We reached St. Petersburg April 7th, and stopped to wait out high winds and thunderstorms before continuing. The forecast was for several days of this. Because of the long stretches of open water ahead, with no place to duck in out of bad weather, we had to wait for a several day break between cold fronts and associated winds and waves. That’s about normal for this time of year, but… In case you wondered, boating is mostly waiting for weather!)

4/19, and still in St. Petersburg. As you can see, it’s a pleasant anchorage, and the weather for being a tourist is spectacular. Someday, the waves in the Gulf will calm down, and we’ll move on…

Change of plans!

We’d planned to go to New Orleans and then to head up the Tennessee-Tombigbee River at Mobile Alabama, inland for about 400-500 miles to the Kentucky Lakes, and on to Nashville when we left Florida, but the traditional “March winds” kept blowing throughout April, and are forecast to continue well into May. We needed calm winds for an extended period in order to cross some 300 miles of the Gulf of Mexico (at 6-7 miles an hour). Also, the heavy snowstorms in the winter resulted in record amounts of flood waters being sent down the rivers, meaning we’d have to fight our way up the rivers.

Well, in waiting for calm winds we’ve now used up all of the time we’d hoped to spend visiting New Orleans and up the rivers. We’d get to our destination, and then have to immediately turn around and head back.

So, we’ve decided to change plans, and head across Florida via Lake Okeechobee, then up the east coast into the Chesapeake, probably with a stop in Washington DC.

These plans will change, no doubt, but the Gulf and the rivers are out for this year.