Overtook Twice

We left the free dock at Ft. Walton Beach at 6:15 this morning.  "Conched Out Too" had to pull out first so we could get out.  Regardless, they still chose to follow.  We didn't know exactly where we were going.  Bill had a call into The Wharf, but Beverly would not be in until eight o'clock to give him a price.  When she did call, it was 75 cents more per foot than "The Bar-B" was paying.  Ray called Saunders to inquire about staying there for the weekend as they often have since they are really just a working yard, but closed on the weekends.  They said yes at 60 cents per foot plus $5 for power.  A real bargain!  When Bob found out that we were quoted a higher price than him, he called Beverly (for another reason), but just asked if she would honor the same price he was getting for two other Looper boat friends coming.  She said of course.  Well that was still twice the price as Saunders anyway, so we didn't bother.  We all kept ourselves anonymous as to whom Bob was talking about.
At 12:30 p.m. we stopped just west of the Pensacola inlet.  Ray jumped in the water to check our props.  We both felt like we have not been getting the speed we normally would at our RPMs. Nothing was wrong, so ten minutes later we were off and running.  "Conched Out Too" went on ahead, and picked up some speed when we encouraged them once again not to wait on us, that the earlier they got to our arrival point, the earlier they could snap a beer.  I think that reasoning worked.
An hour later we were in Alabama.  As is not too unusual, we were overtaken by a large sport fishing boat named "Lolita" that waked the crap out of us, the sailboat we just overtook for the second time today, and "Conched Out Too".  Yes, we overtook someone twice today!
At 4:00 p.m. we pulled into Saunders after 67 miles of travel.  Bill and Patty stayed in to visit with their family as Bill's daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter now live in Orange Beach.  Ray and I dinghied to The Wharf to dine with "The Bar-B".

Rain, rain, go away

We never got the rain threats last night.  The breezes had us wondering at times, but it was flat as glass when we left Pearl Bayou before 6:00 a.m.  There were more threats of storms today so we wanted to try to get as far as we could before those.  We caught the tide all day again, so that helped.  Choctawhatchee Bay was supposed to be smooth, becoming a moderate chop.  That last 30 miles was what we were really worried about.  We watched radar and listened to weather reports all afternoon, but somehow dodged all of them.  What a blessing.  Choctawhatchee Bay ended up being a light chop at worst.

After 72 miles of travel we were looking at the free dock in Ft. Walton Beach around 4:00 p.m.  There was one catamaran sailboat on the T dock, but pulled back as far as it could be.  We talked of rafting like we usually do, but Ray and Bill thought we could all three fit.  So we went in first and pulled back as close as we could to the catamaran.  There wasn’t a lot of room left but Bill pulled ahead of us with only about half of “Conched Out Too” up against the dock, but we made it work.

We walked over to Fokker’s for dinner, taking the long route as we forgot they moved across Miracle Strip Parkway.  We enjoyed wing night.

Tyndall Flyers

Four nights in Apalachicola was a lot of fun.  “The Bar-B” was there with us for Saturday night, but unfortunately had to leave Sunday morning.  They wanted to get to a place of better access to rental cars or airports in case their special needs grandson in Wisconsin got any worse during his unexpected hospital stay with pneumonia.  Fortunately he seems to be doing better and should get to go home soon.

Ray’s childhood friend Scott arrived around 12:30 p.m. on Sunday via motorcycle from Tarpon Springs.  Bill and Patty arrived on “Conched Out Too” a couple hours later.  We hit all of our favorite hang outs including Hole In The Wall, Up The Creek, Boss Oyster, Bowery Station, Tap Room and more.

This morning Bill helped untie us from the old ice house docks a little after seven o’clock.  They gave us about an hour head start since they usually travel faster.  Today though we had the tide with us virtually all day.  We averaged about 7.5 miles per hour.  A few hours into our travel we entered the Central Time Zone, so that put us ahead an hour too.  We encountered a couple boats going each direction and a dredge near the Port St. Joe Canal, but other than that was a quiet ride mostly in ditches.  The last of our day of travel was through the east end of East Bay to anchor in Pearl Bayou as we almost always do near Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City.  “Conched Out Too” never did catch us until they came in to anchor about a half hour after our 2:15 p.m. Central Daylight Time arrival.  Now it’s just enjoying our own personal air show.

