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.