January 5, 2023: I make a detour off the Gulf ICW to visit a marina rebuilt after Hurricane Michael.
(continued from At Panama City, FL)
For some reason, on the morning of January 5, as I was preparing to leave Panama City, I got this idea in my head that I wanted to document a full “day in the life” for my cruise to Port St. Joe. In addition to flying my drone, which I discussed in the previous blog post, I shot a bunch of video with my iPhone that’s only mildly interesting. One of these days, I might edit it and get it online; if I do, I’ll add it to this blog post since that’s where it belong.
But today is not that day.
In any case, after flying my drone and putting it away, I unplugged, stowed my power cable, made sure everything was secure, and cast off. With no wind or current to speak of, it was an easy enough departure straight out from the slip. I called the bascule bridge operator on Channel 9, asked him to open the bridge, and waited while he did so. Then I headed out into Saint Andrew Bay, joining up with and then following the channel markers for the Gulf ICW eastbound.
The Cruise
My pups and I sat up top on the command bridge. The bimini top was still closed up; I’d become paranoid about it turning into a sail in the wind. Besides, although it was warm, we didn’t need shade. The sun felt amazing.
Here we are, under way up on the command bridge. As usual, my pups went right to sleep.
Back home, it had been brutally cold with even more snow than the winter before. My chickens had stopped laying eggs, despite the lights in their coop and yard. I felt horrible for my house-sitters having to deal with the weather there. But being in Malaga in the winter was their choice. All I could do was check in occasionally and not tell them how perfect the weather was on the Florida panhandle.
The channel zigged and zagged, but not annoyingly so. I used heading hold on my autopilot to keep the boat pointed in the right direction. I’d forgotten to bring my log book upstairs with me so I didn’t take any note until we arrived:
Rode in Command Bridge all day. Perfect weather, smooth water until Port St. Joe.
Cruised at 2200 RPM for most of trip. Upped to 3000 RPM for about 30-45 minutes.
(2200 RPM, depending on the current and wind, would give me about 7 to 8 knots of speed. 3000 RPM would give me about 14 knots.)
There were homes along the north side of Saint Andrews Bay. It was a gorgeous day.
Saint Andrew Bay turned into East Bay after the Dupont Bridge. Although the channel was pretty narrow and ran almost right down the middle of the bays, there was some relatively deeper water on either side, at least for a while. Then it got shallow quickly as it reached the shores. There were a handful of anchorages on the chart, mostly at the mouths of tributary creeks.
Then, about 15 nautical miles into the cruise, the body of water narrowed to the wide Wetappo Creek with the narrow ICW channel that had likely been dredged out of the sand and mud on either side of it. Finally, that narrowed down to just the dredged creek, with twists and turns shortcutted by dredged canals.
The first of many grounded “houseboats” I’d see in this part of Florida.
This was a lot like the canal I’d been in between Choctawhatchee Bay and West Bay a few days before: a deep cut with scrubby trees on both sides. There was one spot where it went through an area of homes on and near the water and I had to slow down to prevent my wake from annoying people. Then it continued through more of nothing. That’s when I punched up the speed.
There was a small community with some docks right on the canal.
There were two boats ahead of me on Nebo, but, for the life of me, I can’t remember which ones. I know that I’d seen them before in the area and I’m pretty sure they were traveling together. They were also traveling slower than I was so eventually, I could see one of them in the distance. I slowed back down. My turn to the south was coming up and I didn’t want to pass one or both of them just before making the turn.
If you look closely, you can see the boat up ahead of me in the canal.
The turn came at MM 327.7. It was a perfectly straight canal that ran southwest from the Gulf ICW to Saint Joseph Bay, a body of water somewhat protected by a long strip of land that reminded me a lot of Cape Cod. There was a marina right before the end of the canal, but that wasn’t the one I wanted. I wanted the one in its own sheltered cove, the one that had been completely destroyed by Hurricane Michael in 2018 and was almost done being rebuilt better than ever now.
There was a weird marine facility right after the turn and then the canal settled in to a straight, narrow waterway. I headed southwest and I admit that I gunned the engine again to make time. I wanted to be there — I had only one night in the area and hoped to visit the town before dark. The only time I slowed down was when I got near fishing boats. My wake, when I’m doing 12 to 15 knots, is brutal, with huge swells that can really make things dicey on a small boat. So I slow down to minimize that wake when there are small boats around. I wish more of the bigger boats that passed me would do the same.
I have no idea what these boats were for. They were parked alongside the canal near the mouth of a basin where a marina facility was based.
Then I was near the end of the canal, where grounded boats littered the starboard side of the waterway. The crazy thing is, they’d probably been there for five years — since Hurricane Andrew hit in October 2018. I passed some large commercial fishing boats and the entrance to that other marina, which honestly didn’t look very welcoming at all. Then I drove under a tall bridge and into Saint Joseph Bay.
