Santa Rosa Beach to Panama City, FL

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January 2, 2023: More fog (of course), a very boring trip down a long canal, a talkative tow driver, and a refueling stop — with shipwrecks all along the way.

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(continued from Shalimar to Santa Rosa Beach, FL)

I woke to fog. My brain’s response was: oh, no, not again.

I made my coffee and got back into bed to drink it, do my morning puzzles and social media, and cuddle with my dogs.

An hour or two later, it was still foggy. I got dressed, fed my pups, reminded them about the green mat, and did my dinner dishes. (One of the mazing things about my boat is how long the hot water stays hot, even without running the engine or a water heater overnight.) The sailboat still parked north of me, closer to the bridge, drifted in and out of view. A fishing boat came within 50 yards of my bow, fished for a while, and motored silently away.

The fog outside at 7:52 AM — not quite dawn yet. You can just about see the bridge.

A zoomed-in view of the fog outside at 8:17 AM. At this point, the sun has come up. Can you see the sailboat near the bridge?

I dressed, neatened things up, and basically got ready for my day. I had a long cruise ahead of me, with a fuel stop that I most likely planned to take advantage of a cheap fuel price instead of actually needing fuel. I didn’t want to waste time waiting for fog to lift.

But there I was, doing just that.

Getting Under Way

By 10 AM, it had cleared up enough to get under way.

I started the engine and got my pups situated upstairs on the command bridge. Then I went back down to pull the anchor in.

It went remarkably smoothly. I had the technique down pat: pull in enough rode to tighten the line, wait until the boat moves and settles, and then pull in more rode and wait again. Repeat this until the chain is straight down into the water under the bow. At this point, the anchor should be sitting directly below the bow, waiting to come up. Pull it up watching for mud. If there’s mud on the chain and the current doesn’t make the boat drift into a bad place, let the chain down and then pull it up so it gets a bit cleaned on the way. Repeat this until the anchor locks into place.

On that morning, there was hardly any current or wind so the boat barely moved once the anchor was off the bottom. There was some mud and I tried to clean it as I brought it in. When it was in place, I hurried back to the upstairs helm, put the boat in gear, and steered out the way I’d come. I gave the sailboat plenty of space; I suspected they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. For all I knew, they could still be asleep.

It was 10:20 AM.

The Canal

The day started out mostly cloudy but with just a light chop on the water. I set the boat’s RPM to give me about 7.5 knots.

I followed the channel under the bridge and continued following it to the end of the bay. Although it looked at first as if the waterway just ended there, the markers continued forward. Following them put me into a narrow canal that cut a curvy path, steep-sided path through a scrubby Florida forest.

An hour had passed since leaving my anchorage.

I passed a parked tow with two refueling barges on one side of the channel. I passed fishermen coming or going or fishing in small, mostly modest bass or center console fishing boats. I also passed more than one wrecked boat, slumped alongside the canal. (I had no idea then how many wrecks I’d pass in the weeks to come.) The surface of the water had tiny, wind-driven waves and echoed wake.

The canal was incredibly dull. It reminded me of the first 20 or 30 miles of the Tenn-Tom Waterway, where it cut through Kentucky to join Pickwick Lake with the Tombigbee River. A ditch filled with water. If it was tidal or had a current, I couldn’t tell.

So about an hour and 15 minutes into it, after cruising at 7.5 knots, I pushed the throttle forward from 2000 RPM to 2800 RPM. My speed climbed to 12.2 knots.

Now, I keep track of my RPM, speed, and fuel consumption in my log as I travel. Of course, speed and nautical miles per gallon are affected by currents and wind, but over time, I’m getting a handle on what speeds are most efficient for my boat. My logbook for that day includes an experiment in the canal. Here’s the data I recorded:

RPM	Speed (in knots)	Gallons per Hour	Nautical Miles per Gallon
2000	7.2	4.1	1.8
2400	8.4	6.8	1.2
2600	9.5	8.6	1.1
2800	11.4	9.6	1.2
3000	14.4	11.2	1.3
3200	16.0	12.8	1.25

Understand that all this data is calculated for me by my engine computer talking to my chartplotters. The engine knows the RPM and how much fuel it’s burning. The chartplotters know how fast I’m going and can do the math. I’m just taking notes.