Short Day

Short and uneventful travel day.  We pulled up anchor out of Tyson’s Harbor in Dog Island at seven o’clock this morning.  No sunrise to be seen with all of the clouds, but the full moon was still out.  The day got prettier as we continued west.  I gave myself a pedicure as Ray drove since I drove all day yesterday.

We pulled into Apalachicola just before 1:00 p.m. with Bob and Barbara from “The Bar-B” there to catch our lines at the old ice house dock after 31 miles of travel.  We all enjoyed pork tacos and duck fries at The Tap Room of the Owl Café for lunch.  The boys went back to their respective boats to take a nap while the girls shopped.  Then drinks at Bowery Station and oysters for dinner at The Hole in the Wall.

Rock and Roll Baby!

The depth finder wouldn’t come on.  Luckily that was just a loose wire.  Bill was over at our boat just after six o’clock this morning.  He came to voice his concerns over the front coming through the panhandle of Florida today.  We took a last look at the future radar predictions and decided it should be pushing mostly to the north.  At 6:30 he was casting our lines.  At 8:30 they were hailing us on the VHF saying they were behind us, but that we should look again at the radar for those storms.  We looked.  It wasn’t pretty, but we were already two hours in.  The seas weren’t too bad even though they were on the beam of course, but we knew it was going to be that way today.  They decided to turn around, they were just barely out of the inlet.  We kept going.

Ray predicted we would be at the front at about 2:00 p.m.  That would be about an hour before our turn north around South Shoal before continuing west to Dog Island.  He hit it right on the head.  For almost two hours we could see it.  The worst of it looked to be to the north, so we made a more southerly course to try to head into what looked to be less intense.  Soon we saw the other two trawlers ahead of us that were at anchor at Steinhatchee when we left this morning.  We decided to follow them.  For no other reason than safety in numbers, and so we could all be idiots together.  Then it looked like they changed their mind and headed a more southerly direction, presumably to go around the southern side of Dog Island.  We continued on northwest towards our original waypoint to come in at the east end of Dog Island and anchor on the north side.

We continued for three hours in the rain.  A few lighting strikes and rumbles of thunder, but they didn’t seem too close.  The seas got only slightly higher before hitting the rain when they got mixed up and then settled.  No real wind gust ahead of the front.  That was a blessing.  Another was the fresh water rinse we got.  We shouldn’t really have to wash the boat when we get to Apalachicola now.

The end of our travel day came after 81 miles.  The anchorage here at Dog Island is so calm it’s already hard to believe we rocked and rolled for twelve hours today.

It's Four Twenty Man

These wind predictions are as wrong as every other weather prediction.  Last night was supposed to be calm.  About one o’clock in the morning we were both sitting up at the helm because the winds kicked up and presumably at the opposite direction of the current as the waves were slapping so bad at the stern that neither of us could sleep.  We talked that if we couldn’t sleep anyway, we might as well just head across the Gulf.  Thankfully they did calm down for some sleep, but not much before it was time to get up. 

Just five minutes earlier than yesterday we pulled up anchor out of Cedar Key.  It was pretty much a northerly course after we wiggled through Seahorse Reef.  We traveled for 59 miles, getting a little better speed with the wind behind us today.  We were tied up to the middle T dock at Sea Hag Marina in Steinhatchee, Florida just after 3:00 p.m.  Neither of us remember this place at all although we were here in 2005. 

We took a bike ride with Bill and Patty over to Who Dat Bar and Grill where it was wing night.  We also shared a couple kegs of beer.  They were 100 ounce little wooden cooler kegs.

We are staying put here for Thursday as a small front comes through, but should be heading to Dog Island near Carrabelle on Friday, then it will be on to Apalachicola for the weekend.  Thursday’s focus is to find a mailbox to put Mom’s birthday card in with hopes that it will make it to her on time.

Always a story

The chop on the water finally laid down at about four o’clock in the morning, so Ray barely got a couple hours of sleep.  As is usually the case on the first day of traveling again, I woke up once very disoriented as to where I was.  Getting up at 6:00 this morning wasn’t quite early enough I guess.  We could have pulled up anchor by 6:30 light, but we didn’t get going until 6:45.  The choppy waves were on our beam of course while the winds were blowing out of the east.  They were hardly two footers, but just enough to keep us rolling along.  Around nine o’clock they really calmed down all of the sudden.  The only thing that seemed different was that the water was pretty shallow, because it didn’t really last long.  They did continue to diminish all day as predicted.  It was just after noon today though when those winds changed to NNW again.  Still assuming it was the sea breeze as the past two mornings have been a little bit cooler.

