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