Clearwater to Dunedin, FL

Clearwater Harbor Marina under the bridge

Tuesday after arriving we washed the salt off the boat and tried to relax the balance of the day. Being awake for 36 or so hours is more difficult as we get older, it tends to mess up our schedules for a couple of days, I think we are finally back to normal today. 

Wednesday we rented a car and drove to Sarasota to see Mom, always a highlight in our adventures. We talked all afternoon and had supper later with Fred and Mary, Carol’s sister. A very pleasant relaxing day, we are also working out our float plan for the next several weeks.

Today, Thursday, we returned the rental car after a short walk on Clearwater beach and a shopping trip at Publix. Then moved the boat from Clearwater Harbor to Marker 1 Marina in Dunedin. The people here are fantastic, very accommodating and helpful offering services that are not usually found at a marina.

Nice Homes on the Intracoastal

We will keep the boat here for the next couple of weeks while we visit Florida family and return to Racine for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Wind continues to be a big issue here, the front passed and a high pressure is located off the east coast pushing gale force winds from the east into the Gulf. We are on the western shore and are somewhat protected from the eastern wind but we are putting out extra fenders and mooring lines to be sure we stay safe. The wind will subside tomorrow and we expect some rain the next couple of days.

We may blog over the next couple of weeks if we have something to share and will resume in earnest on December 4^th when we return from our Thanksgiving break.  We have a lot to be thankful for, hope you do too.

Some might be affordable??

“The Crossing”, Carrabelle to Clearwater, FL

Skippers weather meeting with "Buddy"

It’s about the WEATHER! For those of you who regularly read this blog, it know that statement is getting tiresome and I will not use it again, unless necessary. Tom Conrad provides weather musings every day to Loopers preparing to make the crossing. He consults several weather services and uses the one that has most recently been getting it correct. We also consulted “Buddy” in the striped shirt and mud boots, the weather guru for the Moorings Marina in Carrabelle. Buddy did not like the weather and told us not to leave, as much as schedules should never influence decisions on the water, the next window would be in a week or so. All 8 Looper ready to cross left at their appointed times.

A beautiful Gulf Sunset for our Crossing

Tom gave us the weather window from Monday noon to Tuesday noon, with a strong storm expected on Tuesday evening into Wednesday. Tom was spot on we had strong 2 foot waves when we departed Monday noon for three hours then the seas settled, the wind shifted from the southeast to the northeast later in the evening. We took turns standing watch while the auto pilot did the work, even with this following sea, usually a severe problem for our auto pilot, he/she did exceedingly well and we did not need to steer during the entire trip.

Our Hitchhiker

In the afternoon we had a hitchhiker perch on our sundeck roof for quite a while, flew off, landed on the radar arch, then back to the roof, we decided it was a good omen since Mike Batzner carved us a wooden bird very similar to our hitchhiker. Mike’s bird stands on our deck just ahead of the inside helm.

Keeping a sharp lookout

The trip is long, 22 hours being pushed about by wind and waves, especially with a following sea. About 1:30 the moon set, and the night got DARK!!! All our instruments can be dimmed so we can retain our night vision, but DARK means no light all that can be observed are the lights of another boat. We do have radar but do not use it much and it provided no targets on our crossing. To be exact we saw only the lights of our buddy boats and three other Loopers that started after us.

As the sun rose over Clearwater, we began to relax a little, but needed to keep a sharp eye for crab pot floats that, if run over, can wrap around the propeller shaft of the boat ruining the day. We used our SPOT device all night to plot our location, it can be seen by clicking the link ‘Current Location” in the column to the left, several people get a text message when we click the SPOT. It is a little like dropping bread crumbs for others to follow if necessary. When we regained cell coverage we each received 30 text messages from our spot device and well wishes from our very supportive family. The good thing about the crossing was it was quite boring, no major events or problems. 

Clearwater at sunrise 6:51 AM

White City to Carrabelle, FL

The Intracoastal early in the morning

This morning we were awakened at sun-up by a strong bass voice singing the Star Spangled Banner.  He was an excellent singer – turns out he was starting the fishing tournament that had formed at the little dock area where we had tied up for the night.  So we got off to an early start, waiting only until the fishermen had all gone out before we untied our lines.  It has been a nice sunny day and we came all the way to Carrabelle.

Carrabelle is the jumping off point for crossing the Gulf of Mexico tomorrow.  We will depart from Carrabelle around 11 am, drive all through Monday night and we plan to arrive at Dunedin, Florida, at the Marker One marina before 11 am on Tuesday. 

