At Shalimar, FL

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December 29, 2022 to January 1, 2023: I spend three nights at Two Georges Marina, waiting out some weather.

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(continued from Pensacola Beach to Shalimar, FL)

Although I originally only booked one night (Thursday) at Two Georges Marina in Shalimar, FL, I added two more nights (Friday and Saturday, which was New Years Eve) when I saw thunderstorms forecasted for my original departure date. I had learned that the storms in this part of the country could be very severe indeed — often including tornado watches/warnings. I did not want to be in transit or at an anchorage when one of those storms hit.

About Two Georges

Two Georges is not close to shopping and dining, but it isn’t far, either. It’s actually in a residential area, nestled into a cove between a bridge and a point of land. There are restaurants past the residential area to the east and a Publix Supermarket on the other side of the bridge. Biking distance. A Walmart was much farther away. The beach was even farther. I sometimes regret not staying in Destin where most other Loopers stayed.

It was a quiet marina with a boat ramp, lift, maintenance facility, and dry storage area. Indeed, there were quite a few boats on the hard all over the yard. They did boat sales — mostly the center consoles that are so popular in Florida and up the Atlantic coast. They also had a very well stocked marina store; I was able to buy oil for an oil change I had planned but wasn’t quite ready for. The restroom facilities were cold and damp and although there was a shower, there was no private dressing area — either you dressed inside the shower stall or out in the restroom. I gave it a pass and showered in my boat.

There were few (if any) live-aboards and just a handful of Loopers. I did meet the folks in a big trawler named Seahorse, who had departed the Wharf in the morning either the day before or the day I left. They were looping, too, and I’d see them on Nebo now and then as I continued my travels.

Pony was there, too — I’d finally caught up. But Kim and Ted had gone to Ohio for the holidays and would not be back until after New Years Day. I did not want to stay that long so I’d actually pull ahead of them for a while.

Maintenance

Two Georges had a maintenance crew and I decided to take advantage of that.

The boat has what’s called a stuffing box and a packing nut in the hull between the engine and the prop. I’m pretty sure most inboard motor boats have this or some version of this. These setups come in different flavors and the flavor on my boat requires that it drip once every 10 or so seconds to keep the spinning drive shaft cool. When I first got my boat, I noticed that it only dripped once every 15 or so seconds. I had the Ranger Tug guys look at it at the Rendezvous I attended in September. They said it was okay. But I’d lately noticed that it was dripping a lot more — maybe once every 4 or 5 seconds. That was putting enough water in the bilge that when the bilge pump ran (normally every 6 minutes; it’s on a timer), it was actually spitting out a noticeable amount of water. With maintenance guys around, I figured I’d get it adjusted.

Two guys showed up early Friday afternoon with a wrench. I opened the engine compartment and one of the guys climbed down into it. The packing nut, which really needs two wrenches to adjust, is easily accessible with a little boat yoga. I produced a second wrench for him and he got to it, tightening it back up. When he was done, he leaned back and said. “That’s good. No drips.”

He had tightened it so it didn’t drip at all.

I explained that it needed to drip at once every 10 seconds. He argued that it didn’t. I could see I was getting nowhere with him — after all, I was a woman and what the hell did a woman know about packing nuts? — so I called the Ranger Tug factory and asked to speak to someone in Support. I then put him on speaker phone and had him tell the mechanic how it needed to work.

The mechanic tried arguing with him but the Ranger Tugs guy was firm. Firmer than I was, I guess. And he was male so that gave him extra clout. Finally, the mechanic agreed to adjust it the way it was supposed to be done. He grumbled a lot about it but eventually got it to one drip every 10 seconds.

The whole process had taken less than 30 minutes, but I was charged for a full hour because of shop rules. Or maybe because two guys were there. $150. Okay. It looks like I need to learn how to adjust my own damn packing nut.

Oc course, within a few weeks, it was dripping more again anyway. And then dripping less. I suspect I just need to make sure it’s dripping and the bilge isn’t filling up with water and not obsess over it.

