On the road again......

We are away, slipping the lines at dawn Thursday morning. We raised sails just past the Dog River bridge and romped along at 7 knots through Mobile Bay. All was well.....until the wind died, for the first time in a month.

De Anne said "OK, now we see what YOUR electric motor can do". It was all theory up to this point. I turned it on, powered up to 20amps (50 amps is max) and started the Honda 2000 generator. I plugged it into our shorepower recepticle and turned on the battery charger. Theory worked in practice! We motored into the IWW (intercoastal water way) and to our first anchorage in Ingram's Bayou AL, covering 44 miles - 11 under sail and 33 under power.

We saw our first pod of dophins in Wolf's Bay on the IWW. 10 minutes of dophins along side made the whole day worthwhile.

Even though the forecast was bad for Friday, it started calm and clear. It was only 12 miles to our next planned anchorage. Mother Nature took umbrage at our attempt to sneak in a few extra miles by hitting us an hour later with 15 knots on the nose and a foul current. Our 12 miles took 5 hours. The anchorage was behind Red Fish point in Big Lagoon just west of Penscola FL. The crusing guide stated it was a good anchorage for every thing but a north wind. We had been fighting an east wind all day, but of course once the sun went down the wind shifted - from the north. Oh, the wnd speed increased to 25-30 knots too. I was confident in our oversized Bruce anchor with 100 feet of chain out and went to bed. De Anne stayed up to play "What's that sound?". With all the rocking and rolling, rain, and howling wind she was quite busy identifying many new creaks and groans. After a few hours I got up and checked the anchor. Things were settling down a bit and likewise De Anne.

The next morning, after listening to a bad marine forecast, I came up with the idea of getting a slip in Penscola Harbor. De Anne was happy to stay on anchor, but allowed me to decide. I chose comfort. I started to raise the anchor, but had to stop every 4 feet to scrub mud off the chain. Gentle Reader, if you are squemish stop reading now - I have decided to raise the anchor from now on naked. This Florida mud is the most sticky, gooey mess I have ever touched. I haven't gotten this dirty since it was intentional as a boy. I'm glad laundry isn't on my job description.

We dodged a few barges and reached the marina in early afternoon. We are docked in a new, posh (expensive) marina with floating docks, dock boys, and lots of expensive yachts like the floating palace below:




We will stay here a couple days until the next good weather window, then head to Destin and on to Panama City. We are having a blast - living the dream.