Well we made it. Pulled into Sarasota Hotel & Marina yesterday afternoon after a very pleasant run down from Clearwater. Lots of dolphins, calm day and a stop for a burger at the Mar Vista Mar Pub on Longboat Key. Checked in and then washed and straightened up the boat. And gathered up the linen to take it home to wash and dry.

What a great trip! I highly recommend it to any boater. The scenery and differences in the waters on each river are just amazing. Going from major cities and then little towns seemingly in the middle of no where makes for quite the contrast. And as is usually the case on these trips, the people you meet along the way are friendly, helpful and memorable.

I would do it again tomorrow. Especially if I could take my time and really get to see and spend time in all the areas we pasted right through.

As to my experience with the EarthNC charts and GooPs tracking software on this trip, while it may not take the place of a full function plotter, and nor does EarthNC claim it will, it is a great backup. Or perhaps have them running side by side with a nav program like Maptech or Nobeltec.
The amount of charts and detail for the cost is amazing. And seeing your track over Google Earth photos is pretty cool too.
I could also see how it would be very comforting for those not used to, or just getting used to, looking at and interrupting marine charts. Money well spent in my opinion.

In the next day or two I thought I’d post the total running hours, Avg. speed, fuel gallons burned total, total fuel costs, etc. Just for the fun of it.

Spent an extra lay day in Destin since there was no point in rushing to Apalachicola because the weather wasn’t right to cross till today, Tuesday.

Did the trip to Apalachicola on the inside ICW route because the wind was still up a bit in the Gulf. Nice ride, scenery is a lot like the rivers. Very backwoods with little development in most areas. But we had no connectivity for most of the trip. And none when we got into Apalachicola as well.

We did see a big Tarpon swimming upside down as we got near Apalachicola. Pulled up to it and it seemed as if his/her belly was swollen a bit and it could not right itself or stay underwater very long. I do know Tarpon gulp air from time to time. But I’ve never seen one do this before, other than that an uneventful trip.

Got into Apalachicola in the early evening, fueled up and had a really great meal at Boss Oyster. http://www.apalachicolariverinn.com/boss.html

Hit the rode just before dawn and headed out into the Gulf. Beautiful sunrise with oyster men tonging oysters from their boats thrown in. we had a nice 10 hour ride to Clearwater. The wind was 5 – 10 knots with slight chop and swells of 2 – 4 feet left over from the storm that had been in the Gulf for the last several days. But it only got calmer as we neared Clearwater.

Fueled and docked for the night at Clearwater Municipal Marina. Headed to Sarasota tomorrow where the boat will spend a few days getting some work done to it before we take it to its new home on Marco Island.

I think I’ll run on the ICW to Sarasota tomorrow as it should make for more interesting video than running in the Gulf.

No firsts today, thank goodness. Left Dog River about 8AM after picking up a chart I needed.

Overcast for the first part of the day. But by the time we hit Destin the sun was fully out as were the partiers. Destin rocks on a Saturday!

As we head toward the bridge at East Pass the sand bar on the bay side of the bridge is loaded with boats of all styles, sizes and shapes. Major party central.

Then going into Harborwalk Marina it’s the same mad house just in a much, much smaller area. Wave runners, tons of pontoon boats, parasail boats, charter boats of all sizes, Pirate ships, dive boats and pleasure boats. You name it and they are all here trying to go through the same small channel at the same time. Oh yeah, and add in a current perpendicular to the docks and you get to see some very interesting docking attempts. What a show.

Fueled up and then headed to our slip. Once there we took a minute or two to watch the show and then dove under the boat. No visible damage to anything. The slight vibration must be from the blade/s of the prop being out of pitch. I must have done something right in a previous life.

Since the weather still looks perfect to cross on Tuesday (5 – 10kt of wind and dropping, seas 2ft.) we will hold up here till Monday. Then head to the Carrabelle area to stage for the crossing.

I’ll have the video cam pointed down the channel and dock again tomorrow so you all can enjoy the show.

Lots of firsts on this trip, my first time down the rivers, first time I ever lost an anchor and the first time I’ve ever been on a boat that stopped at speed in about its own length.

Yup, that’s right, we hit something, doing 18 or so mph and came to a very abrupt halt.

I had just gone down below to use the head when I heard a thump and the in the blink eye another series of thumps and I was flying into the forward bedroom. Once I figured out I was OK I ran to the bridge to see what happened and if everybody else was alright. They were.
My friend the yacht engineer was running the boat at the time. He and the mate said they saw nothing in the water before we came to a halt and I determined he was in the channel and that we could still see nothing sticking up out of the water.

I got ready to fire up the engines after they had gone below to see if we were taking on any water or if anything had broken loose. We weren’t, and nothing had.

I fired the engines up and I put the starboard engine in gear and heard a thump and it stalled, sh$t! I put the port in gear and it seems OK. As I start to try and ease over to the other side of the channel I realize the starboard prop sounds tangled in something. It comes lose and I restart that engine and slip it into gear. Sounds fine. No vibration. Everybody goes back into the engine space and watches as I throttle up. No bad vibrations, no weird sounds and the all clear from the guys in the engine space. So I very slowly run them up and low and behold we run right up to cruising speed with only very slightly more vibration then the boat already had. (I asked the owner about it when I noticed it on the first day. He said it never did before but he had noticed it himself and felt it was because the yard had painted the running gear and props for the first time ever this year.)
So I back it down and we check the strut bolts, engine mounts, rudder posts, etc. all over again. Everything checks out OK.

So off we go at a much slower pace for a time. All the while we are checking the engine space and rudder area over and over again for anything unusual. All is well. And after an hour or so I run it up and after more checks everything ran fine all the rest of the way to Mobile.

Holy crap! It looks like we dodged a huge bullet.

I think we hit a tree on its side with the root ball sticking up. And that is what the props got into. Part of the sudden halt was from the engineer, very rightly, chopping the throttles back as soon as he heard the first thump.

We ended the day at Dog River Marina which, oddly enough, is on the Dog River just south of Mobile. I had hoped to have them pull the boat to look at the bottom and running gear but they don’t haul on the weekends. So I think we will work our way over to Destin Fl. where the water is clearer and dive under the boat and see if I need to have it hauled and the spare props put on.

Going through Mobile was interesting, what with all the commercial traffic and the rain. I forgot how much I hate soft bridge enclosures in the rain. Can’t see out worth a darn.
Don’t know if we got much usable video going through Mobile due to the rain Or the rest of the day for that matter, with little or no AT&T air card reception most of the time.

Hopefully tomorrow there will be no more firsts.

PS Had a great meal at the Mobile Yacht Club across the street from the marina. Real Cajun gumbo, big burgers and a neat waitress named Ruth. I highly recommend it.