Great Loop All FL Segment Adventure

[gulfcoast john]

Clearwater Beach to Steinhatchee River, FL…142 miles across the Gulf of Mexico

Our good luck continued with good weather and calm seas. We planned to stop at Crystal River, but Three Rivers Marine had no transient slips and Pete’s Pier no longer takes transients. We chose pressing on to Steinhatchee (142 miles of open Gulf) rather than the short run to Tarpon Springs, which is only 15 miles away…too short of a day for a TC255.











Steinhatchee is commonly used by Loopers as a jumping off point for the northern Gulf of Mexico crossing. That's another quaint Florida town with lots of flats boats. The entrance is long and zigzags like so many of the Northern Gulf Coastal rivers. Some of the marinas appear a little more rustic than others.





Last pic of Clearwater Beach City Marina









A lot of preparation is required to plan and prepare to cross the Gulf safely. For marine forecasting we use the Tallahassee office which covers the Big Bend. There are pay for advice weather forecasters who cater to Loopers for free (Eddie’s Weather WAG) or a $25 or so fee. Pay great attention to your favorite wind protection app, ours is windy.com. Get the cabin prepared for a pounding like you've never had before including securing drawers, cupboards and all loose items. Rearrange your refrigerator so you won't have a big mess or broken eggs at the end of your crossing. Anything in the cockpit that can fly out will enthusiastically try to do so, in hopes of distracting you from the cresting rollers. Research your backup and bail out plan in the event a safe weather window never opens in the time frame you need. Plan to take your C- Dory to a marina with a nearby ramp so you can return to go fetch your rig and load up where you are. The worst time for a small craft to attempt the northern Gulf Crossing is Winter, just when Loopers want to be heading for South Florida. Incidentally, we both thought it would be a good idea to attend church services the Sunday before our Monday attempt. I like to think that helped.

The marine forecast was for 5 MPH N breezes, but just out of Clearwater Pass we encountered some really sloppy 2-3 foot spots with a lot of slamming and banging. We opted to head N and stay closer to shore, and that helped a lot, although a longer route. Nothing broke and we felt safe. Around here, you can’t always stay ‘in sight of land’ because the ‘land’ is a ‘low swampy area’ that you can’t see from three miles out, and due to the curvature of the earth, you can’t see more than three miles out anyway. But you can see that 3 mile line on your MFD and follow it or the 10 foot depth contour line. 142 miles is a LONG way in the Gulf, unless she is in a good mood. We were lucky and blessed. Beautiful water, with the bottom being visible 13 feet down. Seas calmed more through the day and we were making over 23 MPH after two hours, total trip six hours per NeboLink. Max winds at the airport was 15 MPH but more on the water.

Safe Travels and happy planning for doing this section of the Loop! We crossed 1,000 water miles on the ODO.

John

 

[gulfcoast john]

Crossing the Gulf day 2, Steinhatchee to Carrabelle,100 miles.

The weather forecast was for 5 MPH winds from the north. We planned to cross from Steinhatchee to Carrabelle going directly west across the Gulf, a distance of about 70 miles.

However, when we moved out into the slop, we found one to two foot whitecapping waves and chop that was banging and slamming us all around. We decided to move North to try to decrease the fetch of the Northern winds, and that worked very well. When we were within 10 miles of the Northern arc of the gulf, the seas calmed down and we were able to make 25 miles per hour around the arc of the inside of the Big Bend. The reminder of this leg was easy with under one foot seas and sometimes very smooth conditions.

The key to cross the Gulf safely in a small boat is to choose your weather days very carefully!

John

 

[gulfcoast john]

A later part of our 2-day North Gulf of Mexico crossing to Carrabelle had some of the smoothest seas in the Gulf we've ever, ever seen.



Carrabelle Moorings Marina has a nice Captain's Lounge, small pool, and good gas prices. It's a very common jumping off point for Loopers who are preparing to cross the gulf. You can’t go wrong with any Moorings marina.



From Carrabelle to Apalachicola, the ICW eventually becomes the “Grand Canyon” cut through swampy areas of Southern florida.

You might meet tow boats during this very tight squeeze. We think it's true that it's best to have the female pronoun on board make the call to negotiate passing or overtaking instructions from towboat captains. These guys have 14 day shifts on the boat and are likely to like to hear a lady's voice. LOL. Whatever.



We are lifetime AGLCA Members. Occasionally I respond to Forum Members who are requesting to see Florida Looper boats for free. This was my response yesterday to one such request:

Hi jgill,

We have been segment Looping on a trailer boat since 2017. We average four to six weeks per cruise. It’s more like ‘camping in a floating 28 foot RV’ for a three weeks or a month rather than ‘living on a boat for a year.’

We wrote an article on segment Looping on a trailer boat. Sign into the AGLCA site, select the INFORMATION tab, then the GREAT LOOP LINK MAGAZINE tab, then DEC 2021 E-magazine. Download that PDF, open and scroll down to our article, Trailerable Options, pages 14-21.

