Home for the Time Being...

Thursday morning Sam and I started packing up all our stuff and we collected all our perishables and tossed them in the trash. I walked up to the office and was able to talk to Linda about a bottom job (not for me but for the boat). I explained how I was locked in by the lock outage and might as well have some work done rather than just paying about $400 for the boat to sit in a slip. She pulled out a form and started scribbling numbers on it and when she finished all the numbers added up to almost $2,000. Now, before I bought this boat I was told that B.O.A.T. stood for "Break Out Another Thousand," so I wasn't really shocked... after all, I've broken out another thousand several times and I've only had this boat for 3 weeks. Okay, I may be slow but it's beginning to sink in as to what that really means.
Just as Linda and I were concluding our conversation Mike stopped by... he's in charge of the department that installs generators. I explained that we don't have a generator but would really like to have one so that we could run the air conditioner while anchored out. He fully understood the undesirable dilemma of laying in bed sweating with windows open and fans blowing and skeeters biting so he started running calculations in his head while leaning against the door frame. I sat patiently watching wheels turn in his head, ever so often he would touch his hand to the forehead to help keep them rolling, then he began to speak. Wait for it... wait... $15,000 was the number that came forth from his mouth to my ears. Now I may have been slow about that B.O.A.T. thing as I mentioned before but my reflex was lighting fast on this one... No Thanks! I'll figure out some other means to keep comfortable at night.
As I was about to leave Linda's office I asked one more question that I thought would result in a definite "no" but was pleasantly surprised... "Is there anyway someone could drive us to the rent-a-car place." Sam had a car reserved for us at Thrifty (or is it Dollar Thrifty?) for a one way rental at a descent price. A very pleasant lady by the name of Mary arrived at the dock with a pickup truck to carry all our stuff and hauled it and us to the airport... which was very fortunate because that's where the rent-a-car place was located.
Sam and I drove home and had wonderful conversations where we solved several of the world's social issues such as illegal aliens, food stamp scammers, lazy people receiving welfare and came close on some religious issues. Someday we're going to write them down and send them to our congressman.
I plan to get back on the boat in a couple of weeks and head north from Mobile Bay. It's intimidating to look at 450 miles of ditch carved out of shallow creeks and little lakes and plain old farm land, but it can't be all that bad, others have done it and so can I.

Near Mobile, Alabama - Dog River Marina

$1.00/foot/night.
Again not much to report. The most exciting thing today was crossing Mobile Bay. Oh yeah, when we pulled into the marina we learned that several locks on the Black Warrior-Tombigbee Waterway and the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway are closed till 8/22/14. So in the morning I'm going to talk to the folks here about doing some work on the boat... it needs a generator and a bottom job. We all need a good bottom job every so often. This will consist of scraping old paint off and repainting.  I'll let you know what I decided after pricing the work. This is a highly recommended marina for maintenance and repair work.
Sam and I will rent a car and drive home, I will continue the odyssey in a few weeks or whenever work is completed... if work is actually requested.

Perdido - Oyster Bar Marina

$1.50/foot/night.... nothing but bathrooms, no showers or anything else but a nice clean marina.
Nothing exciting to report today, we pulled out of Niceville at 8:15 this morning, waved bye to Roger on the back of his boat, and headed west along the ICW. I guess the most exciting thing was when we got up to 9.6 mph when approaching an inlet.... after weeks of 7.5 it took my breath. The other side of the inlet slowed us to about 6 mph, I had to crank the rpms to gain a little speed.
We pulled into this marina around 5:00 hot and thirsty... got the a/c going and sat in the bar while the boat cooled down.
That's it for today.... nothing exciting but nothing tragic.  
Life is good!

