Day 71: Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Port to Port: Carabbelle to Steinhatchee, Florida

Underway: 0:00 am      Motor Off: 0:00 pm     Miles Traveled: 90+     Stayed At: Marina

First Things First: First night passage.

Mile to Mile: Close your eyes and imagine driving into 3-4 foot rollers with a 5+ footer thrown in just for the fun of it – all aiming straight at you every 3-4 seconds. Throw in some salty spray, lots of new noises, no lights anywhere you look beyond your little boat and the wind whistling through the stays. This was definitely a memorable day – one that we don’t care to repeat anytime soon.

We left early as expected. The weather was supposed to moderate after noon and become a moderate to light winds overnight. The first thing we saw as we were leaving was a large powerboat sitting tipped to the side high and dry on a mud flat just a few feet off the main channel – someone had not considered the large tidal changes and ended up stuck until the next high tide. Not a good omen I guess.

Today was a good example of how hard it is to decide whether to go or stay. We did our homework. All the weather sources we considered said conditions would be okay for a crossing – the best opening for at least 4 days. Other boaters who we considered very experienced and conservative also left the same day. The only outlier was James from C-Quarters Marina. He has a lot of experience on the Gulf. We saw him as we were leaving and he said that if the leaves on the palm tree in front of the marina were moving that we should wait for a different day. Well, the leaves were moving – just a bit – but they were moving. We should have listened to James. Everyone who crossed was beat up by the waves – especially as they turned southeast and got slewed around by the waves coming from the north and northeast. Seasickness, turned over furniture and lots of wood-knocking was going on for the next 25+ hours.

We had to keep going east to take the waves on the bow as turning more south gave Aurora a hard to control motion. The most disconcerting part was when it got dark – there was no moon, no stars, no lights and no horizon – just blackness everywhere outside the boundary of our boat and our running lights. Yikes. We were not bored for one second. Between dealing with minor problems, replotting our course, comparing notes with other boats, watching out for things to hit (like crab pots), trying to stay semi-dry and forcing ourselves to eat a little, we were kept busy just trying to make it to the next waypoint.

Aurora and Boris worked amazingly well. Aurora was only stopped dead a handful of times by large oddly spaced waves and Boris just kept puttering along as if nothing was happening at all. Before it got dark, the dolphin put on quite a show – jumping effortlessly out the back of one wave into the front of the next. They had a calming effect on us during the day. They made it look so easy. I think we had it better though, than the little sparrows we saw on occasion 25 miles from shore trying to fly into the wind just a few feet off the water – they couldn’t rest even for a few seconds. I wonder where they got their weather forecast.

Movie Clip of It’ll Be Alright Crossing the Gulf (DSCF3531)

After traveling east until well after dark we came to a decision point. We needed to turn or bailout. Our friends on It’ll Be Alright (a 44’ C&C) were also getting beat up and decided to anchor outside of Steinhatchee – our original planned destination. We needed to turn south or go into port at night – both difficult decisions. We were tired, damp, Cindy was borderline nauseous and we still had 20+ hours to go to get to Tarpon Springs. We would not get there until dark – not a good thing after not sleeping for that many hours. We decided to go to Steinhatchee.

You don’t know how relieved we were to finally see the green flashing buoy marking the end of the Steinhatchee channel – the first sign of civilization we had seen since the sun set. We soon saw a single white light off to the south – It’ll Be Alright’s anchor light. It seemed to take forever to get there but we finally started down the long channel into Steinhatchee dodging the many unlit markers in between the lighted ones and we finally arrived in calm water and at a dock a little after midnight. Never has a pelican-poop covered dock been so welcome a sight. We tied up, hugged each other, and went immediately to sleep. We survived to sail another day.

Day 70: Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Port to Port: Carabbelle, Florida

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

First Things First: Saw first baby manta ray – caught by someone off the marina dock.

Mile 381 to Mile 381: It looks like a weather window may open tomorrow and Thursday so everyone is nervously prepping themselves and their boats for the trip from Carabbelle to Tarpon Springs. We had originally planned to go almost straight east to Steinhatchee – a shorter and more manageable trip for our small boat – but have decided to try to go direct to Tarpon Springs. Both routes will require overnight passages and the direct route will save at least a week of additional Gulf travel (or more depending on the weather windows) and avoid cruising in and out of several shallow water ports along the remote Big Bend part of northwestern Florida.

