Long Day

4.22.2010

Today Jen woke me up with breakfast in bed (sausage gravy & biscuits & fresh coffee) Nice, I’m so lucky. Then around 8:30 Tom picked me up to go fishing. So I grabbed all the necessary items, fishing poles, tackle box, case of beer. We launched his 28 foot fishing boat and I was ready to fish. We also had Doug and Ted with us, but they were in another boat. We went to the pass into the bay and did some casting, then we did a little trolling. Once we started catching some fish we cut them up for bait, and I caught my first shark. It was about 4 foot long, we brought him in the boat to get the hooks back then released him. Then as the afternoon dragged on I caught another Shark This one was a hammerhead about 8 foot long and probably 80-100 lbs. and we didn’t have a camera, so you will just have to take my word on the size. It was about a 45 minute fight to get him to the boat where we could see him. He finally ended the struggle by breaking the line. But I had a lot of fun fighting with him, and it was cool to see him in the water. We ended up with a ice chest full of Spanish Mackerel.  Thanks Tom for inviting me I had a blast.

Once back at the boat I took a little nap, then at 7pm Doug (who is a  DJ) picked us up to go sing Karaoke. Since he was working and he was also our ride we ended up staying out till 12:30. The place was on St George Island. and before we sang Doug loaned us his car and we drove around the Island.  Once back at the bar I got up and sang a few songs, the place was pretty crowded and had lots of singers. I would have liked to sing more but it’s hard beating off all the women when I get off the stage.

Quote of the Year

               “ IF YOU ARE GOING TO BE STUPID

                              THEN YOU GOTTA BE TOUGH ”

The BIG One That Got Away

Saturday April 10th 2010

Early in the morning I hear beating on my boat, so I get dressed to go investigate to find Captain Edward (a local fisherman) standing on the dock. He wanted to know if Jen and I would like to go fishing with him. I tell him I would be happy to go but I didn’t know if Jen would get out of bed to go fishing. So he says he will be back in 15 minutes. I am pretty excited to take advantage of some free fishing lessons. We are taking Mario’s boat (a part time local).  Both men are in their mid seventies. and right off start bickering at each other. Jen laughs and says it is like watching the movie Grumpy Old Men live. We drove about 10 miles off shore to Ed’s secret spots and began to bottom fish for Grouper. We ended up catching 3 legal grouper and about 15 black sea bass. Beginners Luck had me catching the biggest and the most, so I had a lot of fun and we learned a lot.   Both Mario and Edward are interesting individuals and even more so when they are together. On Sunday night we cooked rice and fish for them.  Thanks a lot for teaching a couple of land lovers from Oklahoma how to deep sea fish. We had a blast.(The Red Grouper is 26 inches long.)

I installed a 110 volt wall outlet in our cockpit. it gets old running extension cords up there every time we want to do something. The new office is looking pretty good. Just have paint and varnish left.

There are some little bugs called no’see’ems and those little buggers are brutal in the evenings, especially when the wind isn’t blowing. I would rather have a Houston skeeter or Dairy farm flies any day than no see ems . Jen looks like she has chicken pox because of the welts they leave on her.

Jen, Sis, and I took Jenny (our aluminum boat) across the river into a bayou and cruised around for an hour or so in the tall marsh grass. Jen and Sissy took naps while I explored, until I saw the tail of an alligator slip into the water, then everyone was on alert.

(The bank is flattened down where I saw the tail go in the water.)

That wasn’t so bad

Okay so today I did the deed all by myself.

I cleaned 5lbs of shrimp and I popped their heads off all by myself.

Not as bad a task as I imagined.

While I cleaned shrimp, Ryan cleaned some fish, and Marilyn made rice and got the water ready for the shrimp.

Everything was YUMMY!

Wish you could have joined us.

Blast from the Past

Well I’m going to write a short blog about some of the things we did in our last week of Panama City before they are forever lost in my simple mind.

Jen and I decided on one day to take the Trolley to the beach during one of the slower spring break days. So we get to the station 2 minutes too late and have to wait 58 minutes for the next trolley. Once on the trolley we get dropped off at Spinnakers, where we have lunch with Scott. They had a Navy band playing and they were all dressed up in their sailors suits, and were really good. We also got a few pictures of all the kids on the beach. Like I said it was a less busy day. Then we continued on down to pier park where we walked around for an hour or so before heading back to the marina. One thing I noticed while on the bus was that some of drivers didn’t wear seat belts and none of the passenger seating even had the option for seat belts, in fact one of the buses we were on had wooden park benches bolted down for seating.  So here I am riding with some driver I have never met before not wearing a seat belt in a town with all the drunk college students on the beach. Yet if I drive my car, or even ride in a car with someone I know without a seatbelt I’ll get a ticket. Crazy!

