August 5, 2007
Near Pensacola, FL
Our Route from Port St. Joe to Pensacola, FL
and good riddance!
The Gulf is now at the top of my list as the worst body of water ever, easily beating out places like the Delaware Bay and Lake Michigan. There was just nothing good about traveling on the Gulf of Mexico.
Yesterday, instead of resting another day in Apalachicola, we decided to take the Intercoastal Waterway and meander over to Port St. Joe to stage ourselves for the last portion of our adventure on the Gulf. We figured the Gulf would calm down some as the storm systems moved on southeast. When we arrived in Port St. Joe, we found the weather was good, so we took on fuel and kept on going.
Port St. Joe Marina – Fuel Stop
As we were coming out of Port St. Joe, we heard a call for Sea Tow from a fishing boat with a dead battery.
“Hey, an opportunity to give some payback for Charlie being so nice to us,” Pat exclaimed. We found Tom and Kenny dead in the water on their Sea Pro center consoled boat. Their battery was so low, they could barely transmit on their marine radio. We pull along side, passed over a couple of beers we weren’t drinking, and waited with them until Sea Tow arrived. They were very appreciative and we figured our luck would change for sure, as the sea gods couldn’t possibly look down upon us with anything but good weather.
Fellow boaters, Tom & Kenny, with a dead battery
But, we were wrong. As always, just call me “Wind-on-Nose” Steve, as the southwest winds predicted by NOAA Weather Radio were pretty much due West – almost on the nose. So, we found ourselves motor-sailing the last 100 miles of our journey to get off the Gulf.
As we got close to Pensacola, the forecasted, soft, fluffy winds got hard and mean – down right nasty, even. We pounded into 4 ft waves for final 8 hours of the trip averaging around 2.5 knots.
But what about our good deeds? What about the beers we gave away to thirsty, desperate sailors? They had no effect on our luck – none, zip, zero, zilch, nada.
Riding the bow wave
Just 20 minutes before putting it all behind us, we were in sight of the Pensacola inlet when my transmission locked up; the gods of the Gulf not letting go of us yet. We tacked off shore while I went below to access the situation. We were a little lucky, as I had us running again in about a half an hour. Of course, that put us into the inlet after dark. We navigated slowly in, both to take it easy on the engine and to make sure we didn’t hit anything on the way. We dropped anchor in “Big Lagoon” on the ICW, just west of the Pensacola inlet at 10:21 p.m. It was a hard won 100 miles that took us twenty eight hours.
Breaching and having fun
I can honestly say, if I lived the rest of my life with out spending another day on the Gulf of Mexico, I’d be perfectly fine with it. The only positive time on the Gulf was when a pod of dolphins rode along in our bow wave, seaming to show us the way. But, I suspect even that may have been some sort of minor diversion to try to make us feel the Gulf “just ain’t that bad.” I’m not buying it. To me, it’s all bad.
– Steve