Thanksgiving at Port St Joe

WOW!

We experienced a very special Thanksgiving today. As we noted in our last post, a local couple opened their doors to the Loopers at our marina for Thanksgiving dinner. Well...what a grand display of generosity and kindness this was...almost beyond belief. Not only did they open their doors, they refused any kind of help or support to feed us all...ALL 40 OF US!. It was amazing...and every bit of it home cooked. We had ham, and turkey and more fixings than we can remember...sweet potatoes, yams, mashed potatoes, corn, peas, carrots, cranberry, beets, green beans, stuffing, stewed tomatoes, gravy...and on and on. On top of that, a choice of pumpkin pie, pecan pie and blueberry cake for dessert.

This will be a special memory that we will carry with us for the rest of our lives...and for this we are truly thankful. It is a wonderful confirmation of how unique this journey is that we are on, and we can only hope to pay forward some of the kindness that we are the fortunate recipients of today.

The pre-dinner gathering
 

The feast.

Thanking the chef.



Our host and head chef.

A small sampler plate.

Another special surprise was offered up by our friend Al from InSpeyered 2. To commemorate our day, he crafted the following poem...awesome!


Twas the day before Thanksgiving and all around the basin,

Folks basked in the sun and went about pacin.

Tomorrow was T-Day and so it had been heard,

Loopers and others were invited to a locals house to feast on some bird.

They just happened to be here in Port St. Joe,

and countless others gathered everywhere in places we all know.

So they left the marina and boats they knew well,

to venture on land, visit new friends, and feel swell.

They were asked to bring nothing, just come over and visit,

a welcome respite from their ongoing transit.

Their hosts were so generous all they wanted to hear,

were “Tall Tales” full of good cheer.

It reminded the Loopers of something they knew well,

that wonderful hearts are everywhere, so on that we will dwell!

And now a few other random pics...



 

 

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Hanging Out in Port St. Joe

We are still lazing around Port St. Joe...a nice little town to be tucked away in for a few days. We have just about everything that we need. Good friends with us, groceries and restaurants nearby, easy dog walking options, and a nice quiet marina. We've eaten out, we've eaten in, we've shared docktails a couple of times with other Loopers, and Rob even got to watch some NFL football on Sunday afternoon thanks to InSpeyered 2 and their DTV/NFL package...good stuff.

And, we received a knock on our boat this morning from someone we had never met. She and her husband live locally, and they'd heard that there were some Loopers who were going to be around for Thanksgiving...and she graciously invited us all over to their house for Turkey dinner and fellowship. How awesome is that?! So we will likely be with 6 to 8 other couples, having a nice home cooked Thanksgiving dinner...we continue to confirm that folks in the boating community are exceedingly thoughtful and giving.

A few photos for your viewing pleasure:



InSpeyered 2 took us all over to Cape San Blas on Friday for the day...a beautiful anchorage just offshore from a spit of land separating the St Joseph Sound from the Gulf of Mexico. Al, Jane, Sandy and Nancy took a dingy ride for a walk on the beach...

It was really a beautiful spot, and we enjoyed a picnic lunch on board. Rob stayed behind for this shore trip, choosing to puppy sit, as the pups had come with us for this day trip. He and Al did make a return trip to the shore for some dog walking a bit later.





Kikie once again proves that a boat nap is still the best...it doesn't matter to her whose boat she's on!

View last night from our slip.

We met this gentleman tonight who was fishing for mullet as we walked over to the pier to view the sunset. He was kind enough to allow us to take his picture, and then we learned that he sells earrings that he crafts from fishing lures...what a great idea! His website is earringsalure.com.

We're not tiring of these views yet...

St. Andrews Bay to Port St. Joe

Day #40; Loop miles to date = 941

We finally left Panama City...where we had been waiting for the weather to break. We've had plenty of wind, and some rain, but not nearly as much as forecasted. Today was decent weather-wise. A light breeze and partly sunny most of the afternoon. We traversed East Bay, a medium-sized body of water heading more or less east. This first half of the trip was mostly uninteresting, which was followed by a mostly uninteresting second half in a 20 mile long man made cut reminiscent of the Tenn-Tom. However, we are definitely further south as the landscape is all lowland marshes, and the air is salty.

But, we're getting ahead of ourselves a tad...back to Panama City and St Andrews Bay. This stop was very satisfactory...we needed a marina to hide from the weather, and this one fit the bill nicely. We spent time with California Lady and InSpeyered 2, got some chores done, relaxed a bunch, ate too much one night, and hid out from the weather for 4 days.

