Appalachicola to Carabelle

     Ok, our plans for the crossing were behind us.  We would now have a few days to relax and enjoy exploring this particular area of Florida. You know, find the flavour of this area. However, things didn't start out well.  As I started to have a shower I noticed that the water pressure was low.  We had tanked up at our last stop so I continued to lather up....and ...no water...damn it!....soap from head to toe and no way to rinse off!...what the hell is wrong now!  Apparently, with all the banging and jarring around in the gulf a clamp had  loosened and come off the water pump and all the fresh water was pumped into the bilge!  Mildred, bless her heart,  heard the pump running after all of us had retired, and went down and repaired it on her own.  Thank you Mildred!  We would fill up again when we settled into a marina, tonight.

  

                                                        The Wharf in Apalachicola

       While the girls went to explore (read shop!) Tom and I set about repairing the bilge pump-- again. It turned out to be no big deal, some trash got caught up in the check valve and water was siphoning back into the boat!  We still hadn't got the boat balanced yet, since it involved moving lead weights from the port to the starboard side and we had no way yet to secure the weights on the other side of the boat.  I figured part of the problem was the new dingy being not centered, so opted for pulling the dingy towards the centre of the boat.  The boat was still low in the water since, we were still loaded  "Beverly Hillbilly style".  "Stuff" would be coming off the boat in Carrabelle to make room for any family or friends that were crazy enough to want to come along on this cruise, so we could rebalance later.

                                                                 Shopping Spree
                                                        

    We basked in the warm sun light and thought we would enjoy a nice relaxing day in Apalachacola.  We went to "Carolines" restaurant for breakfast. (recommended to Mildred by two little old ladies in a shop who argued  about where was the best breakfast in town)  Carolines was a homey dining room overlooking the water.  Apalachicola is "Oyster City".  Everything seemed to revolve around the oyster industry or shrimping.  Oyster bars, oyster restaurants, and oyster menu at the restaurant.  As we sat looking over the menu, I thought, "Ok, I'll bite lets see what this oyster thing is really all about."  Tom, Mildred and Beth ordered the usual morning fare,  biscuits, gravy and eggs for Tom, sausage and eggs for Mildred, spinach omelet (ehck!) for Beth and I would try the oyster cakes and eggs!  Two bites and I gave it over to Tom who loves oysters!  To me, the oyster cakes had a rich perfumey taste that certainly didn't go along with breakfast.   No more oysters for me!
     As Tom and I were finishing some repairs the girls returned.  Beth had a troubled look in her eyes and I knew something was up when she said in a somewhat higher pitched voice. "They told us at the store that the storm was coming much faster than predicted.  We should get tied up at a marina....now!"  
     Well, it wasn't that simple.  Wherever, we tied up is where the boat would stay until our return in a month.   There were many things to consider...floating vs. fixed dock, tide changes, security and price.  I had already figured out that Apalachicola was overpriced after calling the only marina in town that had a slip big enough, paying for breakfast, and finding out that the $5.00 PVC pelican on a stick Beth bought (to plant in the flower bed at the condo in St. Stephen, NB) cost $45.00!  Active Captain had reviews on a marina in Carrabelle, the Moorings, which indicated they were very helpful, especially when deciding  when was a good time to make the gulf crossing and they had a safe, secure marina at a good price for the month.  Getting the feeling something bad is about to happen?

                                                                             

     The sky darkened as we rushed to untie the lines and push off the dock.  Turning by the shrimp boats tied at the end of the dock, I swung wide......and hit the shoal and an underwater piling .  As I backed off I felt the props grind in and saw a few pieces of wood surface...but we were off and headed out to Apalachicola bay.  As it started to rain, I looked at the weather report...the radar showed more rain headed our way and a major storm with 65 mile per hour winds, rain , lightning and tornadoes headed north east travelling at 60 miles per hour!  It was a little closer to turn around and go back to Apalachicola, so what did we do?.......by now you should be able to guess the answer to this...remember the quote by Simone de Beauvoir...at the beginning of this blog...I decided to "extend oneself".  After all the bad storm was north east of us and travelling northeast.  As long as it didn't turn we could handle the rain .  The one thing this boat can do that a trawler can't, is get up on plane.  Away we went.  I throttled up to 16 knots, turned on the radar and would cut the normal 3 hour 28 mile trip in half...so I thought! We did well until the hazy mist turned into thick fog!
     Not wanting to run over any oyster men working the bay, I slowed down.  At times we passed markers that were visible on the radar but not to the naked eye but we persisted and I am happy to report that the map plotter and radar pulled us through. The bad storm continued northeast of us and the fog lifted as we entered Carrabelle.  Finally, we could rest.  Docs Holiday would be staying here, safely berthed until our return.

