Hygge Adventures: 028: Head East Part 3: Weather Window Closing and Another Member of the Bumpy Club

We originally planned to stay two nights in Panama City, FL to rest and see some sights, but our weather window for crossing the Gulf of Mexico from Carrabelle, FL to Steinhatchee, FL looked to be closing. Here is what we had to do coming up:

The two best days in the next week to cross the Gulf looked to be Wednesday and Thursday and we arrived in Panama City on Tuesday. Wednesday looked to be one-to-two-foot waves with wind (and waves) out of the North (we’d be headed Southeast), not bad. Thursday was two-foot waves with wind shifting to from North to East to Southeast with a period of four seconds (The time it takes for two successive crests (one wavelength) to pass a specified point. The wave period is often referenced in seconds, e.g., one wave every 6 seconds.) The longer the period, the more you encounter swells, instead of chop, and you generally want the period to be 2x the wave height, so you go up gently and down gently instead of slamming up and down. Friday the wind was picking up and the seas would be four to five feet with occasional six-foot waves and a six second period (1x) and a small craft advisory. Oh, and thunderstorms. It didn’t look to calm down enough to make the crossing until maybe Monday or Tuesday.

Wednesday was out of the question as we still had 79 n/m to go to get to Carrabelle, which we originally planned to do as a two-day trip. We asked ourselves “what would Sol Maria” do? The answer was obvious: They’d leave at 6:00 a.m. (central) and go the fully 79 n/m on Wednesday, and cross on Thursday. So, that was our new plan.

We left at 6:00 a.m. on the 29th of November and caught the sun rising:

We revved up the RPM’s and zipped through the East Bay at about twelve knots (most of the trip we’d be going seven to eight) and made it to the second manmade canal, that keeps you inland, in good time. We thought it prudent to slow down through the canal given its relative narrowness and twists and turns, but it didn’t stop one big boat from ripping through there. They slowed to pass us but hit the throttle a bit too soon after passing us and gave us a good rocking (grrrrr). That boat radioed the Coast Guard that there were two stumps stuck in the channel that they almost hit. The CG asked them to take pictures and note the exact location of said stumps. They replied that they had passed them and “couldn’t turn around.” I then got on the radio and told the CG that I was coming to that area and would get them the pictures. So, here are the pictures that we texted to the CG:

#1 stump:

#2 stump:

#2 stump for scale:

Location from chartplotter:

Having done my civic duty, we continued on our way. At the end of the channel, we came across a tugboat pushing a barge against the bank, so it and its propwash were perpendicular to our path of travel and they were taking up about half the channel. We should have called them and asked them to dial down the RPM’s, but we were unsure about what VHF channel they were on, and it didn’t seem that bad. Well, it was that bad, we got pushed way right and got a good rocking. Nancy was at the helm and did a great job of recovery and we made it through unscathed. Lesson learned: tugboat propwash is POWERFUL, call them.

The channel was otherwise picturesque:

After passing by the town of Apalachicola, we headed out into Apalachicola Bay and decided to let our boats run a bit, taking them up to full cruising speed (but not wide-open throttle (“WOT”)):

Halfway across the Bay our iPhones switched from Central to Eastern time zone, we had “made it East.”

We made it into Carrabelle which is a mix of pleasure and working boats. Here are some shrimp boats which the hostess at the restaurant we went to later that night told us our idle, the price of fuel having gone up and the price of shrimp having plummeted lately.

On the way in KatMat ran aground moving out of the way for a boat that was heading the opposite way. When Matt hit reverse, something sounded odd, so he wound up getting out into the water (much warmer than “my” Lake Barkley) and pushed KatMat off. Checking the propeller, he noticed a lie was wrapped around the prop, which he cut off and was on his way.

The fuel dock at Carrabelle:

After pulling into the slip, Matt borrowed my scuba pony tank and dive light to further check the prop for any damage or bits of line. Unfortunately, when I had my tank visually inspected the dive shop did not, as I requested, fill the damn thing. And I didn’t check ( ☹ ). Luckily this wasn’t a deep dive so Matt checked w/out the scuba gear. All good.