A few more from my trip Carrabelle to Destin, mostly taking the ICW as this was the maiden voyage upon my new purchase. It was a great adventure.
The night before we departed from The Moorings in Carrabelle, FL.
Passing under Bryant Patton Bridge (Hwy 300)
Foul weather the night before caused some submerged pipe to break and float to the surface. We had the work crew give us an escort through the mess.
In Apalachicola, FL we spent the first night at Apalachicola Marina
While there I replaced the anchor light since the next leg was going to be on anchor.
Thanks to Mike, who graciously loaned me the bosun's chair and muscle to get my big butt up the mast. Mike was at the marina on his 40ft boat waiting for a weather window to head south to the islands (I'm jealous!)
The next day we headed west on the ICW and this was a pit stop at White City.
Chillin on the bow.
We didn't take many photos from the next leg of the trip, don't know why but we made it to Panama City and stayed at Sun Harbor Marina (great place) for a few days where we had a crew change and we left Sun Harbor Marina and continued west on the ICW.
WOW they pass so close. As we exited West Bay and the channel funneled down into what appeared to be a single lane highway we had a huge barge (maybe not huge but it sure seemed so) come up from behind us. The fun part of this story actually occured 2 minutes prior to taking this photo...As we saw this barge bear down upon us I chose to hug the starboard side of the channell, well as luck would have it we ran aground and stopped dead in the water...can we say "OH $h!t"... ran below hailed the captain on Ch 16 and he replied that he would slow down. It was the longest 30 seconds as I reversed and finally broke free but not before the boat turned around completely and faced the barge (the rudder was stuck in the mud or something). With about 1 minute before he was on top of us I was able to turn the boat around and hold a straight coarse as he passed us. Whew, that was way too close.
Surprisingly there wasn't much of a wake, I was prepared for a rocking though.
Our welcoming committee as we entered Choctawachee Bay.
We anchored on the southeastern end of the Hwy 83 bridge. Burned some steaks and put
down a few hard earned cold brewskies.
Up early and headed out on the last leg of our trip to Destin where the boat will sit for a month until my next window to get it the rest of the way to New Orleans eventually.