                                                                    Oyster Fisherman

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
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     Comfortably sipping a cubra libra, I could easily tolerate the burning in my ears from Beth chastising me.  She was more pissed about the grounding than she was about the trip across Apalachicola Bay, especially after I told her we would have to have a quick hall and the props exchanged before we attempted to cross the gulf!
   
    
 

Go...No Go....Try to Go

     Those of you who are living your life vicariously through this blog, I know have been waiting for this post.   Did they go across the gulf to Clearwater or did they stay safe in the intracoastal?  If you remember the last post, we had a weather window predicting one foot seas starting on Tuesday and lasting until Wednesday night, before the seas would start to get in the two to three foot range and keep on increasing to five to six foot by Saturday.   We met a Captain at Santa Rosa Yacht Club who suggested just going across from Panama City directly to Clearwater.

 I should have suspected something was awry when his female partner looked askance at him, saying, " Did you suggest that!"

She than said rather emphatically, "Most people usually leave from Carabelle."
      Tom and I were salivating looking at the weather window knowing we could save a lot of time and be on the west coast of Florida before we had to head back to work in Texas.

 Beth was much more cautious saying "Ralph, there's a reason most people don't do that!"  So I came up with a plan.  (I can hear y'all starting to chuckle and say in your heads, oh! oh! Ralphie.)

                                                            Air Naval Flights                  

     Options! Ya! Options!   We would head out of Panama city and if it got rough  we would turn in to St. Josephs Bay. If tolerable, we would continue on past the San Blas Shoals direct to Clearwater. (The Captain had warned us that it might get a little bumpy until we got past the shoals.

 "Stay in 50 feet of water. " he said.

 Bumpy! Maybe a professional captain would call it bumpy but us pleasure boaters found it too rough. What started out as 1 to 2 foot seas kept progressing to 4 to 5 foot seas  with the boat bouncing and banging to the point where this Captain got....well....should I say .....a little green around the gills!

                                                       Good Bye Panama City           

     Tom, who is a former navy man smiled as he took the helm and I went to the recently purchased lazy-boy chair and assumed the recumbent position.   As I lay back I looked over at Beth sitting on the couch......glaring at me....hmmmm....no sympathy in those eyes! ....."This could be a long trip, " I thought as I closed my eyes to fight back the dizziness and early waves of nausea.  We were only 2 hours out and it would be 2 hours back in to the protected waters of St. Josephs Bay. My hopes were dashed for a relatively quick crossing to the west coast of Florida.  In fact, this meant leaving the boat in Carabelle for several weeks since the weather was going to get nasty for the next week.
     Once in calmer waters my "mal de mer" quickly passed, so I took over the helm  along the cut from St. Joseph's Bay into the intracoastal.   Within 2 miles I found out that the piece of "duck weed" in the centre of the water was not...it was a log..that was the first thing I hit since putting on the reworked props...oh well,  no vibration but this was turning out to be a bad day and it was about to get worse.
     Because we left at noon to make the night crossing and because we spent 4 hours out in the Gulf we were going to have to travel the ICW in the dark to make it to Apalachicola tonight.  No problem, I thought.  There is very little barge traffic, unlike the area around Beaumont and Port Arthur which one avoided traveling at night because of the numerous night barge traffic.
     No moon.  Ya, no moon, therefore no light, therefore couldn't see shit!  But, I had my map plotter and radar and a huge 2,000 watt beam flashlight to pick out the markers.   It was still nerve wracking, especially when I came around a bend and saw red lights all across the river and what looked like two boats in the middle of the river.  WTF was going on?   The map plotter indicated the red lights were a swing bridge and the other lights weren't boats.  They weren't even on the water!...They were lights from houses on the shore!  Do I need to tell you that things look different at night! 
    I inched toward the red lights to see if the swing bridge was open with Tom and Mildred on the bow waving me  forward... but I was already on top of the damn thing....Not!  I was at least a quarter mile away.  (Did I already say things look different in the dark!)   We slowly passed through the open bridge and I decided to abandon the plan to head directly out through Apalachicola toward Tarpon Springs.  All of us were tired and stressed out.  We would stay at the free municipal wharf in Apalachicola for the night.