We’re just now completing a 1,300 mile cruise of all FL coasts, starting in JAX 28 days ago, then down to the Keys, up the west coast, and across the northern Gulf (safely and comfortably in a trailer boat!!!), then back home to Pensacola tomorrow at 25 MPH (WOT is 47 MPH with std outboards). We like one-way segments so we left the truck and trailer in a JAX lot storage.

We believe too many Planners never even consider a trailerable boat, despite many advantages:

Much cheaper to buy and maintain (and sell, if you find out the hard way that you both get seasick and hate boating)

Simpler systems that you can install and fix yourself. Replacing our Coleman rooftop RV 15,000 BTU AC including labor and shipping was $1,200. Replacing a typical seawater marine AC would be (heh, heh) a LOT more

Take your boat out anywhere there’s a boat ramp, launch anywhere there’s a boat ramp, and rack ‘n stack it cheap when (not IF) you have a family or personal emergency, breakdown, wedding etc

Get over 11 MPG while towing the rig an easy 500 miles per day at 65 MPH…right through a thunderstorm! You won’t do that in a 30 year old Mainship

Get insurance easily even if you haven’t previously owned a 35 foot boat and now want to upgrade to a typical 45 foot Looper boat (not likely to happen)

Wash, compound, buff and wax it yourself in under four hours easy

Modern trailerable boats in the 25 foot range are quite comfortable for a cruising couple…look at the Ranger 27, Rossborough 24, C-Dory TomCat 255, or many, many others. If someone can’t tolerate a porta-potti or ‘head by the bed’ you need a over 25 foot boat (the ‘Ranger 23’ LOA is actually 28 feet).

Feel free to DM or call with any questions or to arrange a tour of our ride after we get back home and fetch the rig.

Safe Travels and Happy Planning!

John


During a fuel stop in Panama City, we happened upon The Perch there. That is the boat the Executive Director of the AGLCA, Kim Russo, and her husband Michael are on while doing their first Loop. Kim came over and we gave her the grand tour of Cat O’ Mine (which can take upwards of almost five full minutes). She mentioned that she saw my AGLCA forum post reply yesterday and agreed with it! And even that she and Michael considered a trailerable Loop boat until Life got in the way. They could have crossed their wake in Ft Myers Beach, but are instead heading back up to the Inland Rivers. How cool is that to have the AGLCA Director tour your C-Dory while you’re
doing a Loop Segment?

We’ve previously met her at an AGLCA Rendezvous in Norfolk and also in Ft Myers in Jan 2022 (where Cat O’ Mine was on the list of open Loop Boat Crawls), but it was still a highlight of this cruise!


One of the most pristine and beautiful barrier islands is the 25 mile long Santa Rosa Island in FL, which is owned by the USAF. We think we are some of the few living folks who have hiked the entire Gulf shore of this island (back when we were both AD USAF with ID cards). Soon after 1980 it was closed even to ADAF without a special pass. Many folks (including Storm Dog) asked about going ashore to check out this weird looking tower on the island.



I told him it’s a wind test tower and that there were sensors in the sand along the “USAF BASE KEEP OUT’ signs and that it was a VERY BAD idea to try to explore anywhere around there.

Experience has taught us to be big believers in how helpful AIS send/receive transponders can be. We used the boat name provided by AIS to negotiate passing instructions with several tow boats in very very tight situations.



Irony always wins out, so therefore the very roughest part around our entire 1,300 MI cruise around the coast of Florida including past the Everglades and the North Gulf Crossing was returning to Pensacola Bay. The winds were over 15 mph and there was a really choppy moderate wave capping slop to grind through.

We pulled into our home Marina on board NAS PNS and gave a high five!

29 Cruising days and nights. 1,300 water miles. We’ll need to drive our car to JAX to fetch the truck and trailer and return to Pensacola.

We hope this post encourages you and your crew to embark on this journey of a lifetime on your own C-Dory! You now have the template, so just plan it and do it!


Safe Travels and following seas!

John

 

[gulfcoast john]

The real end of this cruise was the past two days, when we returned to JAX in our car to pick up the truck (on JAX NAS base) and trailer (at JAX storage solutions).

A great suite in the JAX Navy Lodge is $85 with a full kitchen right on the St John river. Your kids and grandkids should at least consider the military option. The USAF paid my way 150% through medical school with a free residency at Eglin AFB. I graduated with no debt, $150,000 in savings, a nice car and a super stereo.

Our Boat Trailer expert says we need new torsion axles ($4k) but most everything else passes the test of trailering up to Canada to do the TS and Georgian Bay. We are Getting Prepared!

Safe Travels!
John

 

[gulfcoast john]

We are fortunate to live right on the Loop route and can go back to re-investigate any section that we want.

We were a little rushed at Clearwater Beach city marina and Steinhatchee (pronounced STEEN-hatchee) in trying to catch a weather window to cross 150 miles on the Gulf on the Big Bend route. PS, the ideal time to do this on a trailer boat in our opinion is early April to late May, when there is almost zero chance of hurricanes or the Artic blasts that come south every 7-10 days all winter here. I watched the weather and buoy reports for over 100 consecutive winter days and NEVER saw a window for a trailer boat to cross the Gulf directly from Carrabelle to Clearwater Beach (waves under 2 ft) except for a few nights (a trailer boat would avoid night crossings).