We took a break from boat projects and went to lunch at The Fishermans Wife with friends from Blue Angel and Northstar. Amazing food. I had the shrimp basket with hushpuppies. Can you guess what Cindy had for lunch? Later in the afternoon, we splurged and had the best strawberry shake of the trip at Carabbelle Junction. We enjoyed chatting with the owner earlier in the week. He had a restaurant in downtown San Francisco (where Jessie works) for many years and somehow ended up relocating to Carabbelle, Florida.

After several trips to the hardware store, gas station and grocery store we completed our boat prep projects before dark and met for one more planning session/happy hour at the Moorings. We would be leaving first since we travel slower and need as much daylight as possible. It will be nice to have other people passing us during the passage and, although they will arrive much earlier than we will, at least we won’t be alone for the entire 30+ hours of the passage. Our final weather check will be at 6:00 am tomorrow with Buddy at the Moorings who will give a final assessment of the weather forecast for our planned route. This will be the most difficult passage of our entire trip – hopefully the weather will cooperate.

Day 69: Monday, November 12, 2012

Port to Port: Carabbelle, Florida

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

First Things First: First visit to the beach.

Mile 381 to Mile 381: The day dawned bright and sunny and, although it seems calm at the marina, the Gulf is windy and has a moderate chop. Our list of projects has grown to more than 20 items which need to be done before we leave so today is a “work” day.

On the first of many trips to the hardware store, we met Jim and Sharon on Blue Angel – Cindy overheard them talking to someone on the phone about their plans for making the Gulf crossing so we introduced ourselves and chatted for awhile. They invited us to happy hour this afternoon at the Moorings – a marina a few blocks up river from C-Quarters. The work of the Looper is never done.

We decided to knock off a critical item on our list – “Go to the beach” – right away in the morning to take advantage of the beautiful weather. We haven’t had the chance to explore any of the amazing beaches we have passed over the last couple of weeks so we need to fit this in even though it isn’t really an important boat project. The closest beach was 3 miles away so we hiked out the other end of town towards the beach. One thing you notice in most towns we have visited is the complete lack of walking paths or sidewalks. Walking is not encouraged and, in fact, we can tell other boaters a mile away because we are usually the only ones walking anywhere. We feel much more vulnerable walking along the edge of a busy road than anything we have done on the boat.

We finally reached the beach and it was well worth the trip – a nice white sand beach stretched out in both directions with only one person fishing and a couple of kids playing in the sand. Schools of dolphin cruised by well offshore. We met Cody who was fishing with his son. In just a few minutes he pulled in the cutest little baby hammerhead shark and a few minutes later he pulled in another shark about 18 inches long and, even though it was a baby, it was not happy being dragged out of the ocean and it bit down on Cody’s finger hard and drew blood. He was kept busy going from one pole to the other. His son was having a blast.

On the walk home, we noticed a couple walking on the other side of the road and we started chatting. We quickly learned Eddy and Linda (on Spiritus) were Loopers too (remember, boaters are the only ones we ever see walking anywhere) and that they had already heard about us from Jim and Sharon on Blue Angel who are parked right in front of them at the Moorings. They will be stopping by at docktails later in the afternoon. (This is of course a critical item on our to do list since we will be spending at least a little time discussing the options for crossing the Gulf).

Some of the boat projects we need to get done include getting a couple more gas cans to increase our range, installing some safety lines, fixing the dinghy, finding our harnesses, plotting our course and monitoring the weather. Even though Aurora is small, there always seems to be something that can be made better, stronger, safer or easier. Perfection is a moving target.

Day 68: Sunday, November 11, 2012

Port to Port: Apalachicola to Carabbelle, Florida

Underway: 7:55 am      Motor Off: 1:45 pm      Miles Traveled: 31      Stayed At: Marina

First Things First: First time cruising in the Gulf of Mexico.

