Apalachicola + Gulf Crossing

The adventure is back on.

Made a short sail from Port St. Joe over to Apalachicola, the jumping off point for boats crossing the Gulf. The channel was narrow and the whole time our GPS was telling us we were on land. It made me giggle when I thought that my friends' phones could have told me where I was within 20 feet, but a GPS specifically designed for marine use couldn't even figure out we were on water. D'oh.

Apalachicola was a pretty neat town. Very quaint and old-Florida style, but somehow really touristy at the same time. Not as friendly as Port St. Joe. There's a story that around the turn of the century Apalachicola and Port St. Joe were ravaged by Yellow Fever. Seventy-five percent of Port St. Joe's population and sixty percent of Apalachicola's population died from it, leaving hardly anyone left in the two neighboring cities. All of the large, fancy houses were moved from Port St.Joe to Apalach, where more of the population remained. Something of an indication as to the difference between the two towns that carried on through the years. Everyone in the Port St. Joe Marina was incredibly friendly and welcoming; the boat across the way from us in the Apalach Municipal Marina had a bullet hole in the window. I have my allegiances with PSJ.


We went out St. Patrick's Day night because, even though we were in a small, not-too-happening town, I was convinced I could find the party. Found a bar that was blaring Irish jams, and knew that's where it was at. We went inside to find completely different music. An old man was playing Give My Regards to Broadway (an Irish classic?) on a keyboard and what looked like the geriatric club of Apalach sitting inside mumbling along with the lyrics. We can always find the party.

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Then we crossed the Gulf, an experience the parents had been building up in my mind as some terrifying, intense rite-of-passage. Since we started the trip they had been talking about it, as if it were some monumental, life-threatening event.



It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. Once we were out of sight of land you could look in all directions and see a flat horizon. To be obnoxiously poetic, it was like we could see the edge of the world on all sides of us. We were in a circle of blue water that we could see the end of on all sides, and outside of that circle there was nothing. Just sky. Incredible.

In the middle of the gulf we suddenly heard this terrifying, disconcerting BOOM!, like a cannon firing. There was absolutely nothing in sight except miles of blue water in all directions. We heard it again, and realized there was a plane flying faster than the speed of sound and giving off sonic booms near us. Something I had never heard in my life.

We knew that our friends on the sailboat Kalex from our home marina (see previous posts) were crossing the gulf at the same time as us. We knew that even making radio contact with them would be highly unlikely in a gulf that's 615,000 square miles. We figured there was no harm in attempting to radio them. "This is Dragonfly calling Kalex. Come in Kalex." "RACHEL?! IS THAT YOU?!" We were close enough to people we knew to make radio contact in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. We kept looking out to get a visual on their boat, but couldn't see anything. After giving up looking and going back to steering, we see a tiny white triangle on the horizon. In an endless field of blue in all directions, having not seen any other boats since we left Apalach, we see friends that we'd been docked next to for a year. Incredible

Navigating by night was an experience. The stars looked different than they do from land. Closer. I completely understand how sailors could see the figure of a bear or a fish or an archer in a random array of stars. After staring at three stars for my second three-hour watch in the middle of the night to keep us on course, I could see a perfect figure of a twig in them. Hooray delirium! I've never felt as strong as I did only sleeping in four-hour naps for 34 hours and helping to navigate a small sailboat across the gulf.

Made it to Clearwater in about 34 hours and watched as condos rose out of the ocean as we neared land. Such a welcome sight. Pulled our boat into the marina and sleptsleptslept.