Working Our Way to Apalachicola Fl. Mobile Bay crossing, Orange Beach, Little Sabine, Fort Walton Beach, St Andrews

Notice, bird and pumpkin

Blue Willow had a tuned up prop and new Cutlass Bearing, thus, it was time to move on.  We crossed Mobile Bay (with Freedom), from the Central West portion of Mobile Bay, and proceeded to the Gulf Inter Costal Waterway (GICW) at the southeast portion of Mobile Bay.  The mini crossing was uneventful.  As we entered the GICW  it is refered to as the Grand Canyon.  Good description as it was a mini mini representation, and surprised me as to its beauty.

We then saw some very friendly  good looking shrimp boats.

TaTa, Patroit, on the trail

MADE IT!!!!

Something about touching the ocean.
Sweet water kid meets the salt water
of the Gulf of Mexico.

Did not see any of these.

We proceeded to the Wharf Marina in Orange Beach (still on the GICW).  Nice marina, great surroundings.  I got my first haircut since July.  I took a nice bike ride with Patroit and TaTa to the OCEAN!!  what fun.  It seemed to be an accomplishment, traveling from Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico.  Along the trail we tried to get a glimpse of alligators, but none were around.  Signs did indicate the 'wildlife sightings'.

WOW, are you serious?
Michigan to Florida IS
Possible via boat!!

Greetings, and welcome to Florida!

Florida, another milestone.  We were greeted by the Blue Angles practicing for a show at their home base in Pensacola FL.  Pretty cool to have a personal show (kinda).

The dolphins made for a very entertaining cruise along the GICW  (does one every get tired of seeing them?, near their vessel?).

Morning in Little Sabine

Perfect picture for morning coffee

Jim and Connie perfecting their
Knot skills.

We anchored out in Little Sabine.  What an awesome setting.  Calm, great temps.  It was so nice the next morning, we spent extra time just relaxing and having fun.

Free Docks at Ft Walton.
Site of the Daisy Backflip

We then motored to FT Walton, and stayed at the free dock.  With us were: Patroit, Freedom, Karty Party, and Aunt Aggie. We ate at Magnolias, Vicki and I had a favorite dinner,... Seafood stuffed Flounder. YUM!  Daisy had an incident while at Ft Walton.  First, let me say that we worry about her slipping off the docks, furthermore, where and how  does she go to get back up from the water?  Well you must have guessed it, she fell in.  She tried to exit the boat by jumping onto the dock, she slipped, and  did a backwards summersault, into the water.  Thankfully there was a ramp close by.

This dude, gave me several free oysters
as I tried to learn his technique of
Shucking

Do you like these?
Not as good as Baltimore Oysters!

Dinner!

Next stop was St Andrews for Oysters.  We met Freedom, and Patroit for dinner.  With Freedom was a good boating friend Al.  Al made a joke about Vicki, me, and raw oysters (remind me some day, and I will tell you the joke).  Vicki ate her first steamed Oysters...she liked them. I ate a dozen raw with hush puppies, good times!

Daisy Loves Connie
(Zoom in).

Captains meeting, as usual
with Daisy in the middle

Funny

Apalachicola, was our next stop.  Great oyster and tourist community, what a nice surprise.  We were docked away from the marina, thus they gave us a golf cart to use, fun.  We did the tourist thing, there are oyster shells for landscape materials, for filling in pot holes in on gravel roads, the 'gravel' for a road, sacks of shells in the back of trucks,  and there were piles over 12 feet high near the processing plants.  We met several other loopers who were planning their staging points and determining their crossing window.  This is serious business, so many discussions were very detailed, it was fun to get different opinions (FYI, the next bolg entry will be about the Crossing).  During our  last day at Apalachicola  we purchased Fresh shrimp and Flounder (guess what we made?).






Thanks for taking time (from work?) to look at our Blog.  As I post this, the temps are quite cold here, but nothing like other areas, including Petoskey, Michigan.   4-8 inches snow, today, 2-5 tonight, 15-25 MPH winds with gusts to 40. and a high of 19.
I like the snow, but I am not missing it much right now!!!