Thursday October 20: Crystal River - Most Stressful Day Ever!!!

So tonight we are sitting in Crystal Springs another 65 miles south on our Big Bend trip. And we did travel 65 miles but are actually only about 40 miles further south!

This shore is SO shallow that most of our travel has been a minimum of 10 -15 miles offshore so by the time we go west 10 miles, south 40 miles then back east 10 miles we've traveled a long way but too much of it east and west rather than south!

Back to Steinhatchee on Tuesday. After the long 11 hour day and the harrowing docking in the current on Monday, Steve and I were both ready to stay an extra day. That extra time gives us a chance to check out the area - which Steve did by bike with the report that there really wasn't all that much around!

It was still very enjoyable and the sights along the river as we headed out Thursday consisted of a few marinas and many homes. We were off at first light as the tide was going out so we needed to be exiting at at least half-tide in order to be sure we had enough depth in the channel for us.

Destination? The Suwannee River!! You know - the Stephen Foster song "Old Folks at Home"? Florida's state song? "Way down upon the Suwannee River, far, far way ...." Sounds really cool, right? Not so much. But the fishing was interesting.

The waters of the Gulf were calm. Good so far. The fishing was interesting - if you like catching small sharks! As long as he is catching something though, Steve is a happy person :-)

We actually had to anchor for a couple of hours outside the channel to the river - waiting for the tide to be at least at half-tide to give us enough depth in the channel.

So what is a person to do but fish, right? Personally I enjoyed the time reading :-)

What I should have been doing was a bit more research into what turns out to be a question of how much water is actually IN this river!


So off we go - the Suwannee River! About 1/3 of the way up channel, I asked Steve to come to the flybridge. I'm seeing depths of 3 feet and less. Are these for real? Are we kicking up mud? Steve said no mud so we kept going - assuming the depth finder is reading mud or seaweed.

After a stressful 8 miles we finally make it to the marina. Didn't even check out the area as now the problem became - how do we get out of here??? High tide was back at 5 am. Half tide at 6:30 am. Sunrise? 7:30 am!!!

After a very long night with not much sleeping, I woke Steve up at 5:45. After a quick discussion we made the decision to just head out in the dark. Steve on the front with a fairly good flashlight and I was driving using our track on the GPS to go back out the way we came. What a nightmare!! Except for a momentary "I think we're grounded" we were able to make it back to the deeper water of the Gulf - all of 7 feet :-)

After anchoring and napping for an hour or so, off we headed to Crystal River.


Steve of course was fishing (trolling) along the way as we were about 20 miles. Caught two Spanish mackerel - very nice!! We had to anchor again for a while waiting to continue the 11 miles up the Crystal River to catch a rising tide. I'm getting very tired of these tides .......

Sunset was very enjoyable - no more major restrictions by tide as we move south along the western Florida coast .... I have a feeling we'll be here for a few days!!