on board, we visit a very nice lady, Anne, who is looking after the Raney House museum today. She shows us around and knows the history backwards. What a marvellous old mansion. The family had six servants; three male and three female.... hmmmmm. The family lived here during an era in which Apalachicola was one of the largest ports by export trade (mostly lumber and cotton) on the Gulf coast.

We then repair across the street to the pop-up burger joint and get lunch (I have a fried flounder sandwich) which we take back and eat out in the cockpit. We get to work and are under way by 1315, heading out onto Apalachicola Bay for the run up to the East Pass for passage out into the Gulf of Mexico. We have over 900 gal of diesel on board (of which we'll use less than 200), our freshwater capacity is at 42% and the watermaker will have that at around 70% by the time we arrive. We have food a-plenty and the engines are running like sewing machines. We're good to go.
Some dolphin friends arrive and it's good to see them. In fact, the Apalachicola Bay is a marine ecological disaster zone. Its oyster industry--once the largest in Florida--has been completely wiped out and other species are in great danger. Why? Because of fresh water use on land and a reversal of water flows caused by the manmade waterways, some of which we've just negotiated from Mobile, cutting through watersheds. I'm glad we could see this area and I hope that steps can be taken by the state that will mitigate this crisis.

We roll on up the bay and at 1545 Preston makes the critical right turn that takes us around the shoaling and through the East Pass. A group of fishers on the shore of Dog Island wave us out of the bay and by 1615 the barrier islands are falling astern and our only company now is a pod of dolphins. We're at sea.

We head a little into a blustery wind to make a track of 145° with a 1-2 ft swell. It's comfortable and the evening closes in as we have Rosie's patented shrimp cocktails with her patented seafood sauce (Rosie shouted us 3-doz which I picked up on the wharf prior to departing).

We doze on the couch or nap on our beds and take a watch in the pilothouse. Preston has made the pilothouse bed and will take his naps there. The crossing is uneventful, the moon rises (that's good!), and the instruments show no other traffic around us.

At dawn, we're still 5 hrs out, and we have corn muffins, crispy bacon, and scrambled eggs. The tops of the tallest buildings on the Clearwater beachfront are visible, about 20 miles away on our port side. Eventually, we can see the buildings along the Gulf shore of St. Petersburg, and in due course we're in the channel and entering Tampa Bay. The bay extends away to our left beneath the 4-mile-long, cable-stayed, Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge (which has its own tragic history), but we're not going that way. We turn right and head down to our destination island and Galati's Marina inside the tight little Bimini Bay, where we tie up at 1230, after 23¼ hrs.

We're well-placed to continue into the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway tomorrow for a short day down to Venice Beach.Read more