Apalachicola to Carrabelle, FL

---

January 7, 2023: After a productive morning, I follow a buddy boat to Carrabelle, drift around for 30 minutes waiting for cheap fuel, back into a rickety marina slip, and squeeze into the back seat of a Camaro convertible with two other full-sized adults.

---

(continued from Port St. Joe to Apalachicola, FL)

I didn’t sleep very well, but that really didn’t surprise me. I was just too darn close to where restaurant patrons walked by. The motion detector light over the rear deck that I had installed in Orange Beach — did I mention I did that? — kept going on when people wandered by. The overhead lights were painfully bright.

Morning Stuff

I got up before dawn, made my coffee, and settled down at my dining table with my laptop. I managed to finish writing and publish a blog post I’d started days before that covered events from back in October.

I took a photo of the moonset. If I had been thinking properly, I would have framed it to include all of Pony and not just it’s back half.

When my pups woke up, I took them out for a morning walk, fed them, and walked them again. By that time, it was full daylight. I had to wait for someone to get out of the bathroom — there was only one for women — before I could shower. The experience was weird because the shower stall was filled with shampoos and soaps and razors, like a bathroom in a sorority house.

We were in no hurry to leave. The Moorings of Carrabelle, where Kim and Ted were taking Pony, wouldn’t have space for them before 3 PM. The trouble is, Carrabelle is a popular “jumping off” spot for boaters crossing the Gulf of Mexico to Steinhatchee or Tarpon Springs or points farther south. Because the trip to Tarpon Springs and beyond took so long, most cruisers left in the afternoon or evening, timing their trip to arrive at around 10 AM, when it was light enough to see the crab traps all over Florida’s west coast without early morning glare. For some reason, the Carrabelle marinas allowed these people to occupy slips until 3 PM instead of the normal “check out time” of 11 AM or noon. That backed up everyone who was inbound to Carrabelle.

It was a short cruise to Carrabelle from Apalachicola — only about 26 miles. It wouldn’t take us long at all. So we figured we’d leave around 1 PM. Kim and Ted walked into town. I sat down to write the next blog post.

Around 11:30, one of the dockhands came up to my boat and said, “Check out time is 11 AM. There’s no one coming in right now, but if you’re not gone by noon, we’ll have to charge you for another night.”

The last thing in the world I wanted to do was give that crappy marina another dime of my money. So I assured him we’d be gone, texted the situation to Kim, and started prepping the boat to leave.

Kim and Ted returned a short time later after a long walk around town. Our two boats were backing out of the marina at 11:50 AM.

The Cruise

Since I was the first one out, I led the way down Scipio Creek to where it joined up with the Apalachicola River. I slowed down as I drove under the bridge so Pony, which was pretty much right behind me, could catch up. I didn’t want to lead. I’d let Ted lead.

Pony passed and I pulled in behind. What’s neat about driving with Pony is that it’s also a Ranger Tug and it has pretty much the same capabilities as my boat. Although we had no plans of driving fast that day, it was good to know that Ted had no qualms about burning dinosaurs if we wanted/needed to move along.

Kim shot this photo of Do It Now as Pony passed me.

I shot this photo of Pony at about the same time.

But the one thing I did notice pretty quickly is that Ted seemed to hand steer while I pretty much used my autopilot’s heading hold feature almost all the time. Heading hold — in case I haven’t explained this elsewhere — tells the boat to stay on a certain compass heading until you change it or disengage the autopilot. This is crazy useful when you’re going in a straight line, but it’s also handy at other times — you just have to make more adjustments. Hand steering refers to steering the boat with the steering wheel. I do that, too, but only when I’m maneuvering in places where I need more responsiveness. I’m a big believer in letting my boat’s systems reduce my workload.

In addition to hand steering, I’m pretty sure Ted was making throttle/speed adjustments. I’m a set-it-and-forget it driver; I don’t touch the throttle unless I need to change the speed.

As a result, it was difficult for me to line up behind Pony and keep the same distance back. I’d either catch up or fall behind or find myself on one side or the other. Still, it was a short enough ride and I made it work. My notes say I was doing 2450 RPM for 8.5 knots and 1.15 nmpg — which is kind of crappy; I get better mileage either faster or slower — but I’m sure I didn’t stick to that the whole time. I seem to remember making adjustments along the way.

Here’s my view while following Pony. The trick was to stay out of their wake by being inside or outside of it.

Even though we were traveling in large bodies of water — Apalachicola Bay and Saint George Sound — the Gulf ICW had us follow a series of dredged channels that took us south, northeast, north, and northeast before reaching the channel for Carrabelle. Somewhere about two thirds of the way on our route, we passed two other Loopers, Pivot and Northern Escape.

Before turning into the channel, I powered down to idle to set up my boat for docking in Carrabelle; I don’t like to do it in tight, crowded spaces. That put me pretty far behind Pony and I gunned it to catch up.

Arriving in Carrabelle

To get to Carrabelle from Saint George Sound, you have to go down a narrow but well-marked channel up the Carrabelle River. The channel widens a bit when you get to the first marina and then narrows again with some really shallow water all around. The river has a very swift current that changes with the tide. The tide was pretty high when we arrived but was still coming in. That means the current was going upriver.

I was surprised at first how many boats were leaving the area as we were arriving. That’s when I realized that it was just about 3 PM and boats were repositioning to Dog Island, on the other side of the Sound, for their overnight Gulf run. There was a parade of them, one after another. They were all big boats, too — not dinky ones like mine.

