The Big Crossing!

Hello loyal readers! I have many gaps to fill in here on the "blog". Tom and I were weathered in in Mobile for 10 days.We celebrated Thanksgiving there with a "potLuck" dinner with 16 other Loopers. Our contribution was 4 pounds of scrumptious gulf shrimp that we boiled with various spices. When the weather broke we made our way east across the beautiful Northern Florida coast. We reached the "forgotten coast"of Florida at Appalachicola.This town is so unique. It is a real working town (90% of Florida's oysters come from this little area). The old fishing buildings, wharehouses etc have been converted into really interesting shops and restaurants. The town has not been "tourified" at all and the beaches here on St George Island are reported to be among the best in the country. The flavor was more like a Maine seaside village than Florida, except for the gators and Dolphins. Yes, the dolphins have arrived and they love jumping the bow wave of the boats. What a thrill! On Saturday, December 2nd we left Appalachicola for the 173 mile crossing of the Gulf of Mexico to Tarpon Springs Florida. We decided on this straight across crossing because we had a weather window for one 24 hour period and if we had not taken it we would have been socked in for a week. 4 boats crossed with us and we slowed down to the speed of the slowest boat so we could all stay together. The crossing took 24 hours almost to the minute. We had about 4 very rough hours, but the rest of the trip was fine. We saw the full moon and a gorgeous sun rise. About 40 miles out from Tarpon we began to see the notorious crab pots and had to stay alert to dodge them (they can wrap around the props). We were exhausted when we arrived (we haven't pulled an "all-nighter in years).
We're currently in Tarpon Springs right downtown in the Greek sponge diving village. We had dinner at the home of Mike and Marlene Weinert last night...that's the first house we've been in in 75 days! Nice to go to the bathroom in a stationary toilet with a real flush handle (also nice to not have to think about where "it" goes when you flush. This loyal readers is one of the realities of life aboard! Now that we're in a populated area we will try to post more often...right now we are jumping on a sight-seeing trolley, and later today we'll ride our bikes on the beautiful trails nearby...but first we'll have a cup of Greek coffee and a pastry with our friends at a local Greek bakery>
Happy Holidays to you all...we love hearing from you!