Wednesday, October 19, 2011 – White City free dock, mile 329.5

The wind came up during the night as forecast and was blowing 25 to 30 knots out of the northwest. We had paid for a week at the marina and it was now over. We were eager to move on and the plan was to join Roger and Dita at the White City dock for the night – just a few miles away.

We spent the morning with our last minute chores including another stop at the hardware, sporting goods, liquor and grocery stores. Gale also had Roger’s boat propane tank filled for him. A special treat was a pancake breakfast at McDonald’s before going back to the boat.


 
 
 The wind was blowing a steady 30 mph when we left the dock at 11:15 am. The waves were 3 to 4 feet in the bay and it was a crazy one mile ride to the safety of the canal. In retrospect, we said we wouldn’t do it again because the risk of finding ourselves aground or up on the rocks was too great. Fortunately, we didn’t have any mishaps. Once we were in the canal, it was a slow ride. We weren’t fighting the wind and waves anymore, but the tide was against us and we had a 2-1/2 to 3 knot current to contend with. It took us two hours to travel the seven miles to the free dock.

At 1:15 pm, we were tucked on the inside of the fixed docks at White City. The canal had been quite wavy with a few white caps when we turned the corner to travel east on the ICW, but the inside dock was very well protected and we had no wave or wind action whatsoever. The sun was shining and it was a lovely afternoon with temps in the upper 60’s.

Dita and Roger invited us to dinner on their boat. During the afternoon, Dita baked a fresh loaf of bread and shared a piece with us. The evening meal was absolutely wonderful and very much appreciated. We enjoyed pork roast, baby red potatoes, fresh cole slaw and giant sliced tomatoes. Roger made Bloody Marys and served some fabulous French red wine with our meal. What a lovely evening with friends.

Thurs, Oct 13 thru Tues, Oct 18, 2011 - Port St Joe Marina

 

Since we had dropped off our car in Port St Joe before leaving Florence, Alabama, we decided to take a drive along the main highway to Mexico Beach on Thursday. We did not try to tackle much in the way of boat projects that day and simply enjoyed the wonderfully warm fall weather. In the afternoon, Mike and Harriet arrived on m/v Dual Dreams and took a side tie along the north dock. Late afternoon we walked over to the Haughty Heron which is a bar, a liquor store and a cigar store. Lucky us! Happy Hour was just about to begin so we had a cocktail before going back to our boat for a light fish supper.

Friday was another lovely day. The marina was sponsoring a gathering for the local Humane Society and provided hot dogs, chips, drinks and a place to bring a few of the animals from their facility. We had been thinking about getting another dog for the last few months but the representatives hadn’t brought any small ones. No problem, we found out where the Humane Society was located and drove out to see what we could see. They had a lot of big dogs and one really cute rat terrier / blue heeler puppy they called ‘Finch.’ Finch’s previous owner’s last name was Finch and the name seemed to fit him well. If Finch had been a female, ‘she’ might have gone home with us that day. That evening, we met Mike and Harriet for happy hour up by the marina building before walking over to the Haughty Heron. After we’d had enough, we made a quick stroll to the Piggly Wiggly grocery store and picked up some freshly steamed shrimp to share for our dinner.


 

On Saturday morning, Maureen and Harriet loaded up the laundry and headed over to the local coin operated laundromat. As our clothes were washing, we walked across the street to check out the Farmers Market. Neither of us bought anything since the only cash we had on us were the quarters we needed for the machines. It was just as well – Maureen was drawn to the sweets and we had been doing such a good job of avoiding them lately.

 

We learned there was a Wine and Art Festival taking place in Mexico Beach. It sounded like a good time, so at 3 pm, with Mike and Harriet, we piled in the car and drove to the Driftwood Inn where the festival was taking place. There was a $5 entrance fee and if you wanted a commemorative wine glass, that was another $5. Oh, and if you wanted wine, it was another $5 for about a 5 oz serving. Thankfully, we didn’t buy any glasses. The wine that was being served was not very good and there were only a few artists displaying their wares. Our first clue that we might be disappointed was from the guy who walked out about the time we were coming in and plopped his commemorative glass on the ticket table telling them to resell it. He said, “It was a complete waste!”