One of the local guys, Steev, who lives in a condo at the marina invited us to go back to Shell Island. He had a small pontoon boat, and went to a different part of the Island than we had previously been to in our dinghy. So Jen, Marilyn and I loaded up with him and spent the day on the Island. I actually went swimming a little on the Gulf side.  Still cold. Got some great pictures.  I talked about Phil the Thrill and Joi on one of our previous blogs, well one afternoon they came and kidnapped us to show us their penthouse condo on the beach. Pretty impressive, they were on the top floor with the best view. I thought Phil was kidding when he said “Do you want to see my penthouse?”, he wasn’t.  We got some great pics from way up in the penthouse where all the fun happens. After a few beers and snacks we ended up at Spinnakers for awhile, then back at our bar in our marina for the rest of the evening.   

We really enjoyed our short time with you guys. Hope you come visit sometime!

And from recent days:

The shrimp Jen & Marilyn had straight off the shrimp boat. Jen fixed dirty rice and beer bread to go with it.

 

Captains Log

Well we finally made it, we left on the 1st of April and arrived here 2:30am on the 5th. There goes my excellent planning again, I said the trip would take 30 hours, more like 120. I have copied the captains log below in order to describe the trip better.  By the way I absolutely love the marina. We have a HUGE front porch with lots of rocking chairs and all the locals come down and start drinking Natty Light around 9am, about the time I finish drinking my coffee (Perfect).  Don’t think iI’m going to get anything done here!

*Sunday April 4th 2010 -

7am took Sis to shore in dinghy then Jen and I loaded Chase and prepared to leave.

9:30am Left anchorage at St Joe Peninsula motored out with no wind. Once in the channel we raised main and large hank on jib sail.

10:00am motored out with very little wind. seas extremely calm very peaceful. Saw a sea turtle.

12:00pm Motor sailed the whole length of St Joe Peninsula with port engine average 5 knots winds out of SE

2:00pm Rounded Cape San Blas, killed engine, sailed for 2 hours. Marilyn saw the biggest dolphin in her whole life, but no one believes her. :)

5:oopm Winds shifted more to the East and fog rolled in. Lowered all sails, motoring with both engines at 1200 rpms traveling at 5.2 knots

6:00 pm Near West Pass of Apalachicola bay thick fog visibility 1/4 mile winds E at 10 kts using radar and AIS, 29’36'.525 N 085’11.313 W

7pm Still foggy. Marilyn cooked sloppy joes and macaroni and cheese we are having some small swells broadside the boat that rock us about 5 degrees each way. I wasn’t paying attention when I made my sloppy joe and put macaroni on the bun instead of the meat. Had myself a macaroni and cheese sandwich.  (Not bad.)

8pm Still very foggy. Two targets on radar will not answer radio or horn, defiantly boats, probably fishing boats.  Still have glowing water and fog, Sandy slowed to 4.2 knots currents I guess. Rounding Cape St George as I type, 29’31.700N 085’03,833W

8:30 pm Jen takes the helm while I get a little shut eye, speed 4.6 knots heading 58 T, 29’31,380N 085’00,025W wind S @2.8 depth 30 ft. Still foggy water still glowing.

10":00pm Not so foggy, stars out, water really glowing.

11:30 pm I wake up only 6 miles to the outer marker to Carrabelle fog moved in again trying to decide where to anchor for the night

12:15 No FOG we can see lights on land and all the stars, back up to 5.1 speed, 29’39,740N 085’42,840W heading 038T

1:15 found first marker

2:30 am Threw both anchors took a shower and went to bed.

9:30 am woke up weighed both anchors motored the 4 miles to marina and docked. One of the locals was impressed on how easily we docked the boat.  I didn’t tell him that Jen was giving me orders through the radio and that the boat had 2 engines. I just let him believe that I was a good boat driver. 

A new experience.

Today, one of the marina guys came up and told us that the shrimp boats had come in and were selling their catch down at the docks. At $4.00 a pound you can’t go wrong right?! So we decided to buy a few pounds. When we get to the boat I stand in line for a few minutes and then when it’s my turn I step up and see some of the biggest shrimp I have ever seen in my life! So now, I start talking to the other people in line and asking questions like:

“What do I do with these after I buy them? How do I take their heads off? What do you have to do to cook them? What do you mean you just pop them off? Can I just grill them or should I boil them? Do you add seasoning, or just put them in water?”

