Hi all, we just returned from a 30 day cruise from Panama City to the Dry Tortugas, Key West, and back, and thought some of you may be interested in it. This was our first major trip after buying the boat and after installing several major systems, including a fuel polishing system, inverter and a large bank of house batteries. We departed Panama City, FL on April 4, which gave us a good weather window to cross the Gulf of Mexico from Carrabelle/Dog Island Pass to Clearwater the following day. From Panama City, on St. Andrews Bay, the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway (GIWW) traverses East Bay, then enters picturesque streams, rivers and a lake before terminating in Apalachicola Bay, home of the famous oysters. There are actually two usable passes. One is Government Cut, across from the city of Apalachicola, and the other is near Carrabelle, between Dog Island and St. George Island. I think the Carrabelle/Dog Island pass is safer in bad weather, so I always use it. We arrived late, 8pm, at Shipping Cove, behind Dog Island and anchored for the night. This is an excellent anchorage when winds are anywhere from ESE through SW. We dinghied around the next day for a while, rested and then prepared for our 157 nm Gulf crossing. I wanted to approach Clearwater Pass at sun up, which meant our departure should have been about 3-4 pm, but I was eager to get going and left about 1:15 pm. We had a 1+ kt favorable current, and I slowed down, but still got to Clearwater Pass about 1/2 hour before daylight, so we milled around and admired the stars. Seas had been about 1-2 ft. After clearing the pass, we crossed the bay to the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) and ultimately anchored in Boca Ciega Bay in St. Petersburg. This bay opens up into a fairly large shallow bay, but is a good anchorage, especially when it is possible to anchor close to an upwind shore. Maximo Marina is located there. At the foot of the fuel dock there is a Johnny Leverocks restaurant, which is a "must" for us. Also, within a block of the marina there is a West Marine store, a Publix grocery store and an Eckerds drug store, plus other stores. Maximo Marina gives a $0.10/gal discount on fuel and a 25% discount on dockage for Boat/US members. ^From the Maximo Marina we cruised to Sarasota and anchored near the Sarasota Yacht Club, and then on to Cape Haze and anchored in a small dredged basin. Both anchorages were very nice. Friends were waiting for us at Burnt Store Marina on Charlotte Harbor. We spent 4 days there, the last two because of weather, well, actually, the third because of weather and the 4th because it was free, having paid for 3 days. Charlotte Harbor was a pleasant surprise. It is sufficiently deep all over, giving free roam of the bay, unlike Tampa Bay and lots of other bays on the Florida West Coast. ^From Burnt Store Marina we rejoined the ICW and went south and anchored just north of Ft Myers to rest up before departing for the Dry Tortugas from San Carlos Bay, about 137 nm. As we approached the San Carlos Bay Sea Buoy, the seas were 2-4 ft, but quickly settled down as the convection-driven onshore winds died. We spent a pleasant night in 1-2 ft seas, arriving at dawn at the NE Dry Tortugas buoy. The marked channels into the Dry Tortugas anchorage are both shoaled and impassable, but a new route down the west side of Garden Key was given by the Park Rangers and we had no trouble getting through. The Dry Tortugas are a neat place as is Ft. Jefferson. Unfortunately, we only stayed one full day as the weather as posted at the dock by the National Park Service said that we would have 8 days of wind up to and over 20 kts. After anchoring, I dove under the boat to check the anchors and to cut off the crab-pot ropes from the prop shafts. (Spurs are looking like a better investment all the time.) I also found that all four pins that hold the trim plate actuators to the plates had sheared and the plates were hanging down. When the boat rocked, the plates banged either against the actuators, or the limits of the hinges. When moving forward, there was no problem. As soon as we got to Key West, we anchored and I secured the plates as best I could with ropes and water-taxied to town. I called Bennett Marine, Deerfield Beach, FL and ordered two sets, to have a spare set. I asked them to ship the parts Next Day Air, but the Bennett folks assured me regular ground UPS would get the parts to me just as quickly. I reluctantly agreed. I was very pleasantly surprised to receive the parts the next day! I was even more surprised and pleased to find that there was no charge for the parts nor for shipping! I sincerely appreciate the outstanding service that Bennett Marine rendered. I spent the evening and part of the next morning installing them, which is "fun" in the water. My wife just "knew" there was a shark about to nibble on me as I worked in the cloudy water, especially as darkness approached. After installing the parts, we took the boat to A&B marina. It was fun chatting with folks from all over, as well as with the other folks (4 boats) from the Panama City/Florida Panhandle area. Key West was celebrating the Conch Revolution. For those who are not up on revolutionary history: A few years ago, the Immigration Service(?) blocked off the Keys highway and made everyone, even US citizens prove their citizenship before allowing them to pass to mainland Florida. Several Key Westers got together and mockingly declared independence. They sued for peace shortly thereafter and the crisis was over. Now they have another occasion to celebrate, and do - with great gusto. Not that Key Westers need a reason to celebrate. It was a lot of fun. We departed Key West on Sunday, April 23rd, headed back to Ft. Myers, but decided to go to the Little Shark River in the Everglades National Park. After crossing a small bar (6.5 ft min depth), the river depths became 10-20 ft with excellent holding. The river is about 75 yds wide