“Adventures (and Misadventures) of Elliott and Mary”

Issue 3  April 15, 2004

Our Pensacola stay was most pleasant once we were able to become “tourists” rather than boat-bound by either germs or upkeep tasks.  We did a good bit of bike travel and were most impressed by the older home preservation efforts. Beautiful old houses and at least one 1830-1840 church immaculately kept though unfortunately not open to the public for services.

We were really lucky to have remained in Pensacola for the weekend of  April 3-4…
there was a two-day jazz festival at Seville Harbor Park (within easy bicycle distance). It was an easy-going community affair…really good live music from 12N-6p, wine/beer/soda stand, food stands and wonderful people watching.  Mostly everyone just brought their own chairs or blankets and hung out.  We went over on Saturday afternoon and liked the atmosphere so much, we made a point of going back on Sunday afternoon.

We also lucked into the regional library’s book sale.  That too was a two-day event but Letitia would probably have sunk if we’d returned the second day!!  As it was we definitely supported the local library system and have lots of good books to add to an already bounteous collection aboard.

Monday morning, April 5th dawned sunny with 10 knot winds….fine for comfortable motoring.  We took off for the next stop along our eastward passage – Ft. Walton Beach. We were on an inland segment of the ICW – very narrow and full of very visible shoals. This was fine as the day was sunny and clear but we definitely would not want to do this piece of the ICW in poor visibility! Other than the shoaling, it was a beautiful quiet ride.

Arrived at the Ft. Walton Yacht Club at about 2p…since it was a Monday, the club wasn’t open but we called earlier had gotten permission to come on in.  Luckily we also found a member who’d heard our hail on Channel 16 and met us at the dock, grabbed our lines and made our “arrival” much easier. Charlie was most welcoming and full of information about the area.  The club is located in a residential area – nowhere near town within bike range – but we hopped on our bikes anyhow and toured around a little.  Settled in for the night and awoke to a beautiful misty dawn – all was quiet except for sea and birds.  Lovely way to start a day.
 

Tuesday, April 6th – set out for Panama City where we’d heard really complimentary things about the PC Municipal Marina.  Had a fairly uneventful journey across the Choctawhatchee Bay  and West Bay…arrived at PC Marina about 4:30p where, of course, the winds had picked up making our “landing” a bit less than graceful.  In retrospect, however, the Captain did a marvelous job of coping with winds that were blowing us in odd directions and toward concrete piers…   A good bit of scrambling went on but with the help of the dock master and Elliott’s excellent maneuvering, the boat, the dock, other boats and all humans involved went unscathed!

We spent two nights in Panama City and really enjoyed the town. Great biking area – a small but active downtown, lots of interesting houses to look at.  We had intermittent rain but biked in between.   We followed main roads along the seawall and back roads that wound around under huge trees (possibly live oak) hung with graceful Spanish moss. A real mixture of architecture…might be a nice town to spend more time in, get to know the local residents and just “hang out”..

Thursday morning, April 8th, we left Panama City heading for Apalachicola. We had a fairly uneventful trip through inland ICW, across Lake Wimico, down the  Jackson and Apalachicola Rivers and arrived, along with an uptake in wind velocity, at the Scipio Creek Marina.  As usual there were dock hands, and other cruising folks, around when needed – Elliott does the same for anyone else coming in for a landing.  The spot given to us for the upcoming evening was right alongside the dock in front of the local seafood restaurant, Papa Joe’s. We provided the entertainment for the late lunch crowd - without danger to life, limb, dock, boat or customers at the eatery!  Later that evening we couldn’t resist the wonderful smell of fried fish…so had to walk 20 steps into the restaurant, order 2 dozen oysters on the half shell and a plate of fried oysters!  Once back home again, we were able to watch a dozen pelicans settle down for the sun set on the river….marvelous regal birds. This is a sight you don’t get by looking out any ordinary livingroom window!!

Friday dawned clear, sunny and relatively windless.
We had made reservations at The Moorings, a marina in Carrabelle…the jumping off point for crossing the Gulf to Clearwater. It would be a short day motoring, so we hopped on our bikes for a tour of  Apalachicola – another small, active and very liveable quaint town.  Stopped for breakfast at Caroline’s Inn…and headed back to the boat to cast off.

After cruising down the ICW for a couple of hours, with the weather continuing to be really good, we kept looking at each other…wondering if we should toss caution to the winds and take advantage of this excellent “weather window” for crossing the Gulf.  A major bad weather change was due to arrive in two days and the next opportunity for a good crossing might not occur for a week to 10 days….decisions, decisions, decisions.
 