You know all those dumb questions that you would expect from some redneck girl from Oklahoma, one that had never even started to eat sea food until sometime in her late 20’s let alone learn how to cook any of it.  But I will say that all of the nice gentlemen at the dock were patient and kind enough to give me some pointers. They even “popped” off their heads for me so that I wouldn’t have to! (A task for which I am VERY grateful that I didn’t have to do!)

So for dinner tonight……

Wish us luck!

By the way “What do you fix to eat with shrimp?”

A Small Move

Saturday April 3rd 2010

Today we decided we did not need any more luxuries from town or the Marina, so we weighed anchor and set sail. The winds were out of the east about 7 knots. So we had about a two hour sail to the Peninsula of Saint Joseph were we threw both anchors. Then we packed a little picnic basket, and a couple of beers and took off in the dinghy for the peninsula. We spent about 2 hours exploring and watching Sis run and play, she has so much fun on the beach. We left before dark because the tide had left and we had to walk the dinghy through the shallows, and we wanted to see what we were stepping on. Once back on Sandy Dreams Jen got some great sunset pictures and a great picture of the moon.  And once more glowing water. It’s just too hard to find time to sleep there is too many cool things to see in the daytime as well as the nighttime.  We also saw dolphins playing close to our boat, so Sis and I took the dinghy to see if they would play with us, but I think we scared them off.  On our way back I noticed the boat had a scum line so I put my wet suit on and cleaned the bottom of the boat. The water temp is about 72, still a little chilly, but getting better!

A Little Detour

Thursday April 1st 2010

Well when we left Panama City we had every intention to going to Carrabelle.  We set sail around 10 am with about 5-6 knots of wind, which gave us a speed of 2 knots, so we motored sailed about an hour until the wind picked back up.  We hit the channel around noon, at which we turned to the west because Scott was going to take video and pictures from the beach at Spinnakers, and Phil and Joey were going to do the same from their penthouse condo. So we sailed right off the third sandbar, about a 1/4 mile from the beach for 5 miles; in the wrong direction, for our photo op. Hopefully we will get some good pictures of our boat.(Thanks guys!) So around 2pm we were finally back to the Panama City Channel and on course. We sailed the rest of the day with a SE wind around 10-12 knots, which moved the boat around 4-5 knots. It was a beautiful sunny day with blue skies and calm blue water.  By the time we got to the Port St Joe entrance no one had taken any naps, we were tired and the weather was forecasting fog around midnight and a change in the wind direction; the wrong direction. So we decided to stop for a night or two. I’m glad we did because I was pretty tired and the fog did roll in as forecasted.  The next morning, April 2, we decided to take Sis to shore and see what Port St. Joe has to offer, so we took our Dinghy into the Marina.  It’s a pretty neat little Marina, they had a little restaurant, which was very good, and a nice area to walk around. The marina is also close to downtown and I think that I will go explore that today. Keep your fingers crossed but so far the only thing that has broke is the brand new anchor windlass (I think it may have got water in the switch or the solenoid went out).  Which means I have to throw two small anchors instead of one big one and then I have to pull them up by hand. Other than that the boat has been doing great (the new solar panels are great) and the weather has been good, it finally feels like summer. Maybe we will leave here today, maybe not.

We’ll try to keep you posted.

The Crew of Sandy Dreams

The Gypsies are on the Move Again

Captains Log

Wednesday February 31st 2010

We left Sun Harbor Wednesday morning, and pulled over to the fuel dock and loaded almost 200 gallons of fuel. It took about 3 hours, I think I have some clogged fuel vents, by the time we were finishing up the wind had picked up and it was pretty rough on the fuel pier.  But we got untied and managed to get away without hurting the boat.  We drove about 200 yards and threw anchor right off the beach of No Names, the local bar,  and continued preparing the boat to set sail. Around 4pm I picked up Phil the Thrill and his lovely wife Joey in the dinghy and brought them to Sandy Dreams for some Cheese and Crackers. Around 5:30 Scott showed up and we pulled anchor and set sail for a quick sunset cruise. We got back to our anchorage after dark, I took Phil and Joey back to shore, then went back to the boat to grill hamburgers, Jen had already made potato and pasta salad. It was a Perfect last night in Panama City.  Beautiful sunset, perfect sailing winds, and a Huge harvest moon rising. Scott stayed till about 10:30 before we said our goodbyes and he headed home. Panama City we enjoyed our stay and thank you for all of our new friends!