 

Not to be deterred, we decided to try out some other places. Toucan’s was a fun sports bar / tiki bar on the beach; we stopped at the Windmark property between Port St Joe and Mexico Beach and were pleasantly surprised by the happy hour prices. From there it was on to the Haughty Heron for the Songwriters’ Festival that had started the night before and various artists were singing at different venues in the area. The singing began at 7 pm and we stayed for a little over an hour. We were all getting hungry and planned on going to the Mexican Restaurant, Peppers, because we had heard it was very good. However, Gale got hung up trying to purchase CDs and asking questions about some of the songs. Mike and Harriet decided they were ready to go home and make something quick for dinner. We soon followed suit and went home ourselves.


 

 


Sunday morning was spent on chores and picking up a few groceries. At 3:30 pm, the two of us took a dinghy ride out into the bay and a short distance up the Gulf Canal. Gale threw in his fishing line and it wasn’t long before something hit.  
 
After a few minutes’ fight, he brought a small (30-inch) shark up to the dinghy. He didn’t want to get close to those teeth, so he cut the line and let it go with his hook. The next hit was a large lizard fish – Yuk! Then something REALLY big snapped his line after swallowing the lure and an 18-inch steel leader. These three hits were all out in the bay. While in the canal, he hooked a big catfish. It was time to quit and call it a day. About 6 pm, one of the charter fishing boats came in after 12 hours and unloaded its catch at the fuel dock. There were about six guys that had been out all day and each of them must have had at least five large fish. Most of the catch was red grouper, amberjack and mackerel.

Monday was a day dedicated to relaxation. Gale went shopping – he stopped at all the “guy places;” i.e., hardware store, automotive store and sporting goods store. Maureen got to read most of the afternoon. In the evening, we went out with Mike and Harriet to the Haughty Heron for a happy hour drink and then to Pepper’s Mexican Restaurant for dinner. Afterwards, we walked into the Port St Joe Bar for a game of pool but didn’t stay long – it was definitely a bar for the locals.

It started raining around 4 am Tuesday morning and rained hard until the middle of the afternoon. Early in the afternoon, Gale drove over to White City to check out the free city dock. We knew Roger and Dita, s/v Zephyr, were about four hours away and were interested in tying up there if it were suitable. Gale let them know that it was a nice place to stop and offered to pick them up once they had settled in and bring them back to Port St Joe for a shower and to grab some dinner. At 4:30 pm, we drove out to the White City dock thinking that their cell phones might not work there – we were correct. We loaded them up and drove back to the marina where they took some nice hot showers. From there, it was back to Peppers for a great meal and home to our respective vessels for the night.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011 – Port St Joe Marina, five miles south of ICW mile 327.5

 The moon setting over the anchorage in the morning was a spectacular sight. After Maureen took a few photos using the flash and brought the “night lights” in, she heard someone hailing “the catamaran anchored in East Bay.” It turned out to be the captain in the houseboat tied at a nearby dock. He said he saw a strobe flashing and wondered if we were having any problems. She assured him that there was no difficulty but thanked him for his concern. He also offered to pick us up in his little runabout if we were interested in coming ashore for a walk but she declined the offer saying that we would soon be lifting the anchor and heading out. It's good to know we have friends wherever we go.

 

 
 
 At 7 am, we motored back out to the channel and continued our eastward journey. It was a hazy morning, 70 degrees, mostly cloudy with a light northeasterly breeze. We saw a couple of small oyster boats out doing their thing, a few dolphins playing in the canal and many pelicans out fishing. It was a very enjoyable morning cruising along the eastern section of St. Andrews Bay, particularly Wetappo Creek. Neither of us remembered much about this section from our previous trip through and we wondered why because it was quite beautiful and very remote.

 
 
 



After twenty miles of river, we entered the Gulf County Canal, a five-mile cut from the ICW to the protected waters of St. Joseph Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. We saw several small fishing boats out with two or three fishermen on board and most of them seemed to have at least one fish on as we passed by. Gale started getting the itch to get out there and see what he could catch.

We also noticed a couple of abandoned docks with several boats that hadn’t been attended to in a long time. We later learned that the locals called the dock “the pirate dock” because the company that owned it had gone bankrupt, nobody claims it and if you tie a boat there for a time and leave it, it will soon be picked clean of anything worth removing.