The Clearwater Beach Municipal Marina is a great stop! Recent storm damage to docks has been repaired, but no fuel. In May, we were told the city planned to replace the entire beach side marina in 2024.

The Jolley Trolley runs all the way up to Tarpon Springs, so you don’t need to plan a night there (only 20 miles North). Explore the Sponge Docks, Greek food (we liked Dmitri’s on the Waterfront) and historic Greek Orthodox church.
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Surf City Tap Room in Clearwater Beach had the biggest portions of $20 bar food for the lowest prices in a resort area that we’ve ever seen and is within walking distance of the City Beach Marina. A giant Publix (with parking under it) is within 1.3 mile walking distance.

Moving North, Crystal River is the only place you can legally snorkel with and touch (with one hand) Manatees in the warm 72 degree spring waters there in winter. Tour boats with wetsuits and snorkel gear run $100 each, or you can paddle your dinghy in the no-motoring areas.

We stopped at the iconic 1940’s Florida Weeki Wachee Springs State Park ‘mermaid attraction’ tank showing the Hans Christian Andersen “Little Mermaid” story. An uninvited manatee swam serenely through the set.



It’s far off the Loop, see instead the Rockettes Christmas show in NYC.

Cedar Key has no marina for trailer boats, just a launch ramp trench surrounded by a mud flat at low tide with an 8 foot bridge over it and no room for protected anchoring. It has a lot of ‘artsy crafty’ artist co-ops for a tiny city. Second Street Cafe is great for big breakfasts and store-ground big coffee cups and has shared ownership with the great waterfront Steamer’s on Dock St.

Hope something here is helpful in your Planning!

John

 

[thataway]

(a trailer boat would avoid night crossings).

John, Why would a trailer boat avoid night crossings? We have made many night crossings in different parts of the world, spending hundreds if not several thousand nights at sea. Great times. I am aware of several C Dory's making the crossing from Carabelle to the South at night. We often time passages to arrive at a destination when the light is high, such as morning to early afternoon.

There is good anchorage to the South of Cedar Key. We have anchored there several times.

We have moored at Tarpon Springs a number of times. We always enjoyed being "right there". There are wall moorings and some slips at the head of the estuary. There is also a Marina, near the entrance.

 

[gulfcoast john]

Hi Bob,

Your and Marie’s vast experience is unique here. Thanks for the expansions & comments and please keep ‘em coming.

I’m thinking of the most efficient cruising speeds for our outboard C-Dorys; 25-30 MPH for us in Heavy Cruise Mode in most conditions. I never want to hit a log (or anything else) at those speeds, especially at night. Other owners who are experienced and enjoy cruising at speed at night should certainly do so…I didn’t mean to imply that they shouldn’t. Offhand, I’m not sure why a C-Dory crew would elect to cross the Gulf at night at displacement speed if they didn’t have to. Your 62 footer would just split that same log without you or Marie even feeling the bump.

Yet another valid critique of our attempts to ‘adjust’ the conventional wisdom for C-Dory’s cruising long segments is; if they cruise the coast of FL counterclockwise in Spring, they would have to deal with the spring rains, flooding, adverse currents and debris of the inland river systems north of Mobile unless they ‘start’ south of there.

If they ‘start’ on the East coast, the Chesapeake is still darn cold in Feb/Mar.

The conventional wisdom of ‘living on your C-Dory for a year or two’ while ‘following the seasons’ works for a tiny minority of owners (not including us). The option of trailering to whatever area interests you this season is working great for us since 2017. However, we ‘get it’ that our PNW friends may be reluctant to trailer clear across the country more than once (especially when they have such great cruising grounds locally). Credit to Colby on C-Traveller for being willing to trailer over 10,000 miles per year, year after year after year!

I hope something here helps someone in their planning. Always refer to Bob’s advice when planning. Hat’s off to him and Marie as the most generous and helpful crew on the entire loop for C-Dory’s!

John

 

[thataway]

John, the chance of hitting a "log" as you cross from Carabelle to some point South on the mainland West Coast of Florida is very very low. I may have mentioned the outboard Catamaran which ran from Orange Beach to the Bahamas in one day. (Total distance close to 800 miles). They picked up more fuel in the Keys, and rest of the crew near Lake Worth, in the late afternoon. Dinner in the Bahamas. They left at 3 AM, and my recollection is that their average speed was over 60 miles an hour. I am not recommending that this be tired in a Tom Cat!

Yes any of our bays (Mobile, Perdido, Pensacola, etc) will have some debris and logs after a significant rain event. Some get carried out to sea--but more hang up long before they get to the passes.

The chances of logs is considerably more in the PNW. We hit a few just under the surface and some branches in the prop, but at 6 knots and a full keel--no worry. There are some areas there I would use more caution.

Speaking of, the wind is predicted to hit 60 knots in gusts later tonight. That with some rain, may well bring some branches into the bays...