Night Passage!

October 29th, 2014
Wednesday morning the Gulf  Crossing weather prognostications told us today was the day.  An approaching cold front and north wind a would make the gulf a mess untill at least the 6 th of November! 15 to 20 knot winds with seas 3-5 which means occasional seas over 6.  No place for small boats like ours.

At 8AM Brigitte and I started the process of cleaning the boat stowing all stuff breakable. We took the dingy motor off the dingy and lashing it down in the cockpit.  To much weigh on the transom if we encounter heavy seas.  I spent a couple hours in the engine room checking oil,  sea strainers and change the Racor Primary  fuel filters.  The three primary failures on diesel engines are fuel issues, fuel issues, and fuel issues followed by clogged water intakes.  Topside I loaded a series of latitude and longitude coordinates into the chart plotter. Gina one of our new travel companions was our naviator and she had plotted two courses depending on the weather we would face along the route.

At noon the crew of Island Time, Gina and Capt. Steve along with Master Capt. Glen and Brenda from Young at Heart, Brigitte  and I assembled on Putz'n Arounds deck. We re-read weather reports, conferred with Eddy's Weather Wag. Eddy is the new crossing expert for all us loppers. Daily he collects all facets of weather date such as tides, wave highth, wind direction weather fronts etc. And he gives the thumbs up or down on our crossing. We matched time, speed, course approach and determined it was time to go. It was important to arrive after sunrise to be able to spot the crab pot bouys that litter the waters We said a prayer and Brigitte attended to casting off our  lines. I was ask to lead as we had better radar capabilities and we are the faster boat.

At 12:40 we entered the bay and went out into the gulf.  Once in the gulf we had 1-2 for waves, mostly off the bow with a 5-10 knot wind.  Very doable weather!  As expected I-2 foot waves means Mother Nature throws a few 3-4 footers at you. This was the first time I had used the Navigation function on my chart plotter with my Auto Pilot so it took a few miles to get them to talk to each other and as a result I zig-zagged like a drunk in sailer.  Glen had the same issue.  Finally out about 9 miles out we  had our band of boater is a relatively straight line. We are in our 60's the next boat were in their late 50's and the last boat in their late 70's.  None had done the golf crossing and only one of us had done a night crossing. So why are these experienced boaters asking me lead!  I wore my new tee shirt that states on the back " no one much cares about the storms you incounter in life, only did you bring the ship into port!   So that's my job!

At 7:30 PM the sun went down and at 7:30 AM the sun came up and that was a very good thing.  We had dinner, snacks, lots of  caffeine   and took two hour watches. We had a little moon light on the starboard side for a while. It was mostly overcast but when the clouds broke the stars where amazing.  Mostly we watched the chart plotter to make sure we where on course, checked the AIS and Radar other ships, and monitored engine gages. It was a mild night so we sat on and slept on the flybridge with all the front curtains  wide open.  It was very strange look out the window and seeing nothing but black. I spotted only 2 other boats all night . I picked up a commercial tug on AIS about 10 miles out before his lights came into view.  We talked and tracked our courses which showed he would pass behind us about 1.2 miles.  The second boat I picked up as a radar blip about 6 miles out.  I tracked him on radar and  about 4 miles out I could see his white Nav. light.  I tracked him until daylight as he narrowed his distance between us to 1.2 miles then he turned further south. We did have to slow to idle for about an our in the morning as it was getting down to about 30 ft of depth which is about the depth start dropping crab pots and it was to dark to proceed.  We arrived into our marina at 10:20 AM
We took Cody off the boat, what a boat dog. He mostly slept the entire trip!  Yup he made it 22 hours without relieving  himself.  We both took a shower and went to bed for 3 hours.

Statistics
175 statute miles  Carrabella  ,FL to Tarpon Springs
22 hours
Speed 7.1 knots
Fuel burn approximately 55 gallons

Observations:
Cross with a buddy boat
Putz'n rolls less at 10 12 knots but burns