for the most part and makes an excellent anchorage. In fact, it is a hurricane hole for Key West boats. Because mangroves form the banks of the river, the depths seem to hold right up to the trees. I didn't press my luck to prove that impression. While we didn't see any alligators, manatees or tarpon, you could hear them all night long. For the first time, we decided to run the generator and AC. About 10pm, the generator shut down and I quickly found that the raw water impeller was shot. No problem, the boat came with normally needed spares for both the generator and main engines which I had dutifully checked. I opened the generator bag and, having the old impeller out, noticed that the replacement one was much bigger. Yup, it was for the main engines. To add insult to injury, the wind came up to 15-20 kts with forecast seas to 6 ft, which would be following seas, so we sat on the river for 2 days, using the main engines to charge the batteries as needed. There were huge horse flies and deer flies all over, but none even tried to bite us. There were also millions of voracious gnats/no-see-ums whenever the wind died and the sun went down. I sprayed the various hatch and portlight screens with insect spray which ended our bug problems. The gnats died as they crawled through the screens. While we were in actuality quite comfortable, I never really enjoyed the stay as I felt SOOOO DUMB. We left the river and went on the outside (following seas 3-5 ft) to Marco Island River Marina and ordered 2 impellers which arrived the next day. My ego felt a little better after the generator was up and running, I had a spare impeller for it, and the part number was written in the parts list. We left Marco Island Thursday, 27 April, going along the Gulf Coast which could be called Condominium Row, to Ft. Myers Beach. We entered Matanzas Pass and anchored on the south side, opposite the shrimp boat docks. Since we love shrimp, I dinghied over and inquired about buying some. All of the boats were company owned and could not sell to individuals, so I went to the retail outlet of one company. The prices were outlandish!!! The LOWEST price was $12.99 for medium sized (21-49 per pound). We didn't have shrimp that night. We did, however, enjoy the anchorage. We again entered the ICW, headed north, well, actually west at mile 0, just south of Ft. Myers. We retraced our route back up to Leverocks and Maximo Marina. We left the marina May 2nd. Our 5 yr old grandson and his dad were in Clearwater visiting one of his grandpas, so we set up a schedule to meet them at the Clearwater Memorial Bridge. As we were approaching the bridge, it opened for a sailboat, thus stopping all vehicular traffic. I called the bridge tender and told him that we did not need the bridge to be open for us and that we would wait to say hi to our grandson. We soon saw him and his grandpa running up the bridge sidewalk. When they got in front of us I said "HI ALEX" over the loud hailer. I didn't know how loud it would be, but it echoed all over. Alex was so excited I think he would have jumped into the water if his grandpa hadn't been holding him. Alex's dad joined them after parking the car, and I mortified his day by saying "HI JEFF!" over the loud hailer. Ahh, the memories! Just before we got to Anclote Key, we anchored to rest and wait till 4pm to start out across the Gulf for Carrabelle/Dog Island. A high pressure area was sitting over the Atlantic and was holding a strong weather system over the western Gulf at bay, and the forecast was for relatively mild weather; 5-10 kt winds and 2-3 ft seas for the next 3-4 days, but I had felt a need to get across by the 3rd of May. Exiting from Anclote Anchorage was nerve wracking as it is very shallow and did not agree with our charts. There were places that were about 6 ft that should have been 8-10, and a large bare shoal that was supposed to have had 5-6 ft at low tide. The crossing, 133nm was very pleasant, with waves 1-2 ft if that, and a following breeze that helped offset the current. We arrived at the Carrabelle/Dog Island pass Sea Buoy at daybreak, entered the bay, anchored and sacked out. We spent a delightful evening with newfound friends from a neighboring sailboat. The next morning, we pulled anchor at about 7 am, and headed towards Apalachicola and home. Looking at the Gulf, there were 5-6 ft breakers as far as I could see. It is great to be lucky! We were greeted in East Bay by many dolphins that swam, jumped, rolled and just played in our bow wave. Several of them had babies that were only about 3 ft long. We love to watch all the sea creatures, especially dolphins. We arrived at our dock at about 4 pm. A great Trip! And Great to be HOME! Of possible interest, due to a recent TWL thread: The main engines, twin Cummins 6BT5.9 210 hp, ran about 145 hrs on this trip and used about 0.67 quart of oil per engine. I never added any oil during the trip, but had over 2 full cases in the "hold". The engines now have about 1075 hours on them. The Northern Lights 8kw generator never used any decernible amount of oil during the 35 hours it ran. It was used 2-3 hrs a day, to recharge the batteries or to run AC to cool off the boat after anchoring. The generator now has about 715 hours on it. Main engine fuel consumption is estimated at about 4.7GPH average, but this actually includes the fuel used by the generator. The boat likes 1600 RPM best, so I run it at that which gives about 8.8 kts. But, there are many no-wake, reduced wake zones where we ran 800-1000 RPM, and when on the Gulf with a following sea of any size, I ran at 2000 RPM. The maximum continuous rating is 2300 RPM. We have not yet refueled to get exact numbers. Diesel fuel costs were dramatically falling as we returned. The highest fuel price was $1.67/gal in Key West, lowest was $1.17 with Boat/US discount at Maximo Marina on our return trip. If anyone has any questions, I would be happy to answer in a private post. Wayne M/V Celestial Albin 43 Sundeck