Although Kim and Ted were staying at The Moorings, I wasn’t. The Moorings was $3 per foot per night and I just couldn’t see spending that kind of money (again) for a marina I hoped to leave at dawn. So I’d opted for C-Quarters Marina, about a quarter mile closer to the Sound. It was $1 per foot per night — a savings of $64. Even better, its diesel fuel price was just $4.45/gallon, the cheapest I’d pay up to that point on my trip. Even the fuel at the Moorings was more.

So while Pony moved on to The Moorings, I went to C-Quarters. And right before I got there, a boat came out of a slip and pulled up to the fuel dock. Damn.

I hovered in the area just beyond the fuel dock. Then I started a “racetrack pattern” (as I was taught to call them when learning to fly): a big oval that kept me moving — and thus under control of the boat — past the fuel dock in each direction. I did this for about 30 minutes. At one point about 10 minutes into the wait, they tried to direct me to nose into a slip near the fuel dock, but there was no room for error with the bow of the other boat — and its anchor — overhanging the entrance to the slip and the current really moving right toward it. I gave it one half-hearted attempt and moved away, calling back to them that I’d rather wait.

Finally, the fueling was done, the captain paid, and the boat moved off. I took his place. We pumped 72 gallons of fuel into my 145 gallon tank.

The next challenge was getting me into a slip. And this is where it got really tough. Because the slips had very short finger piers, I had to back in between two thick posts, each with a boat on the other side. With the current trying to push me up the river.

Understand that an inboard motor/rudder setup like mine means that I can’t steer the boat when backing up. There’s a thing called prop walk that tends to push the stern to port while backing up, but the amount is sometimes negligible and can’t be relied upon. (What I’ve noticed is that when you want it to turn to port, it doesn’t and when you don’t want it to, it does.) I have thrusters, of course, but my stern thrusters aren’t nearly as powerful as my bow thrusters. The more I dock, the better I get, but at that point I was barely up to the task ahead of me.

Fortunately, two guys who worked at the marina were there to help. One of them owned the boat on one side of the slip and he walked right up to its bow to take one of my lines as I backed in. The owner of the other boat eventually came out and helped me fasten one of the bow lines over the post at the front of my boat. I was able to kill the engine, get out, and help the dock guys pull the boat into place and secure it.

In the meantime, because my dinghy is back there and the finger piers were really short, I could barely step off the boat and onto the pier. And that was a fixed pier; when the tide changed, the step would be brutal. Making matters even worse, the very last board on the pier was loose so it shifted when I stepped on it.

We cross-tied the boat’s stern and they got me plugged into shore power. I took my pups off the boat to pee.

“There’s one thing you have to keep in mind,” one of the guys told me right before he left. “When the tide goes out all the way, this area up against the sea wall is shallow.”

He was referring to the area under my boat’s stern.

“How shallow?” I asked.

“Well, there’s a chance the boat’s stern might sit on the mud. So if you want to leave at low tide, you should probably pull the boat out about five or ten feet before the tide goes out.”

The two guys left with a pair of five dollar bills and I stood on the sea wall, watching my pups explore their new surroundings. I took out my phone and consulted the Tides app. We were planning on leaving at dawn to make our crossing. That was about an hour before low tide. With the moon full, the tide would be very low indeed.

Of course with the finger piers so short, I couldn’t just move the boat now. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to get on or off, which I’d need to do at least two more times with my pups. I’d also need to be able to get off to unplug from shore power. It seemed that I had another little challenge ahead of me.

Here’s my Nebo log for January 7, 2023. Download a PDF log file with more info. Track Do It Now on Nebo.

Dinner Out

I went in to settle my bill with the folks in the office. There were a bunch of good old boys in there and they were all friendly. I think they were tickled that I was handling the boat by myself — or trying to, at least. They made sure I knew where the rest rooms, showers, and laundry facility were. (As it turns out, I didn’t use any of them.)

Meanwhile, Kim and Ted had settled in. Kim texted to ask if I wanted to join them and two friends — Cheryl and Drew — for dinner. They lived in town and claimed to know a good place. They’d come by at 5:30 in a car to get me.

The car they showed up in was a Camaro convertible. There were already four adults in it. I wondered where they were going to put me. It turns out that I was going to be sandwiched in the back between Drew and Cheryl. All three of us were full sized people and we really did not fit. But we made it work. Thank heaven it was a short ride.

We wound up at a place called Harry’s Bar. It was a bar. Cheryl wasted no time getting drinks. But Kim, Ted, and I were hungry.

Fortunately, the place had a takeout restaurant attached to it. I ordered a pizza and some boneless wings for the table and brought it over when it was ready. So we got to eat after all.

The place was obviously a local hangout and there was a “jukebox” — if that’s what they’re still called; they’re all digital now — playing music. I paid to insert some Pink Floyd into the country music most folks seemed to play. When a band started setting up on a little stage near our table, I started thinking about moving on. I’m not a big fan of loud music or crowds.

It was a short walk back so I just said my goodbyes and left. It was a funny town without much going on. I walked alongside the road where there was no sidewalk and hoped drivers were paying attention. I didn’t get hit.

Back at the boat, I did what needed to be done to get my pups off the boat for one last walk before bed. Then I got us all back on, went inside, and closed the door. I was done for the night.

I set an alarm for 5 AM to make sure I’d be up early enough to move the boat.

(continued in Carrabelle to Steinhatchee, FL)