Gulf Breeze to Panama City, Fl

     Tom and I were up at 5:00 to disconnect the lines, power cord and fill the boat with water.  We were at the fuel dock waiting for the attendant to arrive and fill us up so we could get an early start.  The weather had put us two days behind .  Why we feel that we are behind?  I don't know.  Maybe its just the way guys travel. Maybe its testosterone. Maybe its type A behaviour.  What I do know is that Beth can't understand it and finds it stressful!    I assured her that the weather reports indicated the white caps would settle down by mid morning.   Now , I know what you are thinking....oh! oh! Ralphie, you,ve done it again. What kind of mess did you get into this time?  Ha! Ha!  This time the forecast was right.  Just as predicted the large bays we crossed settled down from the "rough chop" to a light chop and the winds from 15 knots to 5.  It was smooth cruising.  Beth even took the helm!
     Of couse that didn't stop the mechanical gremlins from working!  Just as Beth took over control of the boat the starboard tach drive gave out, so we lost the synchronizer again.  Wouldn't you know it...more stress for Beth!  However,  your forward thinking captain had already prepared for this event.  Surprise! Surprise!  Since I knew the fix might be temporary I had taken the precaution of bringing both motors up manually to 1200 rpms so that if the tack quit both motors would still be in sink. Beth was relieved about this, but became increasingly concerned about what time we would arrive in Panama city.  She did not want to anchor in the dark and it was 90 miles away, and we would hit a time change and lose an hour of light, and we were unsure if there were any no wake zones, and  there were no good intermediate anchorages  and...and...and...Oh my ears were ringing!!!
     And....she was right!  It was getting late by the time we were approaching  Panama City.... but, I had a plan!   Simple.  Have you already guessed it?  I know RJ has!  If your late what do you do?.......STEP ON THE GAS!!   It was time to give Docs Holiday a warm up, so we throttled up to 2200 rpms giving us 17.6 knots. We pulled in to a beautiful well protected anchorage, set the anchor, cracked a couple of coldies and lit the barbecue before it got dark.      
  
 The trip across the bays, Choctawatchee, West Bay and St. Andrews Bay were delightful.  The sun was shining and although cold for the southerners, we Canadians were in our element.  We are used to drinking cold beer in the snow for heaven's sake.  At least we were in the sunshine!

                                          Government  Installation--but who's looking?

      The highlight of the trip was the cruise through the "Canyons".  Just leaving the Choctawatchee bay  the ICW winds through  several miles of steep 20 foot high sand hills.  The hills formed different shapes and as we went along we could see some that looked like castles, some had animal shapes and one that looked like a group of people with large bodies and little heads, standing together.  The sun with the winding river sent shadows across them which gave them motion.  In my Canadian head I thought, "must be the beer, eh!"

                                                                        ICW

                                          There's natural sand sculptures in them Hills                                  
                                                          

                                                               The  Canyons                                                                               
                                                                 
     Tomorrow, a big decision for us.  Do we go off shore, 198 miles from Panama City to Clearwater! Its giving 1 foot seas for over 24 hours then a front moves in and even Appalachicola bay is going to have 4 foot seas within the next 3 days.   If we go direct to Appalachicola or Carrabelle we will miss the window of opportunity and our trip is over for the next few weeks until I return from working in Beaumont.   Even if we wait, we will still have to find a weather window to make the crossing.  Carabelle to Tarpon springs is a little shorter (only 18 miles north of Clearwater) 16 hours vs.20
Decisions Decision Decisions.   What would you do?  (I know my sister in law,  Patty would say. "Screw this, take a plane!")
    
    
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Gulf Breeze and Gale Force Winds

     For those of you following the blog you should know that you can click on the pictures and they enlarge so you can see better detail and when you click on SPOT not only will it show you our track but you can zoom in on any part of the track, like the anchorages. Go to the upper right hand corner and click hybrid and it will give you a google picture overhead of the anchorages and marinas we stop in ...even down to the slip Docs Holiday is berthed in.
      We had a leisurely ride across Pensacola Bay.  Turning to the North Shore after going under the Pensacola Beach Bridge we glided into the Santa Rosa Yacht Club.  Much to our surprise the slips were very short.  Nosing into the first slip we would be unable to get off the boat since the slip didn't even come as far as our side doors.  We backed around a corner and into a second slip which allowed us to tie off to the front poles such that we could get off the stern of the boat onto the new looking aluminum floating docks. 

                                                       SRYC.......calm before the storm.                                   

