We decided to stay a while, Crystal River

We woke this morning originally thinking we'd head to Steinhatchee. From there it would be just a 9 hour trip to Apalachicola, shorter if we aimed for Alligator Point. But looking at the weather ahead for the week it looked like we'd be stuck in Steinhatchee for most of it. Which probably isn't bad, but there were also stories of the wind in the right direction making the already thin waters of Steinhatchee even thinner.

Fun times on the Crystal River!
Turns out this was the weekend of the Manatee Festival.
Such a lovely day brought out the crowds.

Russ driving the tenders, inQuest in the back

Russ thought it better to stay. If you have to spend a week somewhere, you could do a lot worse than Crystal River.

And thank goodness we opted for that. The winds were way worse than predicted, even tucked way back here up the river. If we had gone and needed to bail the only out was Cedar Key, which is an island. Then we would have been stuck there for a week.

Needless to say, good call.

The river was placid on Saturday.
inQuest is out there, on the left.