And now for the unveiling of our new bike, promised a couple of weeks ago. We finally had good occasion to use it at this stop. Rob tried to use it to go grocery shopping, only to realize once at the grocery store, that he had forgotten the bike lock, and never bought anything because he was afraid the bike would be gone when the shopping was done. It did come in handy for laundry though, as the laundry facilities were quite a hike from our slip. And here it is:

Does this look like a clown bike to anyone? It sure does get a lot of stares when you ride it...

 And here was the view out of our pilot house windows...it never gets old.

 

Some shots of our trip today:

 

 

A huge wood chip (mulch) processing plant we think. Those are huge ships on the left, and to get a further sense of perspective look at this "close-up of that stuff on the right side...

That is an enormous pile of pine tree trunks...looks like a small pile of toothpicks!

Ship repair/building facility - there were at least 15 cranes in view.

Random brown pelican

Random immature brown pelican

Sandy was convinced this was a floating head...she is still looking for one after learning this was just a loose crab trap float.

Lowland marsh scenery along the way.

Derelict sailboat...

And for good measure, a derelict fishing trawler. These derelict boats are quite a problem throughout Florida.



Shrimper fleet at Port St Joe.

So now we are tucked away at Port St Joe Marina with a dozen or more other Looper boats. We are all waiting on a weather window to cross the gulf, and all trying to get as close as possible to the jumping off point for when the weather permits this crossing. We are within one days travel of Carrabelle, which is the traditional departure city. And a host of other boats are stacked up in Apalachicola and Carrabelle...so now we all play wait and see with the weather. Stay tuned...

So what you do is push this button here and then talk...

I just changed the channel (lol). Dad just hates it when I do this.

Hogtown Bayou to Panama City

This will be a short one...we had a rather uneventful trip from Hogtown Bayou to Panama city. The first part of the trip was through a bit more of Choctowhatchee Bay...not as bumpy as the day before. And not much scenery...other than we had some dolphins playing in our wake a few times. This has happened now 4 or 5 times, but we have yet to get a good picture of it. The perfect dolphin picture continues to elude us...but here is one, just to prove that we have been seeing them!

The second part of this leg was through a 20 mile long man-made cut. Sand banks on both sides, and no real wildlife sightings. It was nice and relaxing, but overall not all that interesting. Here's what most of this looked like:

And then the third part of this 40+ mile day was into St Andrews Bay, and on to Panama City. We are at a marina here for a few days, just relaxing and getting some chores done. We are in no hurry right now, so we don't actually know how long we will linger here...at least through Monday night and Tuesday. We'll post again after we hit Port St Joe, our most likely next destination.

Big Sabine to Fort Walton Beach to Hogtown Bayou

We stayed at Big Sabine for a 2nd night...it was just too pretty to leave. However, as we knew it would, the wind picked up on Thursday afternoon...out of the North, so we weren't very well protected. It was blowing a solid 15 mph, with gusts higher. We had some rough water, but it didn't really affect us other than taking the dogs to shore. It was tricky, because as we went to shore the wind was behind us...no problem...but trying to leave the shore into the wind was a good challenge. We managed it a couple of times, but were ready to leave this part of our stay here behind. 

A favorite spot to relax for a nap...I like this Florida sun...

So, on Friday morning, California Lady, InSpeyered 2 and we all headed out...to a free dock at Fort Walton Beach. It is a city owned dock, with no power, but new docks, water and pump-out facilities. And within walking distance was shopping, restaurants and a nice Publix. It was a nice break from the wind, well protected, and very little wake from passing boats to bother us. We had a nice night...Inspeyered 2 decided to go for Mexican food, while California Lady came over to our boat for some fish stew that Sandy whipped up. A nice relaxing, enjoyable evening.

We think this is some sort of Naval Installation, but not sure exactly what it is.



And right next door was this very futuristic looking observation tower.

Saturday morning, California Lady left very early (6:15) as they had a long day ahead. They decided to make a 70 mile journey to catch up with some friends that they were looking forward to spending some time with. We expect to catch back up with them in a few days. We and Inspeyered 2 decided on a shorter day with an anchorage in mind that was only about 25 miles away. Again, the wind was blowing...and again we had it on our beam in fairly open water (Choctowhatchee Bay). Good news and bad news with this...the good news was that the dinghy refiguring that Rob did passed with flying colors and was solid as a rock. The bad news was that Jane on InSpeyered 2 started to get some motion sickness, which is not fun. We made a slight adjustment to our anchoring destination, which allowed us to get out of the rough water sooner, and really won't affect our planned travel tomorrow.  (And Jane was much happier very quickly!)