       This marina, although more expensive ($1.50/foot/day), included access to a well appointed club room, clean showers and restrooms, free laundry and an exercise room with new treadmill, bicycle machine, weights and even a Pilate's ball.  It felt good to put in 4 miles on the treadmill.  We just don't get any  aerobic exercise on the boat. 
       While Tom and I tinkered on the boat, Beth and Mildred made good use of the free laundry facilities.  A number of repairs have been complete.  Tom figured out the stabilizers were not working and traced it back to a loose connection in the gyro.  He replaced a failed float switch on the generator bilge pump (Yea!, we had a spare). TV is not my priority but the Admiral insists! Tom and Mildred spent most of their time tracing out wires for the salon and aft cabin televisions.  Personally  I am tired of all the mindless reality shows including the bullshit lying, groveling politicians and the sensationalizing news media.) About the only thing on TV I can't figure out the outcome of anymore is the weather channel and they even sensationalize the storms!
     I chose this marina because it was on the north side of the intracoastal and should provide protection from the predicted north west winds with expected gusts from 40-60 m.p.h.   Of course, mother nature threw a slight curve and the winds blew from the southeast for a day than from the north on the following day.  Docs Holiday rocked and rolled a bit but we stayed secure with a couple of extra dock lines for insurance. The rain was impressive and Mildred seemed relieved to report that she could find no leaks other than the sliding tracks for the side windows filling up because of slow drainage.  This was easily handled with a couple of small towels placed in the tracks.
     The local Ace hardware was less than 1/2 mile away so it was easy to pick up the few parts Tom required to repair the aft door knob and the TV.  We walked to the nearby Hibachi restaurant about a mile away and enjoyed the chefs performance cooking dinner and singeing our eyebrows with his high flame.  They stopped throwing dinner tidbits into the patrons mouths in the hibachi restaurant (Tokyo) in Beaumont because someone choked on a piece and of course in the "legal hell hole of Texas" won the law suit, so it was fun to see it being done here.  During our walk I spotted a nice little bakerywhere Beth and I enjoyed breakfast the next morning.  Great scones, peach turnovers and Tom said, with a smile on his face,  the German Chocolate Cake we brought him was too rich.
    Taking advantage of the cold rain and wind we elected to forgo the local Mardi Gras Parade and took a cab over to the Pensacola Naval Base to tour the free naval air museum.  It was sobering to see the many acres of gravestones of those that sacrificed their lives for this country and these were just from one branch of the navy!   We spent an hour on the guided tour viewing the history of the Navy's development of increasing lethal air technology.  It was impressive.  A tribute to those that have contributed to this history included Admiral Byrd, who flew across the north pole and President Bush senior. There is even a display of President Bush's flight training report card which states he is an excellent student who "is somewhat eccentric.

                                                                         

     An exhibit of how people at home saved scrap, had to use ration cards for food and fuel and did without to help with the war effort, made me wonder if our society today would be able to come together in such a manner.  We are just so coddled with government benefits, cheap fast food , mind numbing TV and movies that have us all living in a world where we mistakenly believe what we are viewing is reality. We have become as a society soft, fat and for the most part expecting that the government will take care of us!
     Nevertheless it was nostalgic to see a display of a home from the 40's and 50's with the old wringer washer, peddle sewing machine, phones with a dial and an ice box.  These were some of the things Beth and I remember from our childhood, that our grandparents and parents had in our homes.  Come to think of it the sound of the rhythmic motion of the wringer washer almost covered up some of the other sounds in the house on a Sunday morning!

                                                                            

     The high light of the tour though was the display of the Blue Angels acrobatic flying team.  They  practice on Tuesdays and Wednesday in Pensacola at 8:30 am....so no one sleeps in on those mornings!  Unfortunately they are on the west coast now, but will be back by March 31. The display shows the planes several feet apart.  One of the former pilots viewed the exhibit and asked in earnest, "Why so far apart?"  When they are flying in formation they do so at 18 inches!

                                                                            

    A white Rolls Royce in a condo parking lot?  Whats up with that? We stopped the taxi to investigate.  Hmmm, sitting on small wood blocks-been there for a while.  Nice on the outside---Florida weather, no snow, no salt.  JL on what appeared to be a British license plate.  A white rock and roll star that was assassinated-- guess who this belonged to! -got it yet? .....This Rolls was owned by John Lennon!

                                                                               

     Returning to the boat we were met with the aroma of the pot roast Beth started before we left. It felt kind of homey with the windows steamed up and the boat gently tugging at her lines.  A nice dinner and off to bed.  We would need a good nights sleep because we be travelling in the morning.