Mile 350 to Mile 381: Today was a relatively short hop but we had our first direct experience with the Gulf of Mexico. This part of Apalachicola Bay and St. Georges Sound is somewhat protected by barrier islands to the south and east but it still is big water with a long fetch. Conditions at the Marina were calm but as we motored into the Bay a steady breeze built right on our nose out of the northeast and a moderate chop slowed our progress all morning. Aurora and Boris pounded through it without much complaint (and the dolphins that regularly greeted us enjoyed zooming through the waves with seemingly no effort) but we were relieved when we finally turned into the channel for Carabbelle and entered more protected waters.

We stopped at C-Quarters Marina for the day – a classic old school marina with a large covered deck facing the water, a semi-permanent group of locals with beers in their hands discussing the important topics of the day and a line of rocking chairs just made for relaxing after a bumpy ride on the Bay. We parked next to “2 If By Sea” and met our other neighbor Larry on Champ 3 and Candy – a friendly and beautiful lab – as we pulled into our slip.

Carabbelle is another “Old Florida” town with a lot of history and an interesting mix of old and new – like Apalachicola, fishing and tourism help the town survive. The two most important stores for cruisers – the grocery store and hardware store – were only a block or two away and well stocked with all the essentials we need. We wandered around town for a while and went to the grocery store to get a few things for dinner. The weather doesn’t look good for a crossing in the next few days – too windy – so we will likely be hanging out in Carabbelle for as long as needed to get a good weather window.

We have a lot of projects to get done before we will be ready for our Gulf crossing. Those rocking chairs look like a nice place to chill while researching the weather and routes for crossing the Gulf. Our work is never done.

Day 67: Saturday, November 10, 2012

Port to Port: Wetappo Creek to Apalachicola Bay

Underway: 6:58 am   Motor Off: 2:44 pm (EST)    Miles Traveled: 36   Stayed At: Marina

First Things First: First frost; first new time zone of the trip.

Mile 314 to Mile 350 : We felt like we woke up in Minnesota this morning. We had our first frost of the trip with a nice coating on the grill cover and cockpit seats. The temperature in the cabin was in the high 40’s which made getting up a little slow but we added an extra layer or two and got going early again on another beautiful travel day.

A light fog made the morning light sparkle brightly over the surrounding scenery. After we started down the main channel, the fog gradually thickened until it became hard to see the sides of the narrow channel. Even though the odds of meeting another boat were slim this early in the morning, we decided to anchor along the channel to let the fog burn off.

Compared to the last couple of days, today was an easy day – “only” 36 miles to Scipio Creek Marina. We spent almost all day traveling through a narrow manmade canal. We enjoyed the closeness of the scenery on both sides of the canal. The scenery is inspiring. There are thousands of photo worthy scenes going by every hour – water birds patiently looking for their next meal, wind sculpted trees hanging on to the cliffs by just a few stubborn roots, open grasslands just past the tree lined banks and the crumpled remnants of old manmade structures – most go by too fast to capture even though we only travel at less than 6 mph but we enjoy the view while it lasts.

One thing that we need to keep remembering in this age of GPS is that even though we can be pretty confident of where we are, that doesn’t mean that the chart is perfectly accurate (many navigation charts are stamped “Not to Be Used for Navigation”). We were passing through Lake Wimico going from buoy to buoy down the marked channel and noticed that the water color changed suddenly to a light brown. The depth read less than 3 feet as we passed over an unexpected shoal. Luckily, Aurora needs less than this to be safe but it was a little exciting for a few minutes hoping the depth would not get any shallower. We also passed into the eastern time zone so, after turning the clocks back a few days ago with the end of daylights savings time, we flipped them back to “normal” time again. For some reason we like the idea of it getting dark at 6:00 pm versus 5:00 pm.

By early afternoon, we arrived at the Scipio Creek Marina at Apalachicola just a little up river from the Gulf of Mexico and the beginning of a new phase of our adventure – crossing the Gulf to the east coast of Florida.

Apalachicola is a quaint little “old Florida” town – part fishing village and part tourist destination. We wandered around town to scope out the shops, restaurants and scenery. We may be here for a few days waiting for a good weather window to travel up Apalachicola Bay to Carabbelle or we may leave early tomorrow morning – you never know what the next day will bring.