We passed under the Port St. Joe Bridge (Hwy 98) and entered beautiful St. Joseph Bay. It almost felt like “coming home” since we’ve enjoyed Port St. Joe so much on previous visits. We were at the fuel dock at noon (Central Time) but moved our clocks ahead one hour as we had crossed over into the Eastern Time Zone. It was a lovely 80 degrees and the clouds were beginning to thin out.

 

After fueling up, we settled into our slip at the end of the south dock and enjoyed our bay view. That evening, we treated ourselves to dinner at the Dockside Café and shared the blackened bay scallops entrée. Maureen was a little surprised to discover that scallops could be so small – they were only slightly bigger than a pencil eraser. We later learned that was typical for bay scallops – it’s the sea scallops that are the big ones.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011 – Allanton East Bay of St. Andrews Bay, mile 306.5

We were up before sunrise and away from the dock at 6:30 am. The sky was cloudy, temperature was 70 degrees and the wind was blowing from the NNE at 8 to 18 knots. Dual Dreams pulled out of the anchorage moments before us and we followed them into Choctawhatchee Bay. With the wind, we were able to travel at 7.5 knots and had a great 20-mile sail across the bay. When we entered the canal that connects Choctawhatchee Bay and St. Andrews Bay, we lost our wind and slowed to about 5.5 knots.

By mid afternoon, we exited the canal into St. Andrews Bay and picked up a light westerly breeze. It wasn’t much, but we kept the mainsail up and used whatever wind we could catch. The original plan was to anchor in Smack Bayou near Panama City but since it was only 3:30 pm, we decided to go another five miles to Pearl Bayou where Dual Dreams had said they would likely anchor for the night.

As we neared the entrance to Pearl Bayou, we found the smell from the paper mill to be overwhelming. When we anchored in Smack Bayou two years ago, the wind had been out of the east and drove the smell right into our boat. It was physically sickening to both of us. With a west wind blowing, we would have been fine in Smack Bayou on this occasion but we did not want to backtrack. We kept on going past Pearl Bayou to get some distance from the mill and the smell.

Ten miles and two hours later, we found a nice little anchorage in the East Bay at Allanton. It was not noted as an anchorage in any of our guides, but in fair weather, it turned out to be very peaceful and safe. Even though we had traveled from sunrise to sunset, we had enjoyed the day and were excited for tomorrow when we would cover the last few miles to Port St. Joe.

Monday, October 10, 2011 – Joe’s Bayou, mile 229.5, Destin

There was still a stiff northeast breeze blowing but we were ready to pull up anchor and move on. We hoped that we could get just enough angle on the wind that we could “pinch” into it and get a boost with our sails. At 8:30 am, we pulled out of Ft McRae and into Pensacola Pass with a sunny sky, a temperature of 68 degrees and a 12 knot northeast wind. We were soon hailed by a large ship that was getting ready to enter the pass. He asked us to hold up as he came through and made the turn and we were happy to oblige.

 

As the morning progressed, the wind increased and started to come a little bit more out of the north. The clouds also moved in until there was no blue sky left to be seen. We made good time as we traveled along between 6.5 and 7.5 knots.

It was only about 3:30 pm when we arrived at Ft Walton Beach. We checked out the free municipal dock since we had already called ahead for permission to tie up overnight. There was a grocery store a couple of blocks from the dock and we thought it would be a good place to stay since it was on the north side of the channel and somewhat protected from the winds. The dock was just before the low 49 foot clearance fixed bridge at Ft Walton Beach. After considering the fact that the tide was low in the afternoon and it would be high in the morning, we thought it best to clear the bridge and keep on going to Joe’s Bayou, another five miles up the waterway.

On our way to Joe’s Bayou, we sent a message to our friends Jack and Candis Wilson who have a beautiful home there on the water. We met the Wilsons last winter at the Vinoy Marina in St Petersburg and stayed on their dock when we came through in April. Jack was home and invited us to come on in and tie up in the big slip since his boat was not there tonight.

As we arrived at the mouth of the bayou, we saw our friends’ boat, Dual Dreams, anchored there. We said hello as we passed by and went on in to the dock. It was nice to have such a safe harbor for the night.

