Day 36 - Panama City to Apalachicola -

Time to leave Panama City for Apalachicola.  We returned the rental car and called a cab to drive us back to the marina.  Another non-native “local”, Julian, our driver, was from Queens, NY and told us all about himself on the ride back.  We left the slip at 10:12 am and were soon on the Gulf where we found the water very tolerable with 1 and 2 foot waves.  We had to stay a good distance off shore as we are passing “restricted areas”, “missile testing areas’, and “dumping” areas.  The first two restricted areas are no doubt connected to Tyndall Air Force Base, which is located here.  There are no buildings visible on the shore line of the restricted areas.

We could have taken the ICW to Apalachicola, but the Captain wanted to check out the Gulf waters because we plan to cross the Gulf to Clearwater on Friday.  By going this route, we can go through Port St. Joe’s Bay and have lunch at Port St. Joe’s marina.  In the bay, we passed what appears to be a small salvage rig on a fixed platform.  We also see more dolphin!  The marina restaurant has an outdoor porch and tiki bar and we sat outside and enjoyed the sun while we ate.  

 

 

Port St. Joe is connected with the ICW by a 5 mile long canal and we traveled through it, passing a fleet of shrimp boats, some kind of loading facility, and two large vessels with pontoons.  Their names were the Neckton Pilot and the Neckton Rorqual and they are twin hull liveaboard cruisers for divers.  They cruise to the Bahamas and through the Mona Passage, which is between Hispanolia and Puerto Rico.

 

 



 



For the first mile or so of the canal the shores are sand dunes, then become wooded.  There were a number of small fishing boats and then, we finally saw our first eagle of the trip!  We entered the ICW and head east, through Lake Wimico.  The lake is very shallow and it is important to stay in the marked channel.  The lake leads us into the Apalachicola River and we start to see homes on the bank.  There is a rusty railroad swing bridge close to town that stays open unless a train has to cross the river.  I would not want to be on those trains – the bridge looks like it could crumble at any moment!

 

We reached Apalachicola Marina at 5pm ET – we have now changed time zones.  We fuel up before the fuel dock closes (at 5:30) and the marina tells us we can stay tied up there because we are planning to leave early in the morning.  We have 155 nautical miles to go across the Gulf and want to make sure we have plenty of daylight. 

It was dark before we could explore the town but we could still make out the 100 year old buildings that now house shops and restaurants.  There appears to be a lot more here than downtown Panama City.  Across from the marina is a place called The Tin Shed – Nautical Décor.  We could see in and it is loaded with all kinds of stuff such as crab pot markers, wooden pirates, signs, etc.  Too bad it was closed.  There are also more holiday decorations and lights than in Panama City.  We ate dinner at Boss Oyster, whose claim to fame is that it harvests oysters from Apalachicola Bay, refrigerates them on board the boat (instead of putting them on ice), then takes them right to the dock and into the restaurant.  Boss Oyster has 1 of only 2 harvesters currently certified by the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Commission.  We had baked oysters with several different toppings and they were very good.  Another diner questioned whether the oysters really were local, because she had them before and these did not “have the taste”, according to her.  We can’t say as we have never had them before, but we enjoyed them regardless – and the seafood gumbo that followed.

 

A golden moon was rising behind the boat as we walked back to the dock, so beautiful.  We wish for calm seas for our crossing in the morning.