Location: 29.08.136N/83.01.489W Cedar Key anchorage. This posting is a day late due to the poor signal quality in the anchorage.
We left Tarpon Springs ready for an 80 mile passage taking approximately 8 hours. It’s open water with no protection for the next 250 miles to Apalachicola and four stops along the way. We received a couple of e-mails from non-boating friends asking how we know where to go. Like Marco Polo we have a compass and nautical charts (the equivalent of maps). There are no roads so we make our own routes. Aside from the basics we also have some technology to make navigation much easier. You can see in the photo our navigation display. This photo shows a segment of our trip to Cedar Key. In the photo you can see the route lines with the circle at the center bottom representing our boat. We bypassed our side trip to Crystal River in the center of the screen and went directly to Cedar Key at the top right of the display.
We have been fortunate so far with great weather and calm seas. Today’s passage was flat calm. We were off the coast by 20 miles and we could see the bottom passing by in 15 to 20 ft of clear water. We were visited again by several dolphins. Several swam with us right in front of the bow. One jumped the wake. The main channel into Cedar key could be a bit visually confusing but the pre-planned route gave us a path to follow. We would have liked to go ashore at Cedar Key but there is no place to comfortably tie up the boat. The city dock wasn’t much and it was getting late so we opted out of taking the dingy to shore. It looked like it would be a good place to spend a couple of days.
We left Tarpon Springs ready for an 80 mile passage taking approximately 8 hours. It’s open water with no protection for the next 250 miles to Apalachicola and four stops along the way. We received a couple of e-mails from non-boating friends asking how we know where to go. Like Marco Polo we have a compass and nautical charts (the equivalent of maps). There are no roads so we make our own routes. Aside from the basics we also have some technology to make navigation much easier. You can see in the photo our navigation display. This photo shows a segment of our trip to Cedar Key. In the photo you can see the route lines with the circle at the center bottom representing our boat. We bypassed our side trip to Crystal River in the center of the screen and went directly to Cedar Key at the top right of the display.
We have been fortunate so far with great weather and calm seas. Today’s passage was flat calm. We were off the coast by 20 miles and we could see the bottom passing by in 15 to 20 ft of clear water. We were visited again by several dolphins. Several swam with us right in front of the bow. One jumped the wake. The main channel into Cedar key could be a bit visually confusing but the pre-planned route gave us a path to follow. We would have liked to go ashore at Cedar Key but there is no place to comfortably tie up the boat. The city dock wasn’t much and it was getting late so we opted out of taking the dingy to shore. It looked like it would be a good place to spend a couple of days.
Have a safe trip crossing and make sure you eat some of those Apalachicola oysters for us!!! They are truly "wonderful".....so glad you are having good weather!! Nancy & Gary :))
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