We pulled up anchor at 4:30AM and headed out to the Gulf of Mexico - in the dark. It was a bit challenging finding the red and green markers that showed the channel, which led through a bridge to the Gulf. Thank God there is GPS and electronic charts. Once out in the Gulf, we had to keep the search light on to spot crab pot bouys. It was kind of like being in an electronic game, keeping up the speed of the boat and veering around bouys as we spotted them. Around 6am the skies began to lighten and by 7:25am we had a lovely sunrise at our stern. Once we were in sunlight, the trip was much more relaxed and enjoyable. The winds and waves were as projected and the trip was pretty calm. The winds were at our stern and we got a little speed boost for them. We also spotted one tortoise and had about 4 visits from dolphins in groups of 2 to 6 at a time. It was so calm that Kevin and I each had a chance to snooze along the way (at separate times:) It was eerily quiet during the trip, as we only saw one sport fisherman pass us and 2 fishing ships out at the horizon. That's not much traffic for a little over 15 hours. We were out of cell phone and radio range for about 11 hours of the trip, so it was a good thing Huckster had no mechanical issues!

At about 7:30 we anchored near Dog Island, which is across from Carrabelle, FL. The water was flat calm and we enjoyed drinks while the sun set.