Now I know someone is going to come along and tell me that these numbers aren’t possible. That fuel economy for a non-planing boat depends on the length of the hull, etc., etc. I’m just reporting what the boat told me. And I have a theory.

My theory is this: the faster I go, the more my boat rises out of the water. Although it never actually planes, the more it’s out of the water, the less drag there is. This is what’s making my boat more efficient at certain higher speeds than at certain lower speeds. I seem to hit sweet spots at 2000 RPM and below and then at 2800 RPM and above. (For the record, the guys at a Volvo engine seminar I took in September said the engine “loves to drive all day” at 80% to 90% RPM; 2800 RPM is 80%.)

So if you were driving along in a very boring canal and you knew that you could get more speed and better fuel economy driving at 14 knots than 8 knots, what would you do? Obviously, I boosted it to 3000 RPM starting about two thirds of the way down that canal.

The only time I slowed down was when a giant — and I do mean giant — sport fishing boat came roaring down the canal toward me, driving up a wake that you could have surfed on. Do you think he would have slowed down before passing me in a canal only about 100 feet wide? If you do, you’d be wrong. AIS clocked this shit-for-brains driving Blue Marlin at 29 knots. I turned into the wake as soon as he passed and still had the boat rocking bad enough to send things flying inside the cabin.

Welcome to Florida, home of the inconsiderate boaters.

West Bay

The canal ended as abruptly as it had started, dumping me into what’s apparently called West Bay. There were channel markers guiding boaters through a cut in the shallows for about 4 miles. Then it was wide open with a light, probably wind-driven chop. By this time, it was a beautiful, sunny day with big puffy clouds on the horizon and no sign at all of fog.

It had become a beautiful day. There weren’t many boats on the bay, although if you have really sharp eyes, you might be able to see the tow coming at me in this picture.

I saw a tow up ahead on AIS while I was still in the channel. I made a call to him on 16 and then on 13 when I was 1.4 miles out. I got no response. He was coming toward me. I assumed he was ignoring me — at least two other tow operators had done that on my way through the Inland Rivers. When we got a lot closer to each other and I was in position to pass port to port, he called me on the radio. He must have used binoculars to get my boat name because I still wasn’t on AIS.

“Did you see me coming?” he asked, sounding more than a little annoyed.

“Yes, I did,” I told him. “I have AIS. I called you when you were about 1.4 miles out.”

“Oh,” he said. “That’s probably when I was on the radio with the Coast Guard.”

And then he started asking me about my boat and how I liked it and telling me that he’d been thinking about a boat like mine. It turned into a friendly chat. I’m thinking that we must have been on channel 13 because conversations like that on 16 can really piss off the Coast Guard.

By that time, we’d already passed each other. We said our goodbyes, wishing each other safe travels.

I followed the ICW markers as they turned south and I passed under the Hathaway bridge. The tide must have been coming in because I was facing a 4 knot current, according to a current marker on my chartplotters. Now I was in St Andrew Bay, where an inlet offers access to the Gulf of Mexico. I had one stop to make before I got to my marina in Panama City.

Crossing St. Andrews Sound to Panama City, FL.

The Fuel Stop

Thinking back on this day, it’s hard to figure out why I stopped for fuel. After all, I only took on 25 gallons in a 145 gallon tank. I vaguely remember it having to do with fuel price; looking up the price of fuel today, I can see that it’s $3.32/gallon including tax. That’s about $2/gallon cheaper than the average price where I am now. And that’s in Florida where nothing is cheap.

So I apparently wanted to top off my tank to take advantage of a good deal on fuel.