Niceville - North Lights Yacht Club

Sam and I shoved off from Panama City Marina at 8:15 and crossed well in front of a container ship entering the bay from the Gulf.  Within a few minutes the ship contacted me over the radio and asked that I move out of the channel (there was deep water),  he wanted to overtake me on my starboard side. As I was moving out of the way an actual battle ship was coming at us and split the difference. At this point Sam and I had only been on the water about 15 minutes. For the next 4 or 5 hours we progressed westward along the ICW and saw only a couple of boats, amazing how desolate these large bays and connecting canals can be.  While crossing Choctawhatchee Bay we saw a storm in the distance.... not knowing exactly which way it was going I kinda ran in circles until it became obvious that the storm new exactly where we were and was not going to let us get by.   As it bared down on us we realized there was no escape, we donned our cheap orange life jackets, cursed the mighty storm and kissed our asses goodbye as we plowed head long into the windy abyss. The tiny ship fought valiantly to keep her nose to the wind as the heavens battered her with gusts and surf. Waves crashed over the bow as the fearless crew manned the helm and spit into the face of danger (note to self: don't spit into the wind anymore). Within 10 minutes mother nature knew she had no more time to waste on us so she trolled on down the coast looking for other prey. Sam and I were happy to see her go. About two minutes later a loud piercing alarm sounded scaring the shit out of us. It was a Coast Guard broadcast over VHF warning mariners of a severe storm. Thanks a lot.
We finally arrived at our destination...  North Lights Yacht Club where we met up with some friends I've made over the internet. Roger and Pam Hennicke arrived at the boat with wine and beer and we had a long enjoyable visit prior to a tour of there 52 foot Jefferson.... beautiful yacht. I meet Roger on the website Trawler Forum and he's been very helpful with selecting my daily destinations.
Oh yeah, one other thing.... I had several complements on the effortless way I backed the boat into the slip. Plus several people came out of their way to tell me they really liked the boat.

Panama City Marina

We pulled out of Apalachicola at 7:15 a.m. and arrived here at 1:45 p.m..  it was very uneventful except for the dolphins tagging along with us. At one point we had about five of them and one was doing jumps off our bow wake... pretty cool.
The trip was through some sparsely populated areas,  we only saw 4 or 5 boats over the course of about 5 hours.
The marina here is nice, no pool but I was able to do laundry. Docking was a breeze, I just had to pull along side a "long" dock. No other boats were in the way so it was easy pezy.

Apalachicola - Water Street Marina

As I stated last, Bill and I made it across the gulf from Tarpin Springs to Carrabelle. My agreement with him was that he accompany me to Carrabelle, so yesterday the world's greatest Dad drove my good friend Sam Boozer down to Carrabelle, picked up Bill and took him to Tallahassee for a car rental. Then after a good nights sleep in Moultrie, Ga. he drove home.
This morning I was literally the captain of my own ship, nervous... you bet. At 9:00 Sam and I set out for a three hour tour... no wait, that was a different story. Sam and I set out for Apalachicola, which turned out to be a four hour tour. Sam was an excellent navigator, we have GPS and a paper chart. The paper chart gives the big picture and the navigational aids (day markers / channel markers) are all identified with a number that appears on the actual marker. The GPS also shows the marker and it's identifier. Sam keeps an eye on all three so that we know exactly where we are at all times. Believe it or not it's very easy to get turned around and confused if not paying attention. Anyway, when we got to Apalachicola it was a bit confusing because there were no channel markers leading to the marinas, just a very narrow stream that didn't look deep. Shortly I saw there was no other way so I turned around in the narrow marked channel and went back to the narrower unmarked channel, at least I hoped it was a channel. I saw several large boats down the way and no other way for them to get their so I motored onward, holding my breath. The marina I identified on Google Maps didn't have a sign and before I new it I was already past it. Just beyond was another dingy looking marina that gave me just enough room to turn around, so far so good. Ok, now I'm easing my way back to the Water Street Marina but there's a guy fishing off the dock and he casts his line right where I want to go, crap. I explained what I was trying to do and he offered to help with the lines, yeah. I debated between nosing in or backing in.... but I didn't decide until it was too late to nose in so I attempted backing. I put the mighty 90 h.p. vehicle in reverse and to my surprise that cute little tail end eased right into the slip and I didn't let on that it was pure luck. I looked like a pro, having the fisherman, Jeff, help with the lines was very beneficial. Jeff wanted to check the boat out so I told him to look her over.... he loved it.
Today was a short day because after Apalachicola it's a long way to the next marina. We are going to shoot for Panama City Municipal Marina tomorrow. I think it will be a 7 or 8 hour day through some remote canals which are a part of the ICW.