Across the Big Bend - The Crossing, Clearwater, Bradenton

As soon as we left the protected passage of the ICW, we began to notice the difference between inland travel and open water travel.  Even innocuous 1-2’ swells really move the boat around…especially when the wind is from behind you!  The cats weren’t happy with this rolly-polly mode of travel at all…they headed for their cages and/or the V-berth.  We couldn’t do that, though it sure sounded like a good idea. We just took some Dramamine and set the automatic pilot for Clearwater FL.

The afternoon motoring was uneventful, if rocky. As the sun went down, however, we were not pleased to see the fog roll in too. Where did my eagerly anticipated evening of stars without any city lights go???  All we were seeing was moving wisps of wet air with visibility of about 20 feet!!

Luckily we live in an age of technology…so we had the automatic pilot keeping us going the direction we wanted to head despite the rolling seas; we had radar to show us any other boats or obstacles that might be in our path; and we had an automatic device called a loud hailer that emitted the foghorn sound every two minutes as instructed by the Coast Guard for vessels traveling in limited visibility.

Once the sun was down, we began to take two hour shifts…one of us would man the wheel watching the horizon (or what should have been the horizon), looking for lights, keeping an eye on the radar and double checking the automatic pilot, just to be sure we weren’t heading for South America instead of Clearwater!  The other lucky person would get to sleep/doze stretched out on the cushions within easy reach of the “captain”.  And we actually did doze…surprisingly.

We both discovered, though in different ways, that nighttime and especially fog, allows your mind to invent LOTS of different shapes and lights out ahead of you.  Because you are trying so hard to detect anything that might be out there, you see all kinds of things that aren’t!.  In my case I saw Navy destroyers, great canyons of rounded rocks, and beautiful tall sailing ships …interestingly, none of these visions were in front of us but rather alongside us, almost in a protective manner.  Odd but that’s what I saw.

Elliott, on the other hand, saw shorelines – ones with lots of tree shapes.  And we both saw way too many red lights that were definitely not there.  Thank goodness for the radar…….we became really appreciative of this navigation tool!!

Eventually dawn did arrive, coffee was made, and all the fishermen from Clearwater were beginning to appear through the fog…as were the crab pot buoys.  But with dawn, and sunshine, even these obstacles were welcome.  We arrived at Clearwater marina about 11:30am, Elliott docked the boat stern end to (a first for him) most gracefully and we cratered. Slept about 4 hours, and got up ready to eat something (first time in 24 hours), plan our next day’s adventure and get back to sleep again.

Clearwater is a big city…lots of tourists, lots and lots of boats, lots of big city noise. 
The marina was most pleasant but we didn’t want to spend more than that one night. Plus, we had bad weather due to arrive within the next 24 hours….so we packed up and headed out to Bradenton on Easter Sunday.

The wind really began to pick up as we crossed Tampa Bay and headed up the Manatee River. We blew into Twin Dolphin marina at about 4pm, got neatly tied up and watched as the wind velocity increased and increased.  By that evening we were seeing 25-35 knot gusts and during Sunday night there was torrential rain, lightening and gusts to 65 knots. We slept through most of that….we were tied up and happy as clams.

Twin Dolphin marina is really first class…as is the town of Bradenton.  The high winds and rainy weather lasted through Wednesday…with really lovely weather beginning Thursday. By that time we had decided to just stay the week, explore the town, get some boat tasks done and enjoy ourselves in this pretty town.  

Went to a downtown Main Street event on Thursday evening…..music, food, great people watching. Another “community” experience that we so enjoy. Saturday morning was the weekend Farmers’ Market…picked up some lovely produce at reasonable prices without needing a car to get me to WalMart!  Talked to one of the arts/crafts vendors at the Farmers’ Market. Apparently there is a thriving artists’ group here in Bradenton. They are buying older homes generally in the same area of town, living in them and using them as galleries. So far there are 30 artists residing here. with 2 more due in the next month.  This town, too, would be most pleasant to spend a month or two in, get to know the locals and find things to do within the community.
 
 
 
 

We’ll take off at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning (Sunday, April 18th), with several days of traveling in our future. We will be traveling south to Ft. Myers, then east along the Caloosahatchee River, though a total of five locks, across Lake Okeechobee and finally spit out at Stuart FL on the east coast.  All of this will take until Friday, we think.

That will be issue #4.

Will be back in to touch soon.

The Captain and Mary
 
 

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