But I’ll still learn how to adjust it.

The Weather

Meanwhile, the weather came in with a vengeance late Friday afternoon. My boat was prepared. It was tied into its slip with six lines — four on one side and two on the other. Although I was on the open side of the marina, I was also close to land and partially protected by the docks of the homes nearby. Unless the weather system spawned tornadoes or waterspouts, I’d be good.

My boat was well-secured in its slip.

I had already been advised by a marina employee to seek shelter in the restroom building, which was made of concrete blocks, if the weather got really bad.

I watched it come in on radar. Eventually, it poured. But the wind didn’t kick up as much as I expected it to and there wasn’t even that much thunder and lightning. It passed through pretty quickly.

What I like about a good, hard rain is how washed off everything seems when it’s over. I went over the aft deck and wiped everything down with a rag. I got up on the bow and wiped down the windows. I got up on the command bridge and wiped down the seat and the horizontal services around the instruments. Those parts of the boat were now clean.

At least until my next cruise day.

The Shopping Fiasco

I had a growing list of items I needed to buy for the boat that included both food and non-food items. That meant a trip to Walmart and that meant Uber.

I was in the car on Saturday morning, halfway to Walmart when I realized that I didn’t have any cash or my credit card. I’d put on a clean pair of pants and had left them behind in the other pants. Most Walmarts had tap-to-pay at checkout and I asked the driver if they had that at this Walmart, too. He said he was sure they did. Fine. I’d pay with my phone.

I spent about an hour adding a wide range of things to my cart, from wiper blades and a RV washing brush to milk and eggs. And when I got to the check out area, I discovered that they didn’t have tap to pay. They had Walmart pay, which used an app.

I downloaded the app. I linked it to my Walmart account, which already had my credit card information. It didn’t work.

I left the cart full of stuff at the service desk, went outside, and called another Uber to take me back. I wound up spending $30+ on round trip cab fare to come back empty-handed.

Yeah. I was pissed. I won’t make that mistake again.

Later that day, I took my bike with its little trailer to the Publix supermarket about a mile away. I bought the groceries I needed, brought them back to the boat, and called it good.

There are still items I had in that Walmart cart that I haven’t actually bought yet.

More on Saturday

Saturday’s also the day I took my bike to a restaurant called The Aegean, which served, as you might expect, Greek food. Kim from Pony had highly recommended it and she was right — it was good. I had the usual — a gyro sandwich — and it was probably the best I’d had in a long time. Good home cooking.

I also spent a bunch of time updating my personal and business finances — I keep track of everything on Quicken on my laptop — and paying the sales tax for my jewelry business.

After shopping, I packed up my bike and got everything else ready for departure the next day.

We had a nice sunset on Saturday. This is looking across the bay toward Ocean City.

I watched some TV in bed and fell asleep long before midnight.

The fireworks woke me. I got up for a look outside. I could see them in the distance in two directions. This was probably when I most regretted not staying in Destin; fireworks at the beach would have been nice.

Waiting for Departure

In the morning, I woke to a thick fog that hid everything in a white haze. It was pretty clear that I wasn’t going to leave anytime soon.

I chatted with the folks in Seahorse. They also wanted to leave that morning but were not interested in going out in the fog.

I had more fog experience than I ever wanted — read about the week after leaving Green Turtle Bay starting on December 6 — but I also didn’t want to stay at Two Georges another night. So I hung around the boat at the marina, waiting for it to lift, filling time with boat chores. I decided early on that if I didn’t leave by 1 PM, I’d stay.

The fog was pretty thick when I woke up on New Year’s Day.

Meanwhile the fog thinned and then thickened, rose and then fell. It wasn’t what I’d call patchy. It was more like there was patchy areas of clearness around the fog. The sun was trying hard to break through and I knew it would.

I made a boat captain decision.

With the fog partially lifted at 1 PM, I untied my boat and motored away from the marina, radar on. It looked as if I’d be getting more fog and radar experience.

(continued in Shalimar to Santa Rosa Beach, FL)