There is one person – Tom – who makes an art of plotting the perfect weather windows to cross the Gulf.  He compares all sorts of weather sources and tracks which one is proving most accurate for the time frame and then sends out a message.  In this case Tom’s message was,  “your best chance for a good crossing window is between Monday morning and Tuesday mid-afternoon”.  So we are making the best of that advice.  Looks like about 8 boats will be leaving this marina at the same time.  We will meet tonight to see which ones go fast, or slower and buddy up with like-speed boaters.   We will probably be crossing with “Allison Leigh” a boat from Mississippi that seems to go the same speed we do.  Since the weather should be favorable, the only concern is falling asleep at the wheel.  Will try not to do that.  Even with auto-pilot, one ought to at least keep watch.

No blog tomorrow, we will be crossing the Gulf all night.

Oops!!

Anybody know this  bug?

St. Andrews Marina to White City

Gulf Fishing  Boat

St. Andrews Marina was a bit different than most marinas in that about 1/3 of the marina is for commercial fishing boats. Some shrimp boats, some for oysters and others for sport fishing. I so enjoy looking at these very capable and functional boats with their nets and lockers to keep the catch fresh.

We are currently positioning for our Gulf crossing, the weather must be manageable for at least 24 hours. We expect it will require 22 hours to make the 170 mile crossing at 8 mph. The latest thinking is that a window will be present from about Monday noon to Tuesday noon, so to be in position we departed St. Andrews Marina this morning about 10:30 rather than leaving tomorrow. We are currently tied to a wall in a cove once used by the Army Corps of Engineers. A building, covered picnic area, boat launch and a wooden dock that feels quite secure, but a little shallow.

Bulk Carriers for deep in the Gulf, supplying oil rigs

The trip up was very interesting across a series of bays to a marsh with a channel and finally into the canal constructed for the Intracoastal Waterway. A large plant processing trees, I think to create chip board with three vessels that look like barges with a pointed end marked HOSMAX. Google shows them as an oil rig supply vessels that carry mud for sealing off the wells. I am sure they carry other supplies as well. I read that they have recently commissioned two additional vessels to the fleet and further up the bay we saw them being fabricated. One was still on shore and the second had been launched and is being completed in the slip. Several large cranes and some small ones as well were working, on a Saturday, on the boats.

A new dimension in waterways, grass marsh

The bay then narrows in a grassy area that is a strong contrast to the shore line that is covered with pine trees.  We saw several dolphins today and two jumped in the air right in front of the boat. Graying skies this afternoon, and dark settles quickly once the sunsets, we move to eastern time as we crossed the bridge about 500 feet from our current location.

Barbara and Curtis from White City stopped by the boat after we tied to the dock. We were pleased to show them our boat and tell them about our plans to do the Loop. We meet many pleasant and interesting people on this trip. 

The two new ships under construction

Marsh grass and pine trees

Panama City Rest Day

A very windy day tied to a pier is better than a very, very windy day trying to drive a boat in a straight line.   At least you don’t want too many of those days, too close together.  Dennis spent the day doing things like replacing light bulbs with LED’s in our running lights – the better to be seen in the dark when we cross the Gulf overnight.  I enjoyed the cabin of the boat, with the heat turned on.  I got to do some needlework and make a homemade soup – things that don’t happen when we are underway.

Oyster place, colorful signage

Found a grocery store about 8 blocks away so we took a walk and picked up a few things we needed.  We amused ourselves by reading all the restaurant menus on the way up and back.  Now we are prepared for any time we come back to Panama City and need to pick a dinner spot.  Everyone advertises fresh oysters, but apparently they are very hard to come by this year; it has not been a good year for oysters in the Apalachicola area, which is usually “oyster central”.

John and Olivia visit Reunion

For a nice treat, we heard from Racine friends that they were staying in a condo here at Panama City for the week and they came by and picked us up for supper.  It was fun to see Olivia and John walking down the pier so far away from our homes in Wisconsin.  We almost convinced John to ride across the Gulf with us next week – maybe.  

Ready for a sail

Dock visitors

Joe’s Bayou to St. Andrews Marina, Panama City, FL

It’s about the WEATHER!!!! We started early this morning, 6:26 am, the sun was rising as we raised the anchor and headed out of the bay. We noticed another trawler anchored in the outer bay as we left and spoke on the radio when they learned we were from Racine. He was born and raised about 3 blocks from our house and they currently live in Milwaukee, boat name “GiddyUp”.

The new replaces the old

The forecast was for east wind again this morning, then the front would pass and we would expect some rain and the wind would back to the north and the velocity would increase to 20 knots. The route was also interesting the first 20 miles in the Choctawhatchee Bay then 20 miles of canal called the “Grand Canyon of Florida” then to West Bay another fairly large body of water. Since the weather would digress toward the end of the day we started early. Nice light chop on the Choctawhatchee as expected, and the canal was well protected, but once we cleared the canal heading out into the bay the rain began in earnest and the wind picked up on our beam and soon we were rocking and rolling in 3 ft. seas on the beam. The wind was blowing so hard that even under the top with the windshield in place the helm chair and my backside were getting wet. I moved to the lower helm to get out of the weather as we bounced about. Finally, our course changed from east to southeast and finally to south, with the wind behind us the ride became much more comfortable and the rain stopped, the sun appeared and the seas calmed as we passed a narrows.

