The staging for the Gulf crossing proves to be a calm, no wind night with a full moon beaming. We recommend staging here but not with a north wind as you are open to the bays. A tornado came through here while we were at Panama City waiting out the storm. That same storm produced winds here enough to take down a cottage on Dog Island and cause damages in Tennessee and put all of the main part of Florida on alert for a tornado. However today is a calm evening where we prepare our “ditch bag”, EPIRB, life jackets, food stuffs because there will be no prepping while crossing, engine and pod checks, etc, etc, etc.
We head to bed around 8ish to be prepared for leaving just prior to dawn.
We are ready to leave the chilly temps of the 50’s here in the Panhandle and move to warm sun in Clearwater.