Carabelle to Clearwater Beach! (Queue Lionel Richie's - All Night Long....)

This was the day.  Actually the day, the night and half the next day.   20+ straight hours at sea.  


We picked the right day for crossing. The water started out nearly flat. 

And dolphins were to feeding by the boat most of the day. 
At 2pm we traveled out to the pass by Dog Island into the Gulf of Mexico. 

it was a beautiful afternoon to cruise.  Nearly flat.  

And we got to watch the sunset while underway.  (We don't typically do that.   We like to be at anchor or in a marina before dark).  But that isn't an option in the big bend unless you want to make it three days of travel with tiny channels into small towns without much to do....

We this is the view most of the night.   Follow the light in front of you, read the instruments.   Keep control of direction and speed.   Stand up and stick the head out often to let eyes adjust. 

It's hard to take a picture of the dark.

So you just follow the boats in front of you.  

The moon was out (actually a 1/4 moon) and only for the first third of the night...

Then it got really dark.  Freaky dark.  Dolphins still jumped by the boat and we could hear them but not see them.   And we saw something new to us: Bioluminescent blooms.  They look alot like fireflies in the water that light up and flash and they show up all around the boat and a ton in the wake.  I think the wake triggers a release of the light.    Near impossible to photograph though. 

Eventually the sun came up again.  Beautiful sunrise and welcomed by all on the water....

A few hours later Clearwater beach came into view in the distance but we were still two hours away.  Two of the most difficult and scary hours.   Driving in the dark is not really that scary because of the instruments, moon and stars and the fact that the ocean is nearly empty.  

Approaching the Clearwater shoreline however is nerve-wracking.    Why?  Crab pots.  It seems there are thousands of crab pots placed in the 30ft ish Gulf to catch crab.  Each one has a floating ball and a rope.  A rope that can catch a propeller and ruin a very good day.  

We went slow picking our way through them and avoided all of them.   Radio communication between boats is essential as it's easy to miss a little black ball half floating in a dark blue ocean ... 

And finally we arrived at Clearwater Beach.  We will be here for at least a week as we have a ton of things on the to-do list we have been putting off during travel.   Boat restocking, repair, updates and of course some fun tourism and thanksgiving with friends here in Clearwater...   

Next week we hope to get out further to things further out (visiting mom, getting to stores that aren't bikeable etc)

Suffice it to say it's good to be in Clearwater.  We will be moving around the next few weeks but stay in this area and then we will move south a bit for a longer pause and a visit home for Christmas! 

Our route for the day.    Not too complicated other than trying to keep the boat driving straight.   We did get some decent waves in the morning offshore - but nothing that made anyone sick.  

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