We stopped up at the house and joined Jack for a glass of wine. He said he was going out somewhere to grab a bite and we were welcome to join him. We enjoyed a great Mexican dinner at Pepito’s. Thanks, Jack!

Sat, Oct 8 to Sun, Oct 9, 2011 – Ft McRae, mile 178.4, near Pensacola

Captain Gale's Quote for the Day:

Bein’ on the hook when the weather’s good, you can’t beat. Bein’ on the hook when the weather’s not, you can’t sleep.

Words spoken after a wild night at anchor. Around 1 am, the wind came up and started blowing us around pretty good. It wasn’t nearly as bad for us, though, as it was for the folks camped out on the beach. At 3 am, we could no longer see the three tents that had been set up near the water’s edge. We weren’t sure if the people were trying to sleep on their boats or if they were just up walking around. There was a lot of unsettledness around the campsite and it had to be pretty chilly for them.

The sunrise revealed the tents had been torn down and reset up in the sand dunes. Hopefully, the campers had been able to get a little bit of sleep.

The wind continued to blow all morning and by 11 am, they had packed up their little runabouts and taken off. We soon had the anchor up and motored one mile over to the Ft McRae anchorage for a little more protection. Not to mention the fact that Gale would be closer to his fishing hole.

 

Towards the middle of the afternoon, the wind began to die down just as it had the last couple of days and Gale took the dinghy out to catch more redfish. And catch he did – another four redfish and a nice flounder in about an hour’s time. He released all but the flounder since we had no room in the freezer for more big fish.

 

 




On Saturday and Sunday we shared the anchorage with a few local boaters – especially during the daylight hours.



Gale took some time on Sunday afternoon to make some new lines. We especially needed to replace the line that broke on the fortress anchor when we were at Sumter Recreation Area back on the river in Alabama. He also made a new snub line that we use to take some of the weight off the anchor chain when it is in use or to secure the anchor when it’s up on deck in the windlass.

 

The wind calmed for a short time on Sunday afternoon and we used that time to set a second anchor. We knew we would both sleep better with two anchors. It wasn’t long before the wind kicked up again but since it was early, we hoped that maybe it wouldn’t blow all night long.

Friday, October 7, 2011 – Big Lagoon, ICW mile 177.0 near Pensacola

It was 6:45 am when we left Ingrams Bayou with a sunny sky and a northeast wind. The inland waterway was a little choppy and the wind increased from 6 knots to 19 knots over the 13-mile trip. By 10:00 am we had chosen our anchoring spot in Big Lagoon and settled ourselves in about 25 yards out from the beach. We were able to tuck in close enough to gain some protection from the wind and waves.
 


Perdido Key is one of our favorite beaches with the white sand and beautiful dunes. After taking care of a few chores on the boat, Gale threw a line in while Maureen put some lunch together. The lizard fish he pulled up wasn’t too appealing.

 

 
 
 
 

After lunch, we took the dinghy to shore and started walking. We could see two ships towing a large piece of heavy equipment into and through the inlet at Pensacola Pass. Neither of us knew what it was to be used for, but it was certainly impressive to watch it come in off the ocean and down the waterway.

We continued walking all the way to the inlet on the Gulf side of Perdido Key and then around the corner to the inside where there is a favorite anchorage at the old Ft. McRae site. We watched some fishermen pulling in huge redfish with every cast and when we quizzed them about it, they told us the fish had just come in and they were running like crazy! Enough said – we continued our walk with Gale thinking about getting back to Blue Heron to pick up his fishing pole and tackle.

We had walked at least two miles already and had to go back the way we came, so it was after 4 pm before Gale headed out to the pass to see if he could get in on some of the action. When he arrived, the redfish were still running and he had an exciting time of casting, hitting and reeling them in. In fact, he caught five redfish and one large flounder within an hour’s time. Since there is a possession limit of one on the redfish, he had to release four of them.



 Our dinner of fresh flounder was delicious! We cleaned the redfish and froze those fillets for another day. One redfish was enough to feed at least four people.

 













Just before sunset, three small pleasure boats came zooming in towards us and pulled up to the beach. Soon there were three families with their kids unloading camping gear and getting set up. It wasn’t long before the tents were up and the campfire was going. The evening was lovely, there was a light breeze and the water was calm.