January 24, 2014 Apalachiacola, FL

BeachQuest and Field Trip at Panama City Marina

We arrived in Panama City marina around 5:30 pm.  It was chilly and the expected winds began steadily blowing form the northwest so we put out 6 dock lines.  It was still a bumpy and noisy night especially with some sail boat who neglected to deploy a flopper stopper on one of their halyards.  It banged all night!

Bayou Joe's

We decided to forgo any attempt to head east until the Friday when the winds were forecast to subside.  So we went out to breakfast at Bayou Joes.  And then we headed to Apalachicola by car (thanks Dave) to explore the town. It was a great day.  And I was able to talk with all the marina folks.  Turns out the Scipio Creek Marina was the only viable alternative for us.

We returned around 8pm and while some watched a movie aboard I went over to see Curt and Marilyn who arrived a few hours before.  We met them at Green Turtle.    



I was up musing over the weather and Gulf crossing windows and decided we should leave for Apalachicola this morning because of the potential Gulf crossing weather window slated for either Sunday or Monday.  Our plan was to get to Apalachicola by Friday and then make our way another 30 miles to Carrabelle the next day to fuel up and await word on the weather.

Yeah it was a little cold.

So we scrambled out of bed, made the boat ready and untied about 8:50 along with Field Trip and headed east along the ICW.   Curt and Marilyn elected not to leave until noon so it was juts Field Trip and us.  We had to leave early in order to make it to Apalachicola before sundown.

The trip was mostly uneventful.  Luckily we had fly bridge heat though since it was pretty frigid outside.  The scenery was reminiscent of the ICW in Georgia with long stretches of winding waterway bordered by grasslands or forest.  We made about 8 mph so our arrival  was after 4:30pm when the marina closed but before sundown.





It was friggin cold ... 29 overnight in in the low 30's when we left.  I had the engine room heaters all night going again so start up was fine.

Once we arrived in Apalachicola we had to make a 180 degree turn back up into an adjacent creek, (Scipio Creek) and run up about a half mile to the marina.  There is a bifurcation buoy  marking the creek entrance but I turned before it and almost went a ground.  Backed out ok and went around the buoy and headed up the creek in 7 feet of water.   We tied up on the fuel  dock as Dave, Kathy's husband met us.  Filed Trip went into the basin and tied up to the center pier.

The temperatures began to plummet as the sun set so now we have all the heaters blasting away while we try to figure out what to do tomorrow.  Probably head to Carrabelle which is about 30 miles away and fuel up at a marina in anticipation of a Sunday Gulf crossing.  Or ... stay in Carrabelle until we can safely run the 170 miles across the Gulf to Clearwater.