Florida Grand Canyon

St. Andrews Marina has very little protection from a north wind, just the shore that is a half mile away. We are a bit exposed but safely tied to a floating concrete pier, we celebrated with a fine meal at Uncle Earnie's Restaurant, "Where the locals go", near the marina, my chargrilled grouper was wonderful and Carol enjoyed her shrimp and scallops with white wine sauce, Key Lime Pie topped off the meal.

Extra sand for Florida Beaches

Pine trees tenaciously hanging on to the bank

Palafox Marina to Joe’s Bayou Anchorage

Birds hanging out on a dreary morning

Finally a nice quiet, upscale anchorage. We departed from Palafox Pier about 8:30 to cross the Pensacola Bay moderate chop on our beam so the first hour was a bit rolly polly. Dark clouds all over heavy overcast and very cool lower 60’s. The weather here does not seem to follow the definite patterns we see at home, by noon the sun was out the temperature rose to the middle 70’s and the seas calmed, turned out to be a nice day.

They were pretty close and fast but,

We past Santa Rosa Island which is quite long mostly state park, some military base and terminates at Ft. Walton Beach. We were treated to an airshow by two military helicopters that did laps around us for some time.

I am sure we were not the target.

We did a bit of a side trip and toured Destin Harbor, very tight entrance with a gazillion boats, pubs, restaurants, condos and hotels. Fun to see but not the place we would choose to anchor. We then passed back under the highway bridge to a quiet well marked inlet to Joe’s Bayou an anchorage that was recommended to us in Fairhope.  We were greeted at the inlet by two dolphins that enjoyed playing in our bow wave, this bayou has a wide part at the inlet that narrows and shallows to a small channel that is not marked and then opens up to a nice sized area for anchoring. 

Destin Harbor

Who lives here?

Nice Neighborhood anchorage

Naval Air Museum, Pensacola, FL

Last night’s much anticipated Packer game turned out to be a bust for us and the Packers.  We did meet one fellow from Oshkosh WI, but other than that the crowd was playing trivia and listening to very loud music and the Packer game was pretty much a non-event in Pensacola.  Go figure.?..

Pensacola, however, is a very nice town.  They are doing a lot of downtown revitalization, lots of nice restaurants, a new AAA baseball stadium and ten years ago they removed the sewage treatment plant from a site next to the downtown – a great first step for redevelopment.  This beautiful marina is part of that re-development effort.

Fantastic displays and information

Today we went out to the Naval Aviation Museum – a cab ride was necessary – but it was well worth the trip.  We spent almost the whole day there and took a guided tour. That way we heard all the interesting history and engineering stories as well as viewing hundreds of different American aircraft.  One memorable thing we learned; the original WWI aircraft, the Sopwith Camel (yes, the Snoopy plane) came equipped with guns mounted such that the gunfire would hit the propeller on every revolution of the prop.  This had to be addressed, and an “interrupter” was devised so that the gunfire stopped as the prop spun by the guns – thus the broken “rat-a-tat-tat” sound you hear in WWI movies with air battles.  

Blue Angles Display

We also enjoyed an IMAX movie about flight, featuring the Blue Angels, the Navy acrobatics and air show squadron.  The expertise and skill required was amazing.  It does serve to showcase the Navy, and is a great PR tool as well as fascinating entertainment.

There was a lot more, but you only get so much education with each blog.  The entire museum is built on donations and it is Huge, 350,000 sq.ft with 150 refurbished or restored aircraft.  We actually enjoyed it more than the Huntsville Alabama Air and Space museum a few weeks ago. 

Wow!

Future Loopers:  We highly recommend Palafox Pier and Pensacola for a stop over.

History from the first plane purchased by the Navy

Orange Beach, AL to Pensacola

Today’s blog may be a little early as the highlight of the day may be yet to come – the Packers/Bears game is tonight.  We have identified a location to watch the game.  Its called “World of Beer”.  They have 500+ beers in their selection and at least 10 TV sets.  Too bad Dennis and I won’t really do the beer selection justice – but maybe there will be some Packer fans in the house.

Nice architecture

For today’s cruising, we came across from Gulf Shores to Pensacola.  We turned into a couple of scenic areas that were suggested for anchoring, but we were at low tide and when the depth gauge registered 3 feet of water, we backed the boat out.  So we ended up at this REALLY nice marina in Pensacola.  It’s called Palafox Pier and seems first class.