Sunrise at Fort Walton City Dock...this is about when Kikie decided it was time to go out.

 

 

We took some water over the rail, but this boat didn't even notice. 2 to 3 foot seas is like driving through a rain puddle.

So we find ourselves at Hogtown Bayou...a fairly open anchorage, but well protected from the north and east where the winds are continuing to blow in from. There is a dinghy dock about 3/4 of a mile away for puppy duty...it is a cold ride, but very doable for the night.

Today's ride was mostly uninteresting...like traveling across a big lake, and we look forward to getting off this bay, and onto some more intimate cruising tomorrow. We plan to head for the Panama City area, and snag a marina dock for a few nights. The weather window for crossing the gulf is not open right now, and it looks to be undesirable until at least late next week. So, we will poke our way down the coast, anticipating our crossing to be somewhere between the 20th and Thanksgiving.



Sunset at Hogtown Bayou

Mobile Bay to Ingram Bayou to Big Sabine Anchorage

On Tuesday morning we finally left Eastern Shore Marine in Fairhope. We had waited out some very wet weather, and also short hauled the boat to change out our zincs. (This means they pulled the boat out of the water in slings, and then did the work right there with the boat hanging from the travel lift.) We have had magnesium "zincs" in place for the past 2 years while in fresh water...now that we have reached salt water, it was time to change them all out to zinc.

At any rate, we got done what was needed...and had a great meal Monday night with our friends on Tuscobia. They had found a local spot called Dragonfly, and it was terrific. They made all kinds of exotic Tacos and other assorted dishes...really creative flavor and texture combinations. We had a great time and great food. We look forward to traveling with our sister tug again down the line, but they needed to hang around for another day or so to take care of some maintenance items of their own. We expect to see them sometime soon.

We departed around noon, accompanied by InSpeyered 2, and headed for an anchorage that had already been scoped out and settled by California Lady the night before. It was about another 20 miles on Mobile Bay (much calmer than previously experienced) and then about 14 miles on the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway. We finally feel like we have made it off the rivers now that we are starting to see the GICW signage and scenery.

GICW channel markers...replacing the red and green buoys from the rivers.

Ingram Bayou was a great anchorage (we forgot to take pictures here) and the 3 of us rafted up together for the night...dinner aboard California Lady was very enjoyable for both the food and the company. We are enjoying our travel a bunch with these 2 fellow Looper boats. The next morning we leisurely departed this anchorage, headed for another anchorage off of Santa Rosa Island called Big Sabine. We enjoyed a beautiful travel day...only about 30 miles or so, but beautiful sunshine and temps in the 70's...just what the doctor ordered!

Just a stray Paddle Wheeler moseying down the ICW.

A landmark restaurant near Gulf Shores, AL. Lulu's claim to fame is that the owner is Jimmy Buffet's sister. Typical "Florida" beach fare from what we understand...we didn't make the stop.

Beautiful sand dune area we passed...picture doesn't do it justice.

We are officially in Florida! This will be our 4th state thus far, and one we'll be hanging around in for a while.

Makes us feel like we have arrived in FL...typical ICW home with a pool in a cage and a dock.

Really cool looking tri-hull Stealth Navy ship. This thing was huge, but a bit far away. This was as we passed by the Pensacola Naval Air Station. Unfortunately, there were no fighter jets flying as we went by, but this ship was impressive. I don't think they would have liked it if we cruised up to it to take a closer peek...

Big Sabine is gorgeous. This protected anchorage is about 1/2 mile off the main GICW, so we get very little wake. And we are tucked right up near a sandy beach that is the barrier island of Santa Rosa. A short dinghy ride, and a 5 minute walk, and we are walking on the white sandy beaches of the Gulf of Mexico. It is really a nice spot, and we are going to linger here for most if not all of the day on Thursday, and either leave late in the day, or stay at anchorage here for another night.

InSpeyered 2 and Sandrobber at anchor. California Lady chose a spot down the beach with a little deeper water.



Sandy beach between our anchorage and the Gulf.

OK...we know it's corny, but we had to stick our feet in the Gulf just for grins.

How can you not love this?!

 

 

 

More to follow as we make our way down the coast of the panhandle. Our Gulf crossing awaits...