Day 67: Saturday, November 10, 2012
Port to Port: Wetappo Creek to Apalachicola Bay
Underway: 6:58 am Motor Off: 2:44 pm (EST) Miles Traveled: 36 Stayed At: Marina
First Things First: First frost; first new time zone of the trip.
Mile 314 to Mile 350 : We felt like we woke up in Minnesota this morning. We had our first frost of the trip with a nice coating on the grill cover and cockpit seats. The temperature in the cabin was in the high 40’s which made getting up a little slow but we added an extra layer or two and got going early again on another beautiful travel day.
A light fog made the morning light sparkle brightly over the surrounding scenery. After we started down the main channel, the fog gradually thickened until it became hard to see the sides of the narrow channel. Even though the odds of meeting another boat were slim this early in the morning, we decided to anchor along the channel to let the fog burn off.
Compared to the last couple of days, today was an easy day – “only” 36 miles to Scipio Creek Marina. We spent almost all day traveling through a narrow manmade canal. We enjoyed the closeness of the scenery on both sides of the canal. The scenery is inspiring. There are thousands of photo worthy scenes going by every hour – water birds patiently looking for their next meal, wind sculpted trees hanging on to the cliffs by just a few stubborn roots, open grasslands just past the tree lined banks and the crumpled remnants of old manmade structures – most go by too fast to capture even though we only travel at less than 6 mph but we enjoy the view while it lasts.
One thing that we need to keep remembering in this age of GPS is that even though we can be pretty confident of where we are, that doesn’t mean that the chart is perfectly accurate (many navigation charts are stamped “Not to Be Used for Navigation”). We were passing through Lake Wimico going from buoy to buoy down the marked channel and noticed that the water color changed suddenly to a light brown. The depth read less than 3 feet as we passed over an unexpected shoal. Luckily, Aurora needs less than this to be safe but it was a little exciting for a few minutes hoping the depth would not get any shallower. We also passed into the eastern time zone so, after turning the clocks back a few days ago with the end of daylights savings time, we flipped them back to “normal” time again. For some reason we like the idea of it getting dark at 6:00 pm versus 5:00 pm.
By early afternoon, we arrived at the Scipio Creek Marina at Apalachicola just a little up river from the Gulf of Mexico and the beginning of a new phase of our adventure – crossing the Gulf to the east coast of Florida.
Apalachicola is a quaint little “old Florida” town – part fishing village and part tourist destination. We wandered around town to scope out the shops, restaurants and scenery. We may be here for a few days waiting for a good weather window to travel up Apalachicola Bay to Carabbelle or we may leave early tomorrow morning – you never know what the next day will bring.
We are always on the lookout for other cruisers who may be good sources of local knowledge to make our passages easier and safer. When some people returned to a powerboat with a Looper flag moored across from us, I of course went over to introduce myself and learn more about their adventures. Within minutes of our first meeting, Alan and Jean on “2 If By Sea” (we love that boat name) invited me in and shared some of their vast experience with navigating the Intracoastal Waterway and especially the challenges of crossing the Gulf. They have been cruising the Loop for many years and were very generous with their experiences.
The weather tomorrow looks like it will be good for our relatively short passage to Carabbelle so we made dinner and prepared to leave in the morning – we are only one step away from our big jump across the Gulf.