Morning Ed, Just some input on your questions. How much time do you have/want to take to get from Tampa to Mobile? And then how much time from Mobile to wherever you are located on the Tennessee? Do you want to anchor out or are you just interested in Marinas? We are currently anchored in Crystal River as we head north to Mobile and then points north on the Tennessee. If you have the time to visit some of the areas/anchorages along the Big Bend crossing you won't regret it. You will also not have to make such a long crossing if you head up the west coast prior to making the crossing, it's longer this way but much more fun! We will head north from here to Steinhatchee spend a day or two and then do the crossing from there, approx. 80 miles to St George Island.......all in the daylight hours! This will be our 3rd crossing so we are pretty familiar with routes and anchorages from Tampa to Pickwick. Our previous 2 crossings were from St George Island to Cedar Key, we would pull anchor about 3:30am and arrive at our anchorage late in the afternoon. We too have a trawler and travel about 9mph. I agree with the folks on here, you will not need SSB. With Cingular we will only be out of range for 6 to 8 hours of the crossing. My guess is going the way we are this time we "should" have VHF contact 80% of the time should we need it. If you want to discuss this more let me know and we can set up a time to talk on the phone with charts in hand. It was pretty intimidating the first time we did the crossing, just pick a good weather window and enjoy the ride! If you don't have it yet pick up a copy of Skipper Bob's "Cruising the Gulf Coast", it will be the best $15 you will spend. Brenda & Todd Lanning M/V Life's2Short _btlifes2short@aol.com_ (mailto:btlifes2short@aol.com) Check out our blog @ _http://btlifes2short.blogspot.com_ (http://btlifes2short.blogspot.com/) ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.