Sankaty on the ICW - Pensacola to Cedar Key
November 19, 1999:
Yesterday we left Eastern Shore Marine, after a seven day stay in Fairhope, AL, and ventured out into the Bay to find the ICW or Intercoastal Waterway. We found it fine but as usual arrived at our destination, Wolf Bay, in the dark. Thank heavens for the half moon that helped light our way. There were a lot of helpful navigational lights also. We anchored just off the main channel in Wolf Bay and therefore had gusty winds all night. If we would have gone back into the Bay further, it would have been calmer; but it was dangerous to do that in the dark. All night long the VHF radio announced that a woman had called in a distress signal near Pensacola Bay and would other mariners keep an eye out and assist if possible. I didn't sleep very well.
This morning I watched the loons for about an hour. As it turns out they are snowbirds too, leaving the cold frozen lakes of Wisconsin to spend their winters in sunny Florida and Bay waters. I enjoyed watching them as I missed Crooked Lake this year. Today we head for Pensacola and more fun.
I was knitting when Mark yelled "There's a dolphin, he just went under our boat." We turned off the motor and watched anxiously as this gray smooth fin rose and then dove just off our stern. Our first dolphin!! It was quite a thrill, I thought immediately of Matthew and how he would love to be here to see it. Later six dolphins were playing around our boat about 20 feet from where we were in the cockpit.
Tonight we stayed at the Palafox Marina in Pensacola, Florida. The city celebrates the coming Christmas season by turning on all the lights on the Christmas tree in the town square. On this evening, all the art galleries are open and serve wine and appetizers. We had a great time hopping trolleys, visiting galleries, tasting food and wine at all the neat shops. We even rode on an open air fire truck around town to the Seville section of Pensacola. This section has a large eating establishment with five or six different eateries in the quarter. Fast Eddies was one of the restaurants. There are also little gingerbread houses that have been converted into little variety shops.
We met a couple from Wisconsin that came to visit Pensacola 15 years ago and never went home. Tomorrow we are off to Destin, FL.
Santa Rosa Sound
November 21, 1999:
Yesterday we met a man who was selling his Tania boat and was willing to sell us his dinghy and outboard motor for $400. This was a savings of almost $2,000 so we snapped it up. We did have to do one little repair on the dinghy with the patch kit, but even new ones need repairs if you hit the ground too much. The outboard motor is a water-cooled one like we wanted and 2.5 hp which is just right for us when we anchor. Now we have a "car", so we can anchor out more, which I love to do.
Today we sailed the length of Pensacola Bay, went under the bridge and into Santa Rosa Sound. The wind was about 10 -15 miles/hour. Usually I wait until we anchor to cook, but we were hungry so I tried cooking while underway. Imagine your kitchen floor at a 20 degree tilt. While you are cutting veggies for a casserole, they are going down hill. The stove is on a gimbled device, which tilts to compensate for the tilt of the sailboat and it feels like all the pots on the stove are going to end up in the cook's lap.
If you think cooking is bad while underway, you should see what is like to use the head. But that's another story.
We have finally anchored out and the peace has returned. Now we play a game of cribbage or watch a movie on the DVD part of our computer. Then it is early to bed so that we can rise with the sun and make it to the Navarra Bridge at low tide. It is a 50 foot bridge and we have a 50 foot bridge clearance with our wind instrument and not counting the 4ft. wip antennae that extends 3 feet above the wind instrument.
November 22, 1999:
Today we sailed and motored toward Navarra Bridge, because of the low tide we just touched with our antennae very slightly. The second bridge just outside of Destin, The Brook's Bridge, was a different matter. This one bent the antennae pretty severely but it bounced back once we were out from under the bridge, so I guess we were pretty successful with our first use of the tides.
As we were motoring we saw a few dolphin fins but by the time I had the camera out, they were gone. We will keep trying. A line of around 200 pelicans came swooping across our bow, one right after the other in some kind of undulating formation. A stream of white as far as the eye can see.
Tonight we are staying at the Bluewater Bay Marina and took a courtesy car into Niceville, Florida. We ate at a PoFolks, a restaurant with deep South cooking, and very reasonable. We had a grilled whitefish special for $7.99 for both of our meals together. There was only one piece of fish so we made up for it by sharing a dish of warmed blackberry cobbler with a scoop of ice cream. Excellent. We also tried green-fried tomatoes. Interesting flavor.
Panama City.
November 29, 1999:
We had a wonderful time with Mom and Aunt Puz during Thanksgiving. We rented a bright blue-green Cavalier and drove to Ocala. We took them out to dinner on Thanksgiving. Mom had made reservations at Carmichaels and although the wait was long the food was worth it. We had a typical Thanksgiving dinner; roast turkey, dressing and mashed potatoes. We also had peas and carrots and pumpkin pie for desert. It was delicious.