The afternoon continued on with no major events.  Sometimes the starboard engine just dies on us.  Once we prime the fuel filter it starts right back up.  Remember the same thing happening with the generator?  Yep, that’s still going on intermittently.  They both feed off of the same fuel cell, so something is going on with that, but Ray can’t seem to find what it is.  Other than that, just lots of turtle sightings, I bet 30 today, along with the usual dolphins too.

It was a long day for us.  We dropped anchor near Cedar Key, Florida on the north side of Atsena Otle Key, a National Wildlife Refuge after 68 miles of travel in ten and a half hours.  Shortly after settling in Ray dinghied over to “Conched Out Too” to borrow a ratchet strap.  Along with our one we had, Ray cross tied the dinghy to try to stop it swaying so much in the rolling seas.  We’re still leery of the original welds of the pieces mounted on “The Second Noelle”.

Soon after getting the dinghy all secured is when it got interesting.  There were two men on Atsena Otle Key yelling to “Conched Out Too” that they were stranded on the island because the kayak they rented got swamped and they lost the paddle(s).  So Patty called Cedar Key Marina.  We said we would put the dinghy back in the water to get them if needed, but the marina said someone was on the way.  We even tried getting the attention of a fishing boat that went by by blowing our horns and Ray waving his arms in the distress signal.  It totally ignored us.  In the mean time the two men on the island have started a fire.  Finally here comes Tom in another kayak.  He thought it was his rental.  He is yelling while still in the kayak for them to put the fire out.  That continues as he gets to shore.  The two men put the fire out but a lot of arguing was going on with the two men using quite vulgar language toward Tom and another couple of guys that came in a fishing boat to rescue them.  The rescuers obviously had enough of that and left.  Come to find out it wasn’t Tom’s rental kayak they had.  The two men ended up paddling the kayak back to the main land with their hands.  We were all thankful we didn’t get any more involved.  Patty apologized to Santa, yes that’s her name, at Cedar Key Marina not knowing what trouble they would be, and hopes to get the rest of the story from her later.

on the water again

Exactly one month ago we arrived in Indian Rocks Beach.  I didn’t get around to blogging our last travel day as I suspected I wouldn’t.  That was back on March 18.  We pulled up anchor out of Palma Sola Bay near Prices Key in the vicinity of Brandenton at 7:45 a.m.  If I remember correctly, it was one of our flattest crossings of Tampa Bay.  At 12:15 p.m. we pulled into Madeira Beach City Marina to fuel up and pump out.  About a half hour later we were back underway.  An hour after that we were pulling into slip 22 at Holiday Inn Harbourside with Bob and Barbara from “The Bar-B” there to catch our lines.

This morning Bob helped us to cast our lines at 8:00 a.m.  An hour later we were passing “Conched Out Too” at their overnight anchorage as the free docks in Indian Rocks Beach were full yesterday afternoon when they came by.  We will be traveling this spring with Bill and Patty beginning with doing the armpit of Florida instead of crossing the Gulf of Mexico.  They followed in behind us a while later only to eventually overtake us near Tarpon Springs. 

Today the winds were blowing pretty straight out of the east so we decided it might be better to anchor closer to the western shore just north of Tarpon Springs, rather than on the eastern side of Anclote Key as we had originally planned.  We actually even talked of anchoring on the western side of Anclote Key out in the Gulf of Mexico, but that didn’t sound like the most comfortable idea to me. 

At about 12:45 p.m. we dropped anchor about as close to shore as we could in the shallow water.  We ended up in about seven feet of water, but not very close to shore.

Bill asked earlier if we knew of a diver he could hire because he heard what he believed to be something on his starboard shaft possibly hitting the hull.  He came to pick us up via dinghy a short while after we were anchored.  It didn’t take Ray long to diagnose that his cutter on that side had come dislodged off of the shaft.  We all realized that must have happened when he just removed and replaced his transmission on that side while in Fort Myers Beach.  Once Ray had it all back in place we all just hung out on their boat.  We were bragging on how the wind and waves were laying down.  Not long after that the winds shifted to straight out of the north.  Not as predicted at all.  We even checked every weather sight we could think of to see if things had changed, but no.  Definitely no protection.  We hope it was just the sea breeze this afternoon and that the wind goes back to its predicted ENE direction.