Well, the Gulf of Mexico/Mother Nature decided to ignore the weather forecasts. We (as always) chose our weather window carefully for the 145 mile open water crossing. We looked at wind and waves on 3 sources. Our trip took 33 hours. It started off pretty well, we were motorsailing, making good time with a nice breeze and wind waves out of the NE, along with some swells out of the SE. Then about 8 hours in the winds switched to NW, directly on our nose. We gradually got slower and slower as the winds built, and ended up turning off course for a while, hoping for the forecast winds to come back. During the evening that did happen, we had winds from the SE. Unfortunately, overnight we also got some pretty good sized following breaking seas to go along with that. It made stearing pretty physical and rolly. Not my favorite. When the sun came up today the winds began to ease some and the rest of the trip was pretty good, although still somewhat rolly. We were so glad to finally get here!

On the plus side, along the way we saw dolphins and flying fish (sometimes flying away from dolphins). And during the night we saw strange round glowing things in the water. They looked kind of like glowsticks. (Did anyone watch the TV series Invasion?)

We chose to anchor at Dog Island rather than going into Carabelle (since that would be an extra 5 miles). It's very pretty here. Tomorrow when we're rested we'll go ashore and walk the beach (and clean the barnacles - a gift from the warm waters of Gulfport - off the bottom of the dinghy).