Day 63: Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Underway: 0:00 am      Motor Off: 0:00 pm      Miles Traveled: 00      Stayed At: City Dock

First Things First: Saw our first mantee – raised his head above water for a few seconds and went back to the bottom; I got my first haircut of the trip and the first at a real barber in 30 years; first time eating crab legs on the boat – they were on sale and we couldn’t resist.

Mile 223 to Mile 223: We are waiting for weather again today. I thundered a little last night and rained about a half inch but we pretty much slept through most of it. After a short day yesterday, we are hoping for the wind to die down so we can go 30 miles across Chatawhatchee Bay along the ICW. We are staying at one of the city docks in Fort Walton Beach – they let you stay a night or two for free which is a welcome gift for us weary travelers – we’ve already spent at least $100 in town on gas, groceries and services so it pays off for the businesses too.

For some reason, marinas have gotten much more expensive as soon as we passed into Florida – at the marina near us it is a minimum of $60 a night to stay on your own boat and they probably charge a separate fee for electricity too. I hope that is just a problem around the “gold” coast or we might be anchoring an awful lot.

Our old neighbors Anne and Fred called today to say hi. They are travelers too. When they retired and sold their home (luckily at the peak of the market) they bought a travel trailer and have been traveling the US and Canada ever since. When not on the road they try to go on a big cruise somewhere in the world once a year. They are making the most of their retirement years. We love to here their travel stories and adventures. We hope to visit with them in Florida sometime in the spring.

It has been challenging finding picture worthy scenery in this part of Fort Walton Beach. I’m sure the beach side of the channel is a lot nicer but we are anchored near a busy main thoroughfare littered with the typical strip malls, fast food restaurants and less than pristine marinas. I can’t bear to show that view of Fort Walton Beach. Its the typical reality of most “modern” towns everywhere today. Ugh!

The weather looks promising for tomorrow. We are going to try to get going early and if we need to we can bail out at Destin where there is a nice protected anchorage near town. Hopefully the wind will calm down and allow us to make it all the way across the bay.

Day 62: Monday, November 5, 2012

Underway: 6:35 am      Motor Off: 11:30 pm      Miles Traveled: 27      Stayed At: City Dock

First Things First: First bumpy anchorage.

Mile 196 to Mile 223: After a windy and bumpy night – the anchorage we were in was protected on all sides except for a north east wind which is what we had all night – we got going early. Except for a narrow channel back in here, it is very shallow on either side of us – 1-3 feet at low tide is typical. A little hard to get used to – we can’t just drive anywhere we want unless we want to be stuck for a while.

Even though this is a heavily populated area with big homes and condo developments all along the mainland shore, we are pretty much alone on the ICW. I think we saw only 3 or 4 boats all day. Kind of amazing.

I’m having a hard time adjusting to “civilization” again. I’m missing the simplicity and remoteness of the river system. This area is remote in its own way in that everywhere you look is private property – you can’t easily get to shore here either. The noise of traffic and airplanes is also a shock to the system – this is a big Air Force/military base area so there are loud things going on all the time.

We bumped bottom trying to get into the city dock. It was low tide but it looked deep enough but we didn’t see the big chunk of iron (probably from an old dock) and a couple big rocks right in front of the dock (how hard would it have been to clean that up when they built the dock). I hate to see what the centerboard looks like after scraping over that stuff. We got unstuck and tucked in behind the dock with no permanent damage we hope. We are glad to be at a dock since it is supposed to rain and thunder a bit tonight and it’s reassuring to be at a dock when that happens.

We have to leave one person on the boat since this is a public dock so I went for a walk to get all our gas cans filled and then packed up the computer, Ipad and other gadgets for a trip to the library to research the weather, the route and recharge everything. Cindy stayed behind to relax and read one of several books she has on her Nook (she says she hasn’t had a nap yet). We both win I guess.

A high pressure system is building in so that usually means wind for a couple of days so we will probably be here tomorrow (we are doing what Bruce would do). We will have to do more exploring tomorrow.

Day 61: Sunday, November 4, 2012

Underway: 9:55 am      Motor Off: 3:55 pm      Miles Traveled: 33      Stayed At: Anchor

First Things First: First light house (at the Naval Air Station), first time anchoring on the ICW; first time putting two bow anchors out to avoid dragging toward the beach overnight.

Mile 163 to Mile 196: We passed into Florida soon after leaving Barber Marina – woohoo! We will be somewhere in Florida for at least 5 months. I hope we like it.

It was hard leaving Barber Marina. We already stayed longer than we expected – we were very comfortable and having too much fun with Ann on Rumpshaker (sorry you couldn’t be with us Rob). We could easily stay here for weeks. Barber has to be the nicest and cleanest marina we’ve stayed at yet. A little far out of town but they have a courtesy car which we used several times to explore and do errands. The place is immaculate and extremely well built and yet, because of its remoteness, is only at about 30% capacity in the marina part. Rob and Ann will be living here on their boat for the foreseeable future – they should have a great time.

