Santa Claus is coming to town

Santa arrived in Apalachicola this afternoon! The whole town turned to see him. We were excited to be part of the celebration on what looks to be our final day here.

Here he comes!

Yep- Santa travels by shrimp boat in these parts! Who needs a sleigh anyway? And that's all I have to say about that.

Why are we so joyous? Because we will be crossing the Gulf tomorrow after waiting 2 weeks for favorable weather!! We will be traveling with Sea Horse, Serenity, and Ta Ta most closely, with quite a few other boats in our armada. It is nearly 200 miles from here to Dunedin on the west coast of Florida. Our group will cruise at 7.5 miles per hour on this overnight trip. We will not have cell phone service out there on the open water, but our VHF radios can easily be heard by the Coast Guard if need be. We have planned in great detail and stocked up on junk food to keep us awake. This is probably the scariest part of our adventure- not because of danger, but because of the unknown- cruising at night, the almost certainty of encountering bigger waves than we like, possible sea sickness, taking turns being on watch and minding the auto pilot etc. Its good to know that no Looper has ever been lost on the crossing! (But we do have our immersion suits, emergency locator beacons, and flares handy.)