The Big Bend Crossing: Carrabelle to Tarpon Springs

Coming east along the Florida Panhandle, you're on the Intracoastal Waterway and inside water the whole way. Leave St. George Sound through East Pass, between Dog Island and St. George Island, and there's no more of it until Anclote Key, where the waterway picks up again and runs south to Tampa Bay. NOAA puts Carrabelle to Tarpon Springs at 147 nautical miles.

That stretch is the Big Bend. Every boat moving between the Panhandle and the peninsula has to make the Big Bend crossing: Great Loop boats in the fall, and boat deliveries up and down the Gulf coast all year. There are two ways to do it. Which one is right for you depends on the boat and the crew, and when you go depends on the weather.

Straight across, or along the coast

Straight across. This run goes from East Pass to Anclote Key, off Tarpon Springs. At trawler speed, 6 to 8 knots, the 147 miles from dock to dock take 18 to 25 hours, so it's an overnight run. A planing boat at 20 knots does it in a little over seven hours, a daylight run, as long as her fuel range covers the distance with a real reserve.

Along the coast. The other way is a series of day runs: Carrabelle to Steinhatchee, Steinhatchee to Cedar Key, and Cedar Key to Tarpon Springs. NOAA puts Carrabelle to Cedar Key at 101 nautical miles, more than a trawler covers in a day of daylight running, so that leg breaks at Steinhatchee, which has fuel. Cedar Key to Tarpon Springs is another 68.

Along the coast doesn't mean close to it. The Coast Pilot describes broken, irregular bottom for about 10 miles off the shore from Cedar Key up to Apalachee Bay, and broken ground as much as 15 miles out between Cedar Key and Anclote Key. You run miles offshore in shallow water, and each harbor sits at the end of a narrow channel through the flats. Cedar Key's main channel had a controlling depth of 6.5 feet in 2010 and has two hairpin turns. It's a route for a boat with a shallow draft and a crew that would rather not run at night, and it needs a good day for every leg.

Usually the boat decides. A trawler with two people who can each stand a night watch goes straight across. A fast boat with the range goes across in daylight. A shallow boat with a crew that wants a harbor every night goes along the coast.

Picking the window

The cold fronts start in the fall. The Coast Pilot says they occasionally reach these waters from fall through spring, that their winds often top 20 knots and sometimes reach gale force, and that waves of 10 feet or more aren't uncommon behind them.

So the Big Bend crossing gets planned around the fronts. The window is the stretch after one has gone through and the wind has settled down, and before the next one arrives. For the overnight, I want a forecast that holds for the whole run, with a margin for anything that slows us down. If the forecast only just covers it, we wait in Carrabelle.

Winter adds fog. Sea fog is most common between December and early March, it can sit over a wide area for days, and it's most likely ahead of a front, when the wind is from the south or southwest. At Cedar Key, the Coast Pilot says, south winds bring the fog in and north winds clear it away. It's one more reason to want daylight and a clear morning for the last miles in.

Read the forecasts for where you'll actually be. The Big Bend is where the National Weather Service office in Tallahassee hands off to the one in Tampa Bay, and both forecast the waters from 20 to 60 miles out separately from the coastal waters. The straight-across route spends most of the night in those offshore zones, so read them, not just the coastal forecast. Then check NDBC buoy 42036, 112 nautical miles west-northwest of Tampa and well southwest of the route, for what the seas are doing offshore.

Insurance and the crab traps

Great Loop boats aim to reach Mobile Bay in November, according to the Great Loop association, so they get to the Big Bend late in the fall, when the fronts are already coming through. That timing has an insurance side. The association notes that policies typically require boats to be out of hurricane-prone areas during hurricane season, and that some allow boats into the Gulf after Nov. 1, even though the season runs to Nov. 30. Read your own policy's navigation limits and dates before you plan the crossing. If a hired captain is aboard, get your carrier's approval in writing first, usually as a rider for a delivery captain.

The other thing on the calendar is crab traps. Florida's stone crab season opens Oct. 15, and traps can go in the water 10 days before that, so the Loop's crossing season is also trap season. Trap floats are small and hard to see in the dark, and a trap line around a propeller turns a good crossing into a long one. Time the overnight so you reach the peninsula side after sunrise and pick through the floats in daylight. For a trawler, that means leaving Carrabelle between midday and mid-afternoon, later the faster she runs. Work it back from sunrise at your own speed.

Before you leave Carrabelle

• A forecast that holds for the whole run, with a margin

• The offshore forecasts, not just the coastal ones

• Fuel for the distance, plus a reserve

• Two people who can each stand a watch alone

• A float plan with someone ashore, with your arrival time

• Daylight for the last miles into Anclote Key

The boat and the crew

An overnight crossing asks more of the boat and the people aboard than a day run does.

Fuel. Plan the full distance with at least a 25 percent margin over what the route calls for. Head seas and a detour around weather both burn fuel you didn't plan on.

Watches. Someone is awake at the helm all night, watching the radar and the water. That takes at least two people who can each stand a watch alone, and a plan made at the dock for who sleeps when. A partner who can take the helm for three hours while the other one sleeps is worth more on this run than any piece of gear.

A float plan. Leave a float plan with someone ashore, with your route and the time you expect to reach Anclote Key, and tell them when you get in.

The right license. If you're hiring a captain for the crossing, check that their license covers the water and the size of your boat. On the Gulf coast, the Coast Guard draws its boundary line for licensing 12 miles offshore, and the water beyond it is near-coastal. The straight-across route spends most of the night out there. A license limited to inland waters doesn't cover that; my 50-ton Near Coastal license does. You can check any captain's license yourself in about two minutes.

Where a captain fits

There are two ways to bring a captain into a Big Bend crossing. In the first, you run your own boat, and I'm aboard for the one night: the weather call, the night watch and the approach in the morning. That's an owner-assisted delivery, and it works the same way here as on the Great Lakes leg of the Great Loop. In the second, you drive around and meet the boat at Tarpon Springs, and that's a delivery. I run boat deliveries in Florida year-round, and the Big Bend is part of that.

Most of the work of a good crossing happens at the dock in Carrabelle: reading the forecasts, checking the fuel and waiting for the right day. If you're coming down the rivers in the fall, or have a boat to move across the Big Bend, tell me about the boat and your dates.