Crossing Florida's Big Bend January 3, 2011 - January 4, 2011

The morning of January the 3^rd, 2011 Charlie had made a list of things that we needed to do to prepare for the “crossing!” Our plan was to depart Carrabelle the next day. This would be the only time that the MV “Bama Belle” would leave the site of land on this entire adventure!

We spent most of the morning, getting everything ready. We had a “ditch bag” full of food, life vests, flares, and other safety devices just in case we had to leave the boat! We had been watching a boat that had been anchored out in front of us over the weekend! It looked as if this boat and another one was leaving! Charlie, gave them a call over the radio! Her name is the MV “Stella Maris!” It turns out that they were headed out to make the big crossing! We had wished that we had talked to them earlier, because it would have been nice to have a buddy boat! MV “Yesterday’s Dream” (the second boat) radioed over to see how long it would take us to get ready! We told them that we could be pulling out of the slip in one hour. Believe it or not, MV “Bama Belle,” was loaded up everything was complete, even took the time to say good by to our new friends at Dockside Marina, and she pulled out of her slip in exactly one hour!

We were able to catch up with our buddy boats on the east end of Dog Island (just outside of Carrabelle!) We headed out towards the Gulf of Mexico around 1:00 pm. This would be the beginning of our overnight, 150 mile off shore adventure! The beautiful MV “Stella Maris” in the lead, followed by MV Yesterday’s Dream, and heading up the pack would be the MV “Bama Belle!” Oh yea! Brandy, was singing the theme song to “Gilligans Island,” almost the entire trip!

We all had introduced ourselves over the radio. Sean and Hazel were aboard “Stella Maris,” and Steve and Linda, aboard “Yesterday’s Dream!” Having all these boats traveling together giving us entertainment by being able to chat with each other, and share some great stories, made this trip more enjoyable.
As the sun was going down, making for a very pretty sunset, we were all entertained by several dolphins! They love to get in your wake and run along side the boat! Entertaining us also before it was dark were the many different species of birds! Pelicans, Seagulls, and Osprey made up most of them! Watching them do the 100 mile an hour nose dives right into the water and catch fish. Its really neat to watch!
Now, when we left Carrabelle, the seas were very nice and quite. The weather forecast was stating that the seas would be one foot or less all night long! Unfortunately, the weather man forgot the 4 hours in the middle of the night, where we encountered 2-3 foot seas! Let me tell you, She got a little bouncy in here! As soon as we could see daylight starting to appear, the winds and the wave calmed down enough to make the rest of our journey into Tarpon Springs, Fl very pleasurable.

Finally, we have made it to our destination, the City Marina in Tarpon Springs, Fl. It only took us from the time we untied in Carrabelle, to being completely docked in Tarpon Springs took a grand total of 22 hours. The trip was an awesome adventure! We were so fortunate to be able to share this experience with our new friends that we have never seen in person, only talked to by radio! If we ever make this part of the journey again, I would want to do it in the company of MV “Stella Maris” and MV “Yesterdays Dream!” I would like to express our gratitude to these two boats to put their journey on hold for an hour, so we could travel with them!