The Gulf of Mexico has 7 foot waves today, and when we passed the openings to the Gulf the boat was rocking and rolling.  We have been wearing sweatshirts all day – I guess it is November, even in Florida.  We will have a toast tonight because we have brought our boat all the way from Racine to Florida.  Wow.  Seems like that was just an idea not so long ago….. and here we are.

Thanks for all the nice comments on the magazine article that came out this week.  Julie Rossman did a really nice job on it.

Palafox Pier and Marina

Beach Shoreline

Pensacola Inlet

Houses on the intracoastal

And a Sunset

Marina at the Wharf, Sunday

Some people are having problems leaving comments. I tried the comment section this morning using a different Google account and that is the first step, it is necessary to login with a Google account or one of the following identifiers: LiveJournal, WordPress, TypePad, AIM, or OpenID. I must admit I am not familiar with the other identifiers. Secondly, write a comment and click publish. The last hoop is to prove you are not a robot by entering letters and/or numbers in the text box. I noticed if a number was in the form of a picture it worked to place a space between the picture and the text. We enjoy hearing from all you all when you comment on our blog, recommendations for making it better are greatly appreciated.

Sunday’s we listen to the podcasts from our Church at home MPLC the spaceship church, really special to maintain that connection. I can visualize the pastors and their interaction with the congregation, all those friends back in Racine.

One of the stages in the complex

This afternoon we went to LuLu’s, Jimmy Buffett's sister’s restaurant, great setting, good food, and live music. Earlier this weekend was the first annual Crazy Sista Beach Party that had started when we drove past on Friday.

Several dolphins ply in the waterway in front of the Marina, but they are very hard to photograph.

 

LuLu's Restaurant

 

Poised for flight

Marina at the Wharf

The Shopping District at night

The Wharf is a tourist destination at Orange Beach, AL that is relatively new. Two blocks of shopping, 10 restaurants, condos, a Hotel, amphitheater, cinema, and community center located near the beach and on the Intracoastal Waterway. Today was an Extreme Obstacle Challenge, The Pink Event and a Lobsterfest at one of the restaurants. 

Painted toe nails and not BBQed

We walked the Pink Event and tasted several BBQ treats from the grill masters that were competing for a prize.

We saw our first Christmas decorations on the shopping boulevard as we walked to the Cinema, we watched Tom Hanks in Captain Phillips and were spell bound for over two hours a really well done movie.

Bimini Bob's Restaurant and the Marina Office

Today I cleaned the river scum off the hull and scrubbed the decks from the last bug attack. Twice now we have had hundreds of bugs land on the boat and stay until they died. Brushing them off did not work and if they flew a little they would just land two feet away. I guess if it happens again I will try to wash them off before they splatter all over the decks. 

Eastern Shore Marina to Marina at the Wharf

Eastern Shore Marina to Marina at the Wharf

Calm winds and following seas

The expected storm front passed last night with some rain and little else, the wind shifting today from the south to the west and then to the northwest as it diminished. We identified a weather window of at least 5 hours from noon into the evening and made the trip down Mobile Bay in calm seas with clearing skies. I am beginning to believe the weather forecasters are providing a bit of hype in their evaluations.

Finger Piers, never again. I hope!

Leaving Eastern Shore Marina was ok with us as we were tied to a “finger pier”; that is a skinny little excuse for a pier – about 18 inches wide, and only reaching about 8 feet out beside the boat.  Getting the boat tied into the slip was a real challenge.  Climbing on and off the boat was comical except when it was downright dangerous.  I wish I had a picture of me leaving in the rainstorm to go to town, carrying an umbrella and making the jump over the railing and down that big step with the boat rolling up and down and every surface soaking wet. 

We liked the big water of Mobile Bay, it reminds us of Lake Michigan although Mobile Bay averages only 9 feet deep. Nineteen nautical miles down to the Intracoastal where the landscape changes again, this time with many pine trees and some palms, we just touched the Gulf for a few miles, and then went onto the ICW.  We passed LuLu’s, Jimmy Buffett’s sister’s place and the weekend party was just beginning. We hope to go back there for lunch one day this weekend. We have made good progress to this point and we have 20 days to travel a distance we could do in 5 days, we are planning for a very relaxed cruising schedule, some anchorages and some marinas.

As we entered the Intracoastal a pod of dolphins decided to welcome us by splashing in and swimming through our wake. They stayed with the boat for about 10 minutes or so enjoying the water flow. The landscaped is changing again now, more developed but still some clear marshes and tree lined canal edges.

Nice setting

Tonight we are in the town of Orange Beach, Alabama.  The marina is very nice, with a clean modern atmosphere and a restaurant at the end of the long pier.  Nearby is a movie theater, some condos and a giant Ferris Wheel.  Fortunately, the piers are wide and safe and a reasonable place to stay.

Intracoastal Condo Boating Communities

LuLu's