Cliff Clavin's Promised Land

After arriving late afternoon yesterday, we are finally tucked away at our second staging point in Panama City, Florida. Outside this morning it is a not so Florida tourist board temperature of 35 degrees. Maybe it didn't seem cold to Cliff because he was from Boston.

Biloxi seems like a long time ago. We ended up staying an extra day in Biloxi to wait out the weather, and we left Wednesday to cross Mobile Bay. It gave us a chance to catch up on some chores and sleep, and to grab a hamburger at the Margaritaville there. The weather was nice on Wednesday and we chugged all the way across to a place called Homeport, home of LuLu's, sister of Jimmie Buffett. After a masterful docking job by Heather we walked over. On Pearl Harbor day they were closed for an employee appreciation party. We forced to cook some of the food we bought in New Orleans, and had a nice spaghetti dinner.

The weather for the next day was dicy again, but we decided to go for it. The first few hours we were on the intercoastal and pretty protected so it was cold but not too bad. We met a few barges again in the twilight which was exciting. The wind was really blowing when we got to Pensacola and it was decision time. Many of the bridges from here to Carrabelle are fixed and too short for us,  so we are forced into the gulf. We decided to make the jump from Pensacola to Destin. Because of the wind and our direction we were kicking up quite a bit of spray, which combined with the cold temperature was invigorating, and we were glad to see the markers for Destin. A very shallow entrance, but we docked  six feet from the Margaritaville there. This should be called the Margaritaville tour!

We waited a little bit in the morning for the wind to die down a little, but we needed most of a day to get to Panama City. We fueled up, then headed back out into the cold, wearing everything we owned. The wind was even stronger, but we were headed and the wind was pointed in slightly different directions, so less spray but very rolly. We made our way into the Panama City entrance and over to the marina, dodging dredging equipment and very shallow water. The wind was on our side docking, and we were trying to back in, so we had a couple of close encounters with our neighbors before we finished backing in. This is our boat's home for the next few weeks.