Travels of the Confetti

The Crossing:  Second Half  2/16/11 - 2/17/11  We left Steinhatchee with two other boats but after a few hours the others disappeared over the horizon.  We were the slowest of the bunch but I like to think we are using less fuel than either of them.  This is rock crab country and it's a full time job just to keep from running over one of the hundreds of crab trap floats.  A crab trap is a chicken wire cage that sits on the bottom and lures the crab inside with bait.  It has a length of rope attached with a small float at the surface.  If you run over the vertical rope it has a tendency to wind up on the prop shaft and draw the steel box up and into the prop where it may jamb.  That can only be remedied by getting in the water and physically cutting it out; not a fun thing to do when the water temp is in the 50's. Again the water is very smooth so smooth in fact that we decided to do something which is only rarely attempted.  We decide to anchor in the Gulf of Mexico.  The bottom in that part of Florida slopes from the shore to the Gulf so slowly that we anchored in ten feet of water but we were more than ten miles off shore.  The weather reports were correct and we spent an uneventful night on a calm sea.  The next morning was foggy but good enough visibility to idle along and stay out of the crab traps.  After a couple of hours we caught up with the "Precious Time" and we motored together almost to Tarpon Springs where they split off  for another destination.  I think this was one of the best crossings that anyone has ever made in the wintertime. When we were just 30 minutes out of Tarpon we talked to friends of ours from Houston on the cell phone.   Gary, Tommi and Dennis were on a road trip pulling their motorcycles inside a trailer.  They intended to leave the truck and trailer in Tarpon and ride the bikes down to Key West.  When we talked to them, they were only 30 minutes from town.  We pulled into Tarpon Landing Marina and they came down to the dock.  Unbelievable timing! Later, on the recommendation of a local, we all went to Mr. Souvlaki's restaurant for Greek Chow Mein!