Good morning Loopers and other Floridians!!

We are leaving Panama City and heading east to Apalachicola to get ready for the Gulf of Mexico crossing.  How exciting!  How scary!!  The last “big water” for Always Home as we finish our Loop.  This is a 61 mile day.  Should be an easy 6 hours going at 10mph.  Right?  Well, there is a current that runs through these channels, rivers, and bays.  Tides, even!  It may take us more like 7-7.5 hours.

Leaving Panama City Marina – finally

We decided to cruise to Apalachicola and cross the Gulf from there hoping to find other like minded boaters and Loopers to do the crossing with.  There is a 3 day window opening up and it is time to get in position.  It will be a shorter journey across the water from Apalachicola than from Panama City.  Also, we hear the oysters in Apalachicola are the best!

What a glorious day to be on the water!!  Even the pelicans think so.  We saw this pod or squadron of pelicans floating around in the water watching us cruise by.

Group of Pelicans = squadron or pod

The smells of industry that wafted through the fly bridge from time to time while we were in Panama City Marina can be daily explained by this paper mill factory.

Busy paper mill factory

Can you believe these waters?  Less than 10mph winds and almost flat bay.  Awesome!!

East Bay near Panama City, Florida

Entering the GIWW or ICW.  You can see the trees on either side of the “ditch” protect you from wind pretty much.  The water is flatter and calmer.  No need for a ‘magenta line’ since there isn’t anywhere to go but within the channel.  We also can’t get lost.  We only had one go-fast boat pass us by.  We saw a couple of fishermen.  That is all.  What a beautiful day to be on the water.

Surprisingly, we had to navigate around debris!  We haven’t seen this kind of debris since the rivers.  Just unexpected.  Logs, trees fallen over into the water blocking the channel, and floating gardens of water plants.  This means we couldn’t just put on the autopilot and let the boat drive by itself.  We had to stay vigilant and aware.  As always!

Debris!

Floating Log!

Some Loopers have taken this channel to Port St. Joe before going on to Apalachicola.  We decided we didn’t want to stop there if we are hoping to cross the Gulf soon.  Maybe we can visit this city next time.

ICW cutoff to Port St. Joe

Can you tell the difference between these two pictures?

Bet you can’t!!  They were taken just moments apart BUT the time changed and we had to move our clocks up on hour!!  I aged instantly!  Really.  How does anyone travel the country going through time changes constantly?  Do truckers really know where they are and what time it is?

Because of the time change, we arrived in Apalachicola later than we expect.  An hour later!  😉  Time enough to get settled at the Face Dock provided by the Apalachicola Marina near the “ice house”.  The dock hand told us to go up the Scipio Creek till we see the brick building they are working on.  We actually found him waving before we noticed the building.  It looks pretty bad from the back side in the dusky light.  The back side of the building is being torn down brick by brick.

Face Dock View of the building being torn down

Apparently they are taking the bricks from the back of the building and refinishing the front of the building.  The front looks pretty darn good in the morning!  I like the idea of re-using the brick.  I hope it ends up looking wonderful by the time they finish.  Looks like a labor of love.

Front view of the Ice House Building being refurbished

I took some daylight pictures the next day for this day’s posting since we arrived so late.  Across the street from us is the “Honey Hole Liquors” and Antiques and Pottery place.  We didn’t go into it because our day was cut short.  This is a picture of the establishment the next morning.  All I can say is this place does a healthy business at night.

The Apalachicola Marina loaned us a golf cart to travel from the office up to the side face dock.  Along the way, I was able to capture this Christmas Tree all lit up along the major thoroughfare.  It is after Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations are now OK to display, Right?!?!

Tree at Night

Tree by day decorated with fishing buoys and tackle

We did have dinner at one of the popular Oyster restaurants.  I had them fried and they were delicious.  A long day and we were ready for an early bed time.  We have plenty of time to explore this cute little town we heard so much about tomorrow.

Boss’s Oysters

……………………………………..

Until we got a knock on the side of the boat at 9:30pm.  Hey!! Loopers!!  You want to cross the Gulf of Mexico with us tomorrow?!?!   We surely do! When are you leaving in the morning?  9:30am.  Gotcha!  We will be ready!!

We didn’t get to explore Apalachicola after all.  These are the only pictures I took before we hustled to get ourselves ready for the “Crossing the Big Bend”.  Are we ready for our all-nighter?  When was it the last time you pulled an all-nighter?  For me, it has been…hmmmm…..  years and years!!  Stay tuned!!