We are always on the lookout for other cruisers who may be good sources of local knowledge to make our passages easier and safer. When some people returned to a powerboat with a Looper flag moored across from us, I of course went over to introduce myself and learn more about their adventures. Within minutes of our first meeting, Alan and Jean on “2 If By Sea” (we love that boat name) invited me in and shared some of their vast experience with navigating the Intracoastal Waterway and especially the challenges of crossing the Gulf. They have been cruising the Loop for many years and were very generous with their experiences.

The weather tomorrow looks like it will be good for our relatively short passage to Carabbelle so we made dinner and prepared to leave in the morning – we are only one step away from our big jump across the Gulf.

Day 66: Friday, November 9, 2012

Port to Port: West Bay Creek to Wetappo Creek (North Prong)

Underway: 6:57 am     Motor Off: 4:20 pm      Miles Traveled: 46     Stayed At: Anchor

First Things First: First fishing license of the trip; saw our first jelly fish; first big problem with no-see-ums.

Mile 268 to Mile 314: Brrr! We woke up to chilly temps this morning. The outside thermometer read 36˚ in the early morning sun and 44˚ inside the cabin.  With great travel weather we tackled another big water passage 35 miles across West Bay and East Bay of St. Andrews Bay. Today was another perfect travel day – we have been very lucky with weather windows for this part of the ICW.

We had planned to stop at Panama City Marina for the day but it was only late morning when we arrived so we just stopped to get gas, a fishing license and a Klondike Bar. Well worth the stop.

Time goes slow on these big bay passages. It’s usually a long distance between buoys and the shoreline is too far away to use as a measure of progress. We are motivated to get these big bays done though when conditions are good so we keep motoring along for hours aiming for the end of the bay where there are several potential anchorages. We still had lots of daylight left so we kept going up the channel to a nice protected anchorage at the North Prong of Wetappo Creek.

We lucked out on tidal changes today. It’s a challenge to figure out expected tidal changes way up these canals. High tide might be hours later upstream compared to high tide at the pass where the ocean enters the big bays. Plus, unless you’re willing to wait for the tide to change to a favorable direction, there isn’t anything you can do anyways. Today we were lucky. In the morning we caught the tail end of the high tide that allowed us to travel at 6.5 mph down Wetappo Creek and into West Bay. We passed by Panama City at slack tide and benefited from the incoming tide as we headed up the East Bay (pure luck).

While we were cruising through East Bay we passed by Tyndal Air Force Base to the south on the barrier island. We were treated to another private air show with multiple jet fighters practicing formation flying, take-offs and landings. It’s amazing to see them rocket straight into the sky until they almost disappear.

After a long and productive day we motored up the canal and turned up the North Prong of Wetappo Creek to anchor for the night. As the sun began to set, we made dinner just as the no-see-ums came out in force. We’ve been very lucky as this has been our first really bad experience with bugs on the entire trip. The sunset cast a beautiful light on the surrounding swamp grass and tree-lined channel. The bugs were a minor price to pay to enjoy this view.

Day 65: Thursday, November 8, 2012

Port to Port: Fort Walton Beach to West Bay Creek

Underway: 7:20 am     Motor Off: 3:33 pm      Miles Traveled: 45      Stayed At: Anchor

First Things First: First live ammunition bombing practice.

Mile 223 to Mile 268: Finally we have been able to get moving again. It was cold this morning – MN cold actually – with temps only a few degrees above freezing – brrr. What’s the deal – we’re supposed to be in Florida.

Fort Walton Beach was an interesting stop but since we were staying at a free city dock without security we had to do everything separately. It doesn’t take many days to run out of interesting things to do or see in these small towns especially when you are transportation challenged (no car, bus or bike). I spent a lot of time at the library though catching up on the blog (again) and charging all of our technology the quick and easy way (Ipad, Macbook, camera batteries, GPS hotspot and phones).