The deal was at St. Andrews Marina, which offered fuel but no dockage. I’d called ahead and was given some vague instructions on where I was supposed to go. It wasn’t until I was abeam the fuel dock that I saw it. It would require me to dock against a wall and then climb a ladder to get to the top of the dock wall where the fuel pumps were. There was no one there to assist me. I came in slowly, brought the boat to a near stop against the wall, and then hurried down to grab a line and secure the boat. I had already dropped the fenders on the starboard side before coming in to dock, so I was ready.

No one came out. They knew I was coming. I told them I was 10 minutes out. But no one came out.

I let my dogs loose up on what turned out to be solid land, complete with buildings and a parking lot. I went inside to get assistance. What I got was a guy asking me what pump I was using and taking my credit card. Then he went back to talking with the other two guys in there with him. No one came out to help.

Okay. Cheap fuel. Crappy service.

I went back out, fetched the dogs, put them back on the boat, and got to work with the hose and the pump. While I pumped, a man came over and admired the boat. “Ranger Tug,” he said. “I only see about 10 of those a year.”

“They’re very popular in the Pacific Northwest,” I told him as I worked.

I pumped 25 gallons. Then I went back up into the office to finish the transaction and take my credit card. When I was finished, I went back outside, started the engine, cast off, and departed. The whole experience had been very unsatisfactory. Not worth it to save money on just 25 gallons.

Docking at Bristol Harbor Marina

While most of the Loopers going to Panama City were docked at one of the swanky (and expensive) marinas in the Grand Lagoon west of the city, I’d opted for a marina that was right downtown. I wanted to go to the city and I didn’t want a $30 Uber ride to get there. That’s how I wound up booking a night at a Bristol Harbor Marina which had just one transient parking spot.

But first I had to get under the Tarpon Dock Bascule Bridge.

The trouble was, neither the bridge nor the marina appeared as Waterway Guide POIs in my copy of Aqua Map. So I didn’t have info for the bridge. I consulted my marina confirmation email. Channel 9, it said. The bridge operator opens on demand, but only if you call on channel 9.

So I got on channel 9 and called. The bridge operator agreed to open the bridge and told me to stand by.

The bridge, when opened, was the narrowest bridge I’d been through yet. My boat is 10 feet wide and I seriously doubt the bridge opening was more than 20 feet wide. I eased through and found myself in tiny Masslina Bayou which had a bunch of docks crammed into what seemed like a very small space. I called the marina for instructions.

Seth, who answered the phone, told me to come around the boats on my port side. When I’d come 180° around, my slip would be right in front of me. I did what I was told and saw a bunch of boats parked very close together with very short finger piers between pairs of boats. There weren’t any open slips.

Or was there? It seemed that the gap between two of the boats was bigger than the other gaps.

“Right in front of the building?” I asked.

“Yes, that’s it. I’d come help you but I’m in Tennessee right now on jury duty.”

“Is that wide enough for me?” I asked.

“You said you were 10 feet, right?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You have plenty of space. The slip is 12 feet wide.”

I thanked him and hung up. I then did a dumb thing: I nosed the boat into the slip.

I actually had it all the way into the slip and one of its lines tied to one of the big posts alongside the boat when I realized that there was no way in hell I’d be able to get on and off the boat with it parked like that. The finger piers were just too short. No part of the boat was close enough for me to step onto the one beside the boat. I’d have to back in.

So I untied the boat and backed it out of the slip. And then I turned the boat around and backed it in.

How I did this without hitting anything is still a mystery to me. The space was very tight all around. It think it was the fact that the boat right next to me had fenders down that made it easier; a light tap wouldn’t hurt anything. And the fact that there was no wind and no current in the bayou or marina. And maybe the fact that I really didn’t have a choice: I had to back the boat in and I had to do it myself. The phrase “man up” comes to mind.

Someone did appear just as I got the boat where I wanted it to be. It was one of the live-aboards. He took one of the lines and tied it for me. Then he just disappeared.

I finished tying up the boat so it would stay put. As I lifted my pups out onto the dock, I felt very glad to be done traveling for the day.

My Nebo log for January 2, 2023. Download a PDF log file with more info. Track Do It Now on Nebo.

(continued in At Panama City, FL)