Mark and I stayed with Mom and Aunt Puzzy for a few days. We took Little Bit and Little Lady for walks every day and played Bingo at the hall on Friday night. Mark and I went to Silver Springs and bought a year's pass. We went to that attraction both on Friday and Saturday. We saw several animal shows, reptiles, birds of the rainforest, creature feature, and amazing pet training. The glass-bottom boats, the lost voyage, the jeep safari and the jungle cruise rides were a lot of fun. All centered around indigenous species of the area as well as African animals. I played poker with Mom and Aunt Puzzy and Mom had a great time beating the pants off of us.
We drove home on Sunday and stopped only for lunch at a BQ restaurant. We got home in Panama City and tried to make up to Neffy for our absence. She was a bit miffed at us for a while, but finally with a great deal of loving, broke down and purred. We went shopping and were ready to go out for dinner when the people next to us in the slip struck up a conversation. We ended up going out to dinner with them and had a great time sharing stories. Larry worked for Boeing and Sally for AT&T. Both decided that life is too short and decided to retire early. They have a 26-foot motor boat with two 175-hp outboard engines. We ate at Hawk's Nest not far from the marina. Sally had crab cakes, I had Caribbean Shrimp (sauce on the shrimp was bitter like grapefruit), Mark had grilled grouper and Larry had grilled dolphin (not the mammal, the fish). After dinner we took the rental car back to Car Temps and took a taxi back to the marina. The driver was an Eskimo from Alaska that had only lived here for three years. He was very polite and we enjoyed talking to him. He was a drug counselor and shared that alcoholism is a real problem in Alaska. We discussed the importance of heredity vs. environment. Interesting fellow.
We plan to leave today and head for Appalachicola. We will probably anchor near St. Joseph's State Park.
December 4, 1999:
We sailed from Apalachicola to Carrabelle with no problems even though we had gusts to 25 knots, and had to lower sails to go in the channels that went up wind. Once in Carrabella we settled in for the night; but heard this disturbing sound. It sounded like something chewing. I thought we might have a mouse aboard and was ready to reprimand Neffy for not doing her job when I remembered something that I read in a cruising book last year. The author described how barnacles sound when they are feeding and I think that noise was described to a Tee. When we anchor out we don't hear that noise. Hopefully, that means we don't have any on our hull and the noise was coming from chopping barnacles on the marina's nearby piers.
Another overnighter
We stayed in Carrabelle only one night and the weather seemed fine for a crossing of the Gulf of Mexico to Cedar Key. We plotted our trip out into the Gulf about 25 miles off shore because it seemed to be the shortest route and the winds were with us for a large amount of the time. What we didn't realize was that the seas out in the Gulf could be pretty rough and prevent the boat from getting good mileage. Lest anyone thinks that this trip has been all sunshine and dolphins, I will describe what happened to us.
The best description is that of a bucking bronco with an intelligent brain. All it wanted to do was buck us off and it was smart enough to do things in a totally unpredictable sequence so that you didn't know what was coming next, a roll to the left, a roll to the right, a buck up, or a slam down. I started to get sick, Neffy did, and I had to spend the next 30 hours in the cockpit as every time I went below, I thought I was going to upchuck.
Along the way we heard a distress call from the Coast Guard. It seemed that a 50-foot Carver had strayed into the shallows and went aground. They must have hit some coral or something because it tore a hole in their hull and water was poring in. We were only about 10 nautical miles from them so we said we would help. Our idea was to anchor about a mile from them and if they had to abandon ship, they could dingy out to us. Or if they didn't have a dinghy, we could break out our dinghy and go get them. The dinghy draws no draft so we could get to the other boat easily, but our boat draws 5-foot draft and the water was too shallow. We got to them but the Coast Guard was already assisting. We asked if they needed us, and they said no they had it covered, so we went on our merry way. We were glad that the Coast Guard was involved, as it isn't wise to respond to a mayday unless the Coast Guard has been called first.
The first night Mark did the steering as I was pretty sick; by the next day we had come back into calmer waters and I steered most of the day except for a cat-nap in the afternoon when Mark took the helm. In the evening I again steered as Mark navigated for a while, then we switched jobs and I navigated us into port and a decent anchorage spot. The trip out on the Gulf with all the rolling had opened all our cupboards and all of our belongings were lying all over the boat. Too exhausted to care, we went to sleep, rocked by the gentle waves in the safe harbor. It was quite an ordeal, but as my Mom always says, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." and in this case, I think she is right.
Getting into Cedar Key is no easy task, we spent over 2 hours going the 12 miles up the channel that has several switch backs and is often faced with cross currents. We had every marker and sea bouy waypointed in the GPS and followed it religiously. Later in the week that followed we saw one sailboat in the channel laying on its side for 6 hours and it never got to Cedar Key.
Just turned around and went back out into the gulf. Later we saw another sailboat that stayed in one spot for about 8 hours and it never made it to Cedar Key either. In fact we were the only sailboat in Cedar Key the entire week we were there, and we only saw one power boat come in while we were there. The town is charming and almost like a place that the was left behind by about 40 years.
Below is the Cedar Key Inset from Chart 11408 that clearly shows the main twisted entry channel. We anchored near the pier almost the entire time. Now the pier is a very tall concrete structure for who knows what.
Click here for pictures from the boat while in Cedar Key