We got a hold of Bruce on Tango today. We wanted to find out where he was to see if doing the Gulf crossing together would work out. We misplaced his email so I had to be creative in reconnecting – first choice is ask Google. So I searched “Bruce”, “Tango” and “Sailboat” to see if I would get lucky. Believe it or not, the first hit was a blog by a pastor who did 1600 miles of the Great Loop on sabbatical earlier this year who had travelled with and written about Bruce on his blog. So I found the pastors email (Google again) and sent him a note explaining our situation. Surprisingly, he emailed us back the same day with Bruce’s email address. He sent another email later with Bruce’s telephone number. Amazing (and a little scary) it’s that easy to track someone down. Bruce is at least 4 good travel days behind us which translates into at least a week or more just to catch up to us here. We’ll keep in touch but we may be crossing the Gulf alone or with another boat we meet along the way.

We crossed Choctawhatchee Bay today. Conditions were perfect for a crossing – calm to light chop, sunny, no boat traffic and occasional dolphin visits to break the boredom. Choctawhatchee Bay is bordered on the north side by a huge military training base – Elgin Air Force Base – which was entertaining to say the least. Fighter jet flyovers were a common sight – we never get tired watching, hearing and feeling them fly by, over and around us. Its always awe inspiring to see what those pilots and planes can do.

We experienced a new twist too. We were motoring along minding our own business when suddenly there was a loud thump and boom. I was driving and my first thought was that I had hit something. We looked around trying to figure out what had happened and noticed off to the north a large plume of black smoke – someone had just blown something up using live ammunition on the Air Force base. Wow! This happened intermittently all afternoon – more free entertainment I guess.

After a long 30+ mile big water cruise across Choctawatchee Bay we finally reached the far east end where we entered a narrow channel leading us through a remote and scenic part of the ICW. This part of the ICW is called the “Little Grand Canyon” because the banks of the channel are high and steep with trees just hanging on for dear life at the top lip of the banks. We really like the river and channel passages better than the open water – time seems to pass faster and we can see our progress easier than when navigating big bays.

We had another busy day on the ICW – in 44 miles of travel we saw a total of 4 other boats. We still can’t believe how quiet it has been on the water. We’re not complaining though – just amazed that we have all this water and great scenery to ourselves most of the time.

We are thankful to be doing this trip now versus even a few years ago. The resources available online for planning this kind of trip are amazing. One extremely useful website is call Active Captain. Anyone traveling on the Loop can share information about interesting places, towns, anchorages and marinas in an online database that anyone can search and use. You can even overlay this data on a chart to easily see fun things to do and safe places to stay along your exact route. It’s kind of like Wikipedia for cruisers. In the “old days” you had to depend on finding local knowledge to find this information. We are using this information to help us plan every leg of the trip.

After a long and enjoyable cruise we decided to anchor for the night in a narrow little river inlet called West Bay Creek – its very well protected but only about 5’ deep – perfect for Aurora. Hopefully the tide won’t go down too much farther overnight – we don’t want to get stuck until the next high tide (this happens to cruisers more often than you would expect). Another quiet and peaceful night on the ICW.

Day 64: Wednesday, November 7, 2012

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

Mile 223 to Mile 223: We are still in Fort Walton Beach. The wind is even stronger today than yesterday. Deciding when to go and when to stay is probably the most difficult decision we have to make each day. We can’t wait for perfection – we would never get anywhere and yet it is much safer and more enjoyable to have comfortable travel conditions. The second most difficult decision is where to stay. It needs to be safe but we also need at least one or two backup options in case the weather changes and we need to bail out or change our plans. We can’t just pull over to the side of the road and wait it out.

One advantage of being somewhat disconnected and not watching TV at all is we haven’t been driven insane by the political ads this season. We have had a few robocalls on the cell phones but otherwise have been wonderfully oblivious to the continuous barrage.

Cindy has been enjoying all the downtime reading ebooks on her new Nook. I came back to the boat after dark yesterday and she was snuggled in the v-berth reading in the dark. She has read more books in the last few weeks than she read the previous 20 years. She just hasn’t had free time to read. She only “read” on her commute by listening to audiobooks. I have been loading 2-3 books per week to keep her well stocked with material. She still hasn’t taken time for a nap though. Maybe tomorrow if we are still here.

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.