The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Yesterday and today was a tale of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

On the good side, we anchored late on Saturday after picking up Pam at Panama City at a beautiful anchorage at Searcy Creek Oxbow.- an incredibly quiet, serene place that had fish jumping near the boat in the morning.

On the bad side, we were looking for a place to pump out our holding tank before beginning the Gulf crossing later on Sunday. We found a pump out location at a municipal marina in Apalachicola but it was quirky and had a difficult valve to open. Dave managed to open the valve before the hose was seated in the boat opening. The result was that we both got sprayed with “effluent” from our holding tank. This is an interactive blog (for today) so feel free to insert the poopy joke of your choice here.

Finally, the ugly. The Gulf crossing was a nightmare! NOAA marine forecast called for 1-2 foot waves and 5-10 kts of wind which we felt made the crossing of the Gulf doable and comfortable. It wasn’t bad until about 1 AM when I thought about renaming the boat “SS Minnow”. Waves were more in the 4-6 foot range and the winds were around 25 kts. Pam was wondering what she signed up for! Everything that was loose ended up on the deck and even things that were stowed away broke loose. It was not a pleasant trip and none of us ever want to do anything like that ever again.

Our “Home” for the night at Tarpon Springs

Dinner tonight - Courtesy of Pam

Me washing salt spray off the boat. Why are the only pics of me from the rear?

Another beautiful sunset