Cedar Key

Underway as planned at 0800 from Tarpon Springs – finally, we were on our way.


Winds and seas were relatively kind. We had about 3-foot swell from broad of the port bow to around toward the beam. It was a tiny bit of a challenge to make a sandwich, but all in all, a nice day with cool breezes from the west and air temp at noon around 73F.

Due to the wind and sea rolling right up the Main Ship Channel here at Cedar Key, we were unable to anchor in the spot I had picked out, and we ended up dropping the hook at 1710 about two and a half miles farther up the channel.

We will have about 14 hours of daylight tomorrow to get 126 statute miles to Dog Island Pass. However, we are tied down to about 1500 RPM because Seminole’s drop-center transmissions tend to overheat above that RPM, which gives us about 7.4 or so knots through the water, or 8.5 MPH. Thus, it will take us 14.8 hours to get to the pass. Unless we leave before dawn (did I say FOG is predicted tonight?), we will be running the inlet in the dark.

There is also the potential problem of the west-to-east long-shore drift of the northern Gulf we could run into, further slowing us.

Weather prediction is good for tomorrow; so we’ll get up at 0500 (dawn is 0644) and see what we can accomplish.