Hi All,
We spent a couple of days in Panama City, mostly working on installing our water maker and fretting a bit over our generator. It seems that having a generator with few hours on it is only good if it's a relatively new generator or perhaps not used in a marine environment. We've determined that ours is burning oil and have had two mechanics tell us it might be better to replace it. Ouch, that isn't a cheap proposition. But we're not sure what we're going to do yet but have put off doing anything until we get to Tampa / St. Pete. It works and we don't have to do anything today.
When we were in Panama City we anchored in a small bayou (Massalina Bayou) very close to the old downtown part of Panama City. We really liked our anchorage. It was calm and relatively quiet, we had a couple of people stop by, one guy in a fishing boat that lives on the bayou show us where he lived and said if we needed anything just let him know. Another guy that had a sailboat anchored maybe 100 yards from us came by on his kayak just to chat for a while. We've seen some neat things and beautiful places but it has truly been the amazingly friendly people that has made the trip as wonderful as it has been. Every evening we were also visited by the osprey that sat on the mast of the sailboat closest to us and three different porpoise that would swim around the bayou.
Friday morning we stopped by the Panama City Marina to fill up with fuel, water and pump out our holding tanks and then headed out into St Andrew Bay. It was a calm, cool and clear morning, absolutely beautiful. On our way through the bay I saw a big ray of some sort, with a wing span of close to 6 feet, try to fly. He jumped out of the water, went a little ways, splashed down and then jumped again. It was really cool! Shortly after that Susan decided to try her luck at fishing again and put out a lure behind us. It was probably 20 minutes or so before she had caught a fish, a good sized spanish mackerel. We had to slow down a bit while we got it in the boat and then fileted it. That done we motored on through the bay and then out into the Gulf of Mexico.
Once we were out in the Gulf we raised the sails, turned off the engine and the generator and had only the sound of the wind and waves. Such a great experience. We sailed for a while making good progress but then the wind started to die and we were having to take a heading much farther south than we wanted in order to get the best advantage of the wind. We weren't really in a hurry but we left early so we could get to Port St Joe early enough to avoid any afternoon thunderstorms. We probably gave up on the sails later than we should have so we were about 7 miles away from the channel into St Joseph Bay when the rainstorm hit. There wasn't any lightning and the wind wasn't too bad but we were both soaked by the time we were through it.
Another Life had been in Port St Joe for a day or two before we got there and where at the city marina. Our plan was to anchor just outside the marina which was supposed to be a good spot according to Active Captain. It looked pretty rough to us when we got there so we opted to join Another Life at the marina. Ted, Claire and the dock master met us at the pier and helped us get tied up. That all sorted we quickly accepted the invitation for chicken fajitas and margaritas on Another Life. Yum!
Tonight, Saturday, Susan and I fixed the fish she caught. It was OK but not great. If we catch another we'll eat it, but we'll have to do some experimenting with how to prepare it. Tomorrow both Another Life and us will leave here and go anchor close to the entrance of St Joseph Bay in preparation of leaving Monday morning early for a 30 - 36 hour trip to Tarpon Springs. Another boat, a catamaran, will be joining us so there will be three of us making that trip together. We'll be farther offshore than we've ever been so it'll be nice to know there is someone else out there with us. We won't always be able to see each other but for sure we'll be able to see where each of us is on AIS. This is all, of course, assuming the weather forecast doesn't change.
That's it for tonight.
Take care.
Brian
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