Yeah, but it always makes for good stories.
Some of my best boating stories happened by being caught in big water.
Buy me a beer sometime - I'll tell ya all about them

I would love to make that trip one day!

I have done it once each way. Okeechobee is not one of my favorites. Locking thru is a pain. Some of it is just a big ditch where you only see the banks. Okeechobee is muddy and shallow.
Interesting to do once, but there are much better places to go. Just my opinion.
Bob

I spoke to Trelfa to let him know about the thread. We will probably hear from them later this evening. They had a lot of cleaning including Jeffs boat to take care of. Salt water - I hate it and what it does to our equipment.
Bob

Brian, I REALLY want to take my boat down to Key West direct from Tampa. It's about a 5 hour ride in my boat. Spend a day or so in Key West then up to around Miami/Lauderdale for a few days then back down to Islamorada for a day and then back to Tampa from Islamorada. Spring or Fall would be ideal.

We're Here!!! Karen and I are finally warming up in the hot tub or should we say getting the kinks out LOL...We had a great ride across the bay, since we left at 7:30 AM (we knew it was getting bad) until we were about 15 miles outside of Goodland..Hit the back waters to Naples and dropped the crew off for lunch...Jeff and I took the boat back to FMB and YES IT WAS "BIG" WATER...Jeff's boat performed well, but that may have had something to do with the captain LOL...Wet was not the word for what condition we were in upon return we even had to salt away our pfd's we even did the dash...It was a great trip over the past 5 days with great company...It's great to be back on the West Coast and not have had to return via Miami and a multitude of no wake zones...Stu put's on the best events hands down..wouldn't have missed it no matter what the conditions...Cancellation is not a part of our agenda.

I've been wondering how you spent your time before you got your current 'job'...

That Can Be A Trying Ride .. Glad Everyone Is Safe.. In 2004 We Left Clearwater To Go To Kw For The Worlds..had Been Pulling Some Real Long Days Getting A 40' Skater Diesel Project Done,left At Around 7am With The Skater And My 36 Diesel Spectre..beautiful Ride Get Down Near Ft Myers.. Decide To Go Straight Across.not Realizing We Had The Wrong Way Point In The Gps.. We Accidently Set A South Wp Instead Of A North Wp..should Have Wondered Why It Kept Saying Like 3000 Miles To Destination.but Just Figured It Was Wrong..finally Reliazed Something Was Wrong When The Water Got Real Pretty Purple,and The Seas Got To Be A Good 6' Shortly After That Was When We Came Across A Huge ..and I Mean Huge Freighter..and We Thought That Shouldnt Be In Fl. Bay.about The Time We Seen The Lighthouse Off Of Cuba.. Is When The Coupler Went Out In The Port Motor Of The Spectre..mike Anderson And Mike Fosse Were In That Boat.. We Decided That If We Wanted To Get To Kw Before The Next Day , We Were Going To Have To Tow The Spectre Whic Only Had 1 Running Motor..so We Towed It At 55 Mph For About 60 Miles Through 6 Footers..anderson Was Having To Throttle The Boat..we Got Within Site Of Kw At About 8 Pm When The Skater Finally Ran Out Of Fuel.. It Was Agreat Trip Though One I Will Hopefully Never Forget..and A Great Story .. And Glad To Have Been Able To Share With My Friends....

A pilot friend of mine once told me "insturments are your friends. Listen to your friends & trust them".

Plan a trip and I'm in. I've done Key West to Lauderdale and it was a blast. We're going to do a fishing trip this Spring from Jupiter Inlet to West End. Some friends of mine are bugging me to go! Spring is near!