After a 2 hour fog delay we left the marina and passed this American Bald Eagle sitting just a few yards away on the private channel marker. The marina docks are in the background and the condos, marina building, pool, et al are to the right just out of view. Look how beautiful the day looks. NOT. As we were approaching the narrow entrance to the Lagoon, fog rolled in and completely blanketed the markers and the channel. Linda and I stopped and waited for 50 minutes before the fog lifted and we were again able to see all of the markers and buoys.
Once out of St Andrews Bay and leaving Panama City behind us we soon got into some very flat marshy areas that were very shallow. We had to closely follow the channel and at one point found a buoy which was out of position. I had heard a couple of other boats who had followed the buoy and ran out of water. All were able to get out but Linda and I were very careful and ignored the bad buoy and for once did not go through one of those annoying soft groundings. Shortly after this we entered a canal and basically followed the ditch for a few hours. Boring. We had decided to stay at Port St Joe for a few days because we had arranged for a number of deliveries to the marina. The mail from home arrived right on schedule thanks to our very good neighbours Rob and Cheryl. I had also purchased a GPS puck from Ebay so that I could more easily use my laptop as a backup chart plotter. Now if my primary Raymarine chart plotter fails for whatever reason, I will be able to use the laptop to navigate to our next port.
I believe that I had mentioned in an earlier post that I had ordered some zincs, again off Ebay, to be delivered here at Port St Joe's. They were here when we arrived and we made the final arrangements with the diver to have them installed. Well he came this morning (Saturday) and installed them in about 10 minutes. He checked the whole bottom, including the props, and reported a very clean bill of health. He even reported that the bow thruster had a good zinc still. That is good because I didn't even know that the thruster had a zinc. I am still learning all kinds of things about this boat. Anyway, after a brief chat, he told us how much we owed. Linda was shocked and refused to pay it. I was pleasantly surprised even elated. Even my Jewish friend Mitch would have been pleased. We were asked to pay $20 for the diver's work. This is even cheaper than having our good friend Jay from Windsong go below to just inspect the props. Jay drank all of my Wiser's Deluxe and is still collecting beer as payment for his 10 minutes underwater. Linda doubled the diver's rate and we are still very happy.
Thursday was Thanksgiving down here and fortunately for The Old Grouch (Cndn) and us that there was an American Looper here at the marina. Lynn and Jack from Felix invited us to share this beautiful smoked turkey. It was such a beautiful day, mid to upper 70's, that we took over the patio at the restaurant / bar at the marina and feasted there. It was perfect; the food was superb and the camaraderie was fun. It could not have been better in any way.
Linda and I had never heard tell of a smoked turkey but this was very, very good. It was served hot and even the white meat was moist and tender. We will have to keep an eye open for it.
We are now in the staging area for making the jump across the Gulf to either Clearwater or Tarpon Springs. It is 170 miles from Carrabelle and just slightly more if one departs from Apalachicola. Linda and I, along with most Loopers, are going to wait for conditions on the Gulf to be such that the trip across is relatively pleasant or at least comfortable. Trawlers and sailboats will have to leave one afternoon and travel through the night in order to arrive in the daylight. Linda and I on the other hand are going to leave at first light and should arrive in Tarpon Springs about 9-10 hours later, just in time for happy hour. We are currently thinking of departing form Apalachicola so will remain here at Port St Joe until a couple of days before it looks like there will be a window to cross. We will then go there for a couple of nights of good oysters then head across.
We are now in the staging area for making the jump across the Gulf to either Clearwater or Tarpon Springs. It is 170 miles from Carrabelle and just slightly more if one departs from Apalachicola. Linda and I, along with most Loopers, are going to wait for conditions on the Gulf to be such that the trip across is relatively pleasant or at least comfortable. Trawlers and sailboats will have to leave one afternoon and travel through the night in order to arrive in the daylight. Linda and I on the other hand are going to leave at first light and should arrive in Tarpon Springs about 9-10 hours later, just in time for happy hour. We are currently thinking of departing form Apalachicola so will remain here at Port St Joe until a couple of days before it looks like there will be a window to cross. We will then go there for a couple of nights of good oysters then head across.
One more odd tidbit in case you ever appear on Jeopardy. This county, Gulf County Florida, has two time zones. Many people live in the Central time zone and work in the Eastern zone or vice versa. Worse yet, now that all of our clocks are set to EST, they should be changed back to CST when we travel "east" to Apalachicola. Apalachicola is on Central time. Go figure.
So we now wait for the weather. So far the longer term forecast is for two cold fronts to sweep through this area. We will be here until at least the middle to end of next week. We are going to relax in this beautiful town and if we get a chance will do some golfing.
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