Days 26-27 Straight Shot! 24 hours, 186 miles

     Well, the waiting/guessing game is over. We reviewed endless weather information, including bouy weather data, and we made our decision. We chose the straight shot, over-night trip from Carrabelle to Clearwater, Florida. Now, in all honesty, if you know the Admiral, you would know that her vote would be for the biggest challenge. Right?
      We left Carabelle at 10:45 am in light 5 mph winds from the SE. The forecast was for 8-10 mph winds in the afternoon and falling to 4 mph overnight. Instead, around 5:00 pm the winds went up to 10-15 mph.  We had a visitor after dinner. This juvenile Brown Booby (wing span about 30 inches) flew round and round the boat trying to find a place to land but never did.

At the time we were 60+ miles from the nearest land so this was a treat to watch a majestic bird soaring around Lucky Us. There is also a video posted at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3rtTUOjB3Q


The visit by the Brown Booby was just before sunset, which is when our "luck" was about to change...

The sunset was a pretty sight, but as it turned out "red sky at night was not a sailor's delight". Sure enough, the winds abruptly rose to 20 mph with gusts near 30. This is pretty much the story for the rest of the night although we did see some clear patches with stars. We wore our auto-inflate life vests all night and used straps from the vests to hook on to a safety (or jack) line from the captains chair across the fly bridge and down the ladder to the aft salon door. The seas were 2 to 3 feet for most of the night with one occassionally "taller" wave. So, instead of alternating watches and sleep, we kept each other company. The autopilot and radar were a real blessing although we only passed three boats in the dark.   ...and dark it was with no moon and lots of clouds. For the night time portion our plan was to slow down  from our normal cruising speed of 8+ mph to less than 6.  Anywhere along the Gulf Coast, night time travel near shore is complicated by an abundance of floating markers for crab traps, and thus we wanted to do the last portion of the trip in daylight. As the weather happened, this was fortuitously a good plan.  In the morning we were greated to a "non" sunrise -

However, after 165 miles on a straight shot course of 143 degrees, the weather cleared, and the wind went back down under 10 mph as we approached Clearwater. Obviously, the town was excited to see us, and they sent out this shark full of greeters to wave hello.

We docked at the marina, had a quick lunch and took a three hour nap. Not a very relaxing time on our first over night trip, but we felt safe the entire time. It is just hard work "hanging on" and moving about the boat. Now, we begin an extended stay in Clearwater.