We departed Carrabelle on schedule Monday morning at 8:00am. Ralph and June helped us with the dock lines. Lifestyle had been in that one spot since December 6, 2011. We enjoyed our stay and got some work done and also visited home during Christmas. It was a good stay but we had been waiting for a good weather window to make our crossing to Tarpon Springs and Monday was it. The trip is 135 miles plus some time at each port. We had planed about 30 hours but were hoping for less. The weather was good, although we got bounced around and had to tie the dog down for most of the trip. The Gulf most always has rollers or slow moving waves that bounce off your boat when you least expect them. Once during the trip I went below and discovered most of the drawers open and chairs tipped over. That happens even after we put everything away and lock down as much as we can. About 6 hours into the trip everything was going so well when without warning the engine stopped. We did our "bleed the engine drill" and had it working within a few minutes only for it to fail again shortly. After several tries to make it stay running I went to the back up fuel delivery system, jerry jugs. I was ready with them but the jug only ho1ds 1 1/2 hours worth of fuel. So every hour and half all night long I was refilling jerry jugs and keeping the engine going. We arrived at Tarpon Springs and tied up to the dock at 10:30. That's about 26 1/2 hours of boating across the Gulf. Our new back yard is almost as quiet as Carrabelle but with lots of boat traffic. We will do the tourist thing after we take care of the boat and get some rest. For now we are just sitting on the aft deck looking at our new back yard.
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