Getting back into the travel routine is hard to do even after only a few down days having fun. We left fairly late – Ann made us a hearty breakfast to send us on our way – pancakes, bacon and coffee – and lots of hugs. We had a hard time saying goodbye – we have become really good friends. We wish them good luck on their new adventure relocating their lives to southern Alabama. They know the area fairly well so they should make the transition easily. We are looking forward to seeing them again in the future.

We ended up with a following breeze on a warm and sunny day so we were able to motorsail most of the day. There aren’t a lot of protected anchorages along this part of the ICW – I wish we could just pull up to someone’s dock but I don’ think that would be appreciated by many people. After a longer than expected day – we were slowed significantly by the outgoing tide – we anchored behind Big Sabine Point and tucked in behind some sand dunes. Pretty scenery, but very tricky to get into. The water is shallow everywhere around us except for a narrow channel leading back into this cove. We had to hope the GPS and chart were accurate or we would have been dragging along the bottom. The protection isn’t great but there aren’t many other choices. Let’s hope for a quiet night.

Day 60: Saturday, November 3, 2012

Underway: 0:00 am      Motor Off: 0:00 pm      Miles Traveled: 00      Stayed At: Marina

First Things First: First free fish of the trip; first bushwacker.

Mile 163 to Mile 163: In the morning, while Cindy ran a load of laundry and read a book on her Nook, I wandered over to the far side of the marina where they were holding a Kid’s Fishing Contest. The kids were all out fishing so I chatted with the volunteers – what a great way to get kids out with their parents and away from the TV and computer. The offered me some coffee and wonderful homemade treats like banana bread muffins, blueberry bread and cranberry bread – all amazing. (I didn’t want to be ungrateful so I tried several samples).  I came back later to watch the weigh in – a lot of different kinds of fish were caught with some kids catching 5 or six species in one trip. The kids won door prizes and trophies for their fishing exploits. Fun was had by all. We even won a prize too. I was talking to one of the sponsors/volunteers about craving a fresh fish dinner and he found someone who had caught a lot of fish who was willing to part with a few to help out a hungry transient boater – I left with 4 beautiful spotted trout for dinner. Thank you everyone for your hospitality.

After a long, busy and amazing day yesterday at the airshow, we needed time to rest and recuperate. So we decided to make a road trip to Orange Beach and beyond with the primary destination being Flora Bama’s Oyster Bar and Grill for Bushwackers (a blended drink with lots of alcohol in it). Ann decided we needed to experience this place first hand. This was a true dive on the beach. Most of it looked like a homemade construction site gone wrong with lots of bare plywood (covered with peoples names and comments), bra’s hanging from the ceiling and sand encroaching into the bar from the beach. It was an experience to be remembered (I think I remember something about bra’s hanging from the ceiling).

After getting back to the marina, we fired up the stove and fried some fresh trout with hashbrowns, margaritas and some fresh green beans to make it sort of healthy. We were tired, full and happy. What a great day of recuperation.

Day 59: Friday, November 2, 2012

Underway: 0:00 am      Motor Off: 0:00 pm      Miles Traveled: 00      Stayed At: Marina

First Things First: First time watching the Blue Angels at their homecoming performance in Pensacola, Alabama: first time watching an airshow at night.

Mile 163 to Mile 163: Pictures are worth a thousand words (with sound would be even better).

Wow!

Day 57: Thursday, November 1, 2012

Underway: 7:30 am      Motor Off: 3:30 pm      Miles Traveled: 38      Stayed At: Marina

First Things First: Saw our first dolphins – very cool.

Mile 19 to Mile 163 ICW: The weather was perfect for navigating the rest of Mobile Bay and entering the ICW for the first time. We even were able to motorsail for part of the day. The scenery is very different than we are used to with lots of condos, big houses on both sides of the ICW. Occasionally a state park has preserved some woods or swamp or sand dunes but a lot of the area is highly developed.

We were welcomed to the ICW by several schools of dolphins swimming right at us in their own amazing way. What a great welcome. What a special treat to have these incredible creatures swimming right next to your boat – a definite highlight of the trip so far.

We had to stop at Lulu’s for lunch. Lulu is the sister of Jimmy Buffet of Margaritaville fame so we had to check it out. We had a big serving of nachos and, of course, shared a strawberry margarita while looking out over the ICW. We didn’t stay long though because we were antsy to get to Barber Marina to reunite with Rumpshaker.

We made fast passage the rest of the way to Barber Marina and were able to park right next to Rumpshaker. Barber is a huge marina but is fairly remote and hasn’t been able to attract a large crowd of boats yet – to our definite advantage. We had a great reunion with Ann – Rob, her other half is back in Minnesota finishing up some business, packing up some things and heading back down here permanently in a week or so. Sorry we missed you Rob but we will try to have fun without you.

After getting settled and doing a few boat projects, we brought dinner and drinks over to Rumpshaker for a BBQ – steaks, salads, fruit and strawberry margaritas as the sun was going down. We ate, laughed, and chatted until our day caught up with us and we decided to call it a day.  We made plans to go to the Blue Angels Homecoming Airshow tomorrow in Pensacola. Perfect timing. We can’t wait.