Pensacola to Destin

Jan 20

On the first day of our trip we sailed from Pensacola to Destin. The autopilot suddenly said you can do the steering yourself and we steered manually. That prettty much stopped our plan to go overnight directly to Panama City, because, without the possibility of taking the ICW (bridges too low), it would be too cold. The wind was 15-20 knts from the N but  the waves were small in lee of the coast. After dark we anchored near the interstate bridge in Destin. It was freezing cold during the night but we were warm in bed. When we left the next day, Jan. 17, two dolphins came to say goodbye, so cute and we motor sailed to Panama City Beach and moored in the “Treasure Island Marina” during the next two nights. On Sunday it was raining pretty hard so we didn’t need to wash the salt off the boat. Our charts were not very clear about the height of the bridge south of Apalachicola so Jacques walked a couple of miles to the coast guard station and on my way he saw a West Marine store.  Here they could figure out that the bridge was high enough and that the old bridge a little east from the new bridge was no longer there. This second bridge was marked too low to go underneath so we had to be absolutely sure that we could take a small part of the ICW.

Sunday evening we had a very nice dinner in a local fish restaurant about a mile from the marina. On Monday, Jan. 19 shortly after we left the marina we saw some traffic from the right. A deer was swimming across the lagoon and we let him pass in front of us and this time there were for sure three dolphins who swam with us for about five minutes, I can get used to that tradition. The trip from Panama City Beach to Port St. Joe was a bumpy ride with 8 ft. waves. (I found it very, very bumpy!)

Once in Port St. Joe we entered the ICW and had a very peaceful trip in the channel for 6 miles and then in the Jackson river where I had read that there were alligators but  I think the alligators were in hibernation. We anchored on the river during the night. This part of the panhandle is very wild without roads and we heard no sound other than sometimes a wind gust. At night I went outside to look at the anchor lines and was exited to see so many stars. The night was freezing cold again so we didn’t leave until 9 a.m. and drove the last 7 miles to Apalachicola where we are now in a small marina with internet connection to update our blog and facebook. It is blowing 20-25 knots at the moment with only 45 degrees although the sun is shining. Tomorrow we intend to cross part of the gulf to Clearwater which is about 160 nautical miles to the SE. This means sailing through the night but the winds are only 10 knots from the NW and later no wind and with the autopilot working it should be OK to seek shelter in the cabin every now and then were we have the gas cooker keeping up the temperature because it is again expected to be freezing at night.

The main reason for our sailing is to escape the cold winter in Wisconsin but we weren’t very lucky until now.