One of the dozens of wrecks I’ve seen so far on this trip.
Fishing boats near the bay end of the canal.
Arriving at Point South Marina
I honestly expected the bay to be a calm, well-sheltered area, but it was not. Distances on the charts didn’t correspond to what I was seeing. It wasn’t a small bay; it was a very large one. That protective strip of land separating the bay from the Gulf of Mexico was five miles away. There was a strong wind coming from the Gulf and across the Bay and it was growing two-foot swells that I now had to drive into.
Fortunately, I only had a short distance to go. Unfortunately, a portion of that would be with my side to the swells. So the boat rocked and rolled considerably as I covered the last mile or so at a slower speed than I would have liked to. Then we turned toward the entrance to the marina. I slipped through the narrow channel between the breakwater and land across from it and it was as if someone had turned off the waves.
Inside the protected area, I brought the boat to a near stop. I had no idea where to go. I hadn’t been able to raise anyone on the radio. There was some sort of dredging operation going on ahead of me on the starboard side. On the port side, floating docks were bunched up against each other, still not installed. There was a building on shore just beyond the dredging operation and I saw a fuel dock. I headed for it in forward idle.
I tried the radio again. This time, someone answered. Even though I’d called ahead and had been assured they’d have space for me, no one was expecting me. They directed me to the fuel dock. I moved over slowly, avoiding the dredging operation. Two dockhands appeared. I brought my starboard side up against the floating dock gently. The two guys took lines and started tying the boat up. Around then is when I realized that they didn’t know what they were doing.
They were new.
The marina was barely open. I would be their first overnight guest.
I didn’t care. I was just glad to be done for the day, especially after the last half hour’s rough water.
Here’s my Nebo log for January 5, 2023. Download a PDF log file with more info. Track Do It Now on Nebo.
At Port St. Joe
The marina’s main business is storing, launching, and retrieving pleasure boats — mostly center console fishing boats 30 feet or shorter. They had a huge metal building with racks to store the boats. (I know I haven’t shown this yet in this blog, but I promise to show it soon.) They had to pull one more boat out of the water before the end of the day so I stayed parked at the fuel dock until they were done. Then we pulled my boat onto an adjacent dock — the staging dock for those boats — in case someone came in for fuel. Then we managed to plug me into the only working pedestal so I’d have shore power for the night.
After taking my pups for a quick walk, we went inside a brand new office/marina store that was filled to the brim with logo merchandise. Everything was very nice — definitely upscale. I paid a bit more than I wanted to for the overnight accommodations. I was told where to find the laundry room and rest rooms and shower. And then I was left alone.
Well, not exactly alone. The dredging guys were messing around with their equipment before calling it quits for the day. The marina guys were playing with their big, boat-lifting forklifts. The woman in the logo merchandise shop was waiting for someone to come in.
They played around with their dredging equipment long after they’d finished dredging.
They use forklifts like this to lift boats out of the water and put them on shelves inside boat storage buildings. You can see the building behind him.
I got the leashes for my pups and took them on a long walk down the road that went past the marina and onto the breakwater there. It was still very early — probably about 3 PM. Sunset was a while away. But I could tell that this was the place to watch the sun set.
We went back to the boat. I did some paperwork and cleaned up the cabin. I made a snack. Eventually, I fed my pups. Then I put their leashes back on and we walked back to the breakwater to watch the sunset.
I got into a conversation with a young couple that had arrived on fat tire bicycles. The woman really liked Rosie and Rosie really liked the attention the woman gave her. I suspect this is when Rosie realized that any stranger she went to would pet her because after that, she went to every stranger we met.
I watched the sun descend into the horizon. I took photos. I tried to get artistic.
The remains of an old pier stood on the bay side of the breakwater. It made an interesting foreground for sunset shots. Or not.
By the time I got back to the boat, everyone was gone. The place was deserted. My boat was the only one there and there was no one else around.
Oysters three ways.
I put my pups into the boat, grabbed a jacket, and headed out on foot into town. It was a short walk — maybe a half mile — to the restaurant that had been recommended to me: the Uptown Raw Bar & Grill. I wasn’t terribly hungry — I’d snacked, after all — but I wanted oysters. So I sat at the bar and ordered oysters 3 ways: grilled, baked, and raw.
Meanwhile, there was a couple sitting at the bar next to me and as I ate my oysters, they had two more trays of raw oysters served to them — next to the four empty trays of oysters they’d already eaten. So when I felt like more after my stinky little sampler, I ordered another dozen raw ones. That took care of me for the night.
I walked back in the dark. It looked like a nice town, but I suspect that all the shops had closed up at 5 PM. I wouldn’t have time to visit them in the morning; I had to be in Apalachicola the next afternoon to meet up with Kim and Ted in Pony, who had finally continued their trip.
Maybe I’d be back one day.
(continued in Port St. Joe to Apalachicola, FL)
