March 7, 2009: Crossing the Big Bend of Florida

While I frequently enjoy the sunset, it is unusual for me to watch the sunrise! This morning was one of those times as we were up early to start our 100 mile crossing of the Gulf to reach Cedar Key on the peninsula of Florida. The Intercoastal waterway ends at Carrabelle so Tom decided to take the diagonal to farther South. We have been closely watching the weather for several days and chose Saturday with its forecast of sun and calm. Although I was concerned, the crossing, our second long trip out of the sight of land, was uneventful. Tom used the autopilot and we listened to the oldies on the satellite radio. We sang along with songs like “I just can’t help myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch” with the Four Tops and “My Girl” with the Temptations. We did see several other boats either making the crossing at different angles or fishing. As we neared the mainland, the water became decidedly calmer and we saw a familiar sight! Crab pots!

Cruising past Seahorse Key, we were delighted with a school of dolphins and even saw two small ones leap out of the water simultaneously. What fun! There is a light house there on a high bank overlooking the gulf. The path into Daughtry Bayou, the harbor of Cedar Key, was very unusual. Normally you do well just to keep the red markers on your right and green on your left (or the reverse), but here we had to make sure we followed the numbers on the markers 26, 27, 28, etc, because the course was so erratic. At one point, we made a hairpin turn around a red marker to make the next green because of shallow spots and sand bars.

About 6 hours after weighing anchor, we pulled into Cedar Key. Cedar Key was named after the cedars that were once dense in the area before they were totally logged out. This small town is the top producer of farm raised claims in the US and a small nest of seafood restaurants. We anchored near the city ramp and took our dinghy into town for lunch. As we were coming up to the dock we saw something new for us – it was an “air boat”. We had seen them on TV as the mode of transportation in the Everglades. It had a car motor mounted the back and was propelled by an airplane propeller. Pretty cool!

The first restaurant we came to, Sea Breeze on the Dock, had dining room on the second floor overlooking the boat, so we decided to eat there. And they knew how to serve seafood – shrimp, grits, coleslaw, and yes – yummy deep fried hushpuppies.

A local placard from the Florida Wildlife Commission said that 330 farmers lease 1300 acres of open gulf to raise 150 million clams a year. They seed the bottom with tiny clams and enclose them in a net to protect them from fish and crab predators. The boats that they use to work the farms are low and wide and we saw one at the dock. We also saw stakes marking the beds as we pulled away from Cedar Key.

There was really no place to stay at Cedar Key, so late in the afternoon we traveled another 2 hours to Crystal River. After cruising for several miles upstream through the manatee zone, we docked at Pete’s Pier for the weekend.