Getting to Carrabelle

While waiting for a weather window Linda and I joined Brenda and The Old Grouch for a day of golf at the Port St Joe Country Club.  It was not the most immaculately maintained course that I have played on but it was a nice layout and great fun to play.  The signs in the rough affected Linda's play somewhat.  She said that she could not concentrate and keep her head still while looking for snakes and alligators.  I just suggested that she aim for the middle of the fairway and not the rough.  I saw the 9 iron coming and ran.  The people are so friendly at the marina here that John let us use his vehicle to go out to the course.  Everybody is so good to boaters.

Linda and some of her friends went for walks along the pathways.  You can see the tide is out and the birds are feeding.  Linda also spotted some horseshoe crabs or at least the shells.  One night, well one night after other similar nights, we had a looper gathering in the Raw Bar at the marina.  I believe that there were 18 or 20 Loopers present and all were discussing the weather and how they were going to cross and where they were going to land.  There were several different options and I think that each was actioned by one or more boats crossing.  Some even delayed their crossing in order to wait for a longer window of good weather.  As of this date of writing, Dec. 7, they are all still in the panhandle.

A number of us left Port St Joe the next morning, Thursday, in preparation for a Friday crossing.  Us faster boats went all the way to Carrabelle to minimize the distance for the crossing.  The slower boats only got to Apalachicola but since they needed at least 20 hours for the crossing they could leave at mid morning and arrive across the Gulf the next morning.  The trawlers needed to leave by 2 PM in order to arrive in the late morning. 

It was an interesting journey past the town of Apalachicola then across Apalachicola Bay to Carrabelle.  The marinas in Apalachicola looked pretty rustic and I was glad that we were staying the night in Carrabelle.  Some excitement though, more for The Old Grouch however.  A sail boat was aground just outside of the Apalachicola River in a very narrow channel.  In fact the whole day was a journey through a small channel, say 100 feet wide, with little to no water immediately outside of the channel.  The Old Grouch made several attempts to pull the boat off the shoal but did not succeed.  Once the line broke and then Dave's boat was in too shallow water itself.  It was a valiant attempt none the less.

Not much later we came across fisherman who were harvesting oysters.  It looks awful primitive the way that they do it.  They are in small boats, sometimes with 4 persons aboard.  They use these long tongs or poles with rake like heads on the ends.  They scrape the bottom then use the tongs like chop sticks to bring up the oysters.  Then one or two other persons start shucking the oysters right there on the boat.  You can barely see the mound of oysters and the seated guys who are doing the schucking.  Evidently it is necessary to return the shells so that the oyster bed stays healthy.

The 5-6 boats in our flotilla got to Carrabelle, fueled up and then waited.  A couple of us went out to the best restaurant in town, Old Salty.  I wish that I had taken our camera.  It was cold that night and as we entered the restaurant we had to step over numerous heaters that were plugged into every available outlet.  The ceiling was corrugated metal and studs, the floor appeared to be very old barn board. Very, very rustic.  The food though was quite good especially the raw oysters.  The only down side, besides eating in jackets, was that nobody had informed us that one had to BYOB.  Oh well, I survived.