Sad day

Pierre and I have some good friends, David Dykes and his wife Rosemary, they have a 70ft schooner "Nina". They asked us to sail with them a few years ago, but I told Pierre, if they can do it we can too, so we told them no. They set sail a few years ago with their son. I heard they were in New Zealand not to long ago and they were going to sail to Austrailia. They have been lost at sea now for three weeks, I am hoping they will be found. They ran into a bad storm and they have not been heard from since. Every cruisers nightmare.
We are still here in Carrabelle, get things ready for the crossing, we had about 12 things on the board and now we down to 7. Sweet!

Partay

John at the grill

This is John @ the BBQ pit cooking the chicken, we borrowed this from James, he works here at C-Quarters. The party was fun for all, at first the fishermen that hang here stayed at the other end of the dock, but as Keith sang his songs, they wandered over to us. By the end of the night they were singing and hanging out.

Sleeping Inn

We have been so lazy...I slept in till 9am the other morning, we are in fresh water here in Carrabelle so I have not been as worried.

  We are still working on the boat... getting the list smaller and smaller. We walked to the store yesterday and then we went to the "The Fisherman Wife" restaurant for lunch, as we were eating the rain started...and it was a deluge, the lady that works there, her husband works here at the marina, George..she told me she would drive use back, but the rain had let up and we headed back to the boat. When we got back..the cockpit was a awash. So today we took up the teak deck and we found a bunch of rust spots, they were bad! This was not on the list....we fiberglassed them and tomorrow we are going to paint them and replace the teak deck. 

John..he is a couple of boats down from us, invited us to go to dinner with him. He has a car..sweet...he is from Kentucky. He and his wife have a Hans Christian, Cristina, they only made 14 of these boats, they are not double Enders, that was a change for them. But anyway..he took us to a really sweet restaurant, over the bridge.

 Tomorrow we have the BBQ going on the dock and John bought 5lbs of chicken and he is marinating them as we speak..will let you know how it goes!!

What fun!!

We are having a blast here at C-Quarters Marina, our neighbors here are the coolest, they have a 1981 36ft Hunter, and have come all the way from Port Isabelle, Tx. He has a Kareoke Machine on board..yes they do..did i spell that right? Well.. He sings..love it..so we have talked to Kim, and we are going to have a sing-a-long here Saturday night. Ok..Tip jar..Keith...we went to the Doc today and Pierre has some sort of weird sport injury on his knee..yes a sport injury..go figure.. We are going to treat it with Methylpredniolone tablets...Codi is that right? We have to go back tomorrow, and we have to walk there..hmmm..he has a knee problems...but ok...they are going to show us on the x-ray they took today...hey Codi...Tillys are still alive..there was a huge 75ft houseboat that came in yesterday, they are on the way to Tampa to get that houseboat on a ship for a trip to Russia..4 guys...they had NO idea what they were doing...we hope they make it...they had no plan..no live raft..no dingy..and they were drinking!! Sweet..I so love this life...We slept in till 8:30 this morning..I told Pierre, I may never return to land life. When you stop the clock..life just gets sweeter!!

Carrabelle History

Carrabelle's  first post office was founded in 1878. This new federal facility served the fifty families living around the mouth of the Crooked River.
  Lumbering and the timber harvesting industry soon came to be the mainstay of this struggling but optimistic settlement. Vast quantities of logs and loads of turpentine were floated down the river and dispatched aboard sailing vessels, which anchored in the secure coves of Dog Island, hence the name Shipping Cove. The captains of these vessels also left their crew on the Island. Most of their crew were men that had been shanghaied, so they did not want them to run away!
  A severe hurricane in 1898 destroyed much of the town. The lumbering business fell off and the local economy was depressed for a time as the residents strove to rebuild their community a bit farther upstream. The new version of Carrabelle rose on the shores of St James Island, sandwiched between the Crooked and New rivers. The town continues to occupy this site today.
  During WWII, Carrabelle experienced a short lived boom. Camp Gordon Johnston was established five miles out of town and new recruits trained for amphibious landings on the shores of Dog Island.
  Following the war, Carrabelle lapsed more and more into the role of an isolated but charming fishing village. Shrimp, crab and freshwater fish are harvested for sale locally and they are shipped out. Grouper, snapper and other deep water fish are fished offshore. There is also a lot of commercial, charter and recreation fishing.
 This weekend they hosted the Big Bend Saltwater Classic Fishing Tournament.  So we walked down yesterday to see the weighins, they caught some really big fish...today they auctioned them off. It was cool. See ya on the water!

Squirrels in the trees

Pierre and I walked about five miles today, looking for the local doctor, but no luck, we did see a white squirrel in a tree and I got some pictures. I need a better camera! But after we got back to marina, I talked to Kim, she is the local expert here, she told me there is a story about the white squirrels. There was a lady here and she and her son raised white squirrels and sold them as pets, when her son died, she had about 30 of them and she just let them go. Kim has three of them in her back yard. She did help us find the local doctor and loaned us her car to get there, but they do not have a doctor till Monday, so we will go back then...

Hello Carrabelle

After bobbing on the hook for a day in Shipping Cove off Dog Island, we got up yesterday and decided to check out Carrabelle, after fighting the davit that holds the engine, and getting the engine started..we have to fix that...we headed out..the channel here in the river is well marked and very deep. We passed several marinas, one of them had a wonderful porch where there were people sitting in rocking chairs, drinking beer, we waved and motored on. Before you reached the bridge, there is a marina called The Moorings at Carrabelle, we docked the dingy and went inside to talk to the girl in the ships store, we asked her if we could leave the dingy there while we had some lunch, she said no..they where to busy..Hello..we where the only ones there.
So when we got back to the dingy and moved on..I told Pierre, lets go the marina that had the porch...super great place, it is  called C-Quarters Marina. This is large and friendly marina, they have lots of transient dockage and they let us leave our dingy there to go and have lunch. The Fisherman Wife is good restaurant.
 We talked to Kim..who runs this marina..and she told us we could come in and dock and do our repairs, so off we went, back to the boat in the dingy. What a rough ride back, but when we got back, we motored to over to Dog Island and checked it out...neat Island.
This morning we motored up the river to C-Quarters and docked up. After talking to Kim she told us about a marina store downtown and the man ..Jerry..who runs it. So we walked to his shop and he told us he would have our part the next day..cool..we found a museum not to far...it tells the history of Carrabelle so we stopped in, the lady that runs it is very nice and we had a wonderful time talking with her, there is a nice ice cream shop downtowm too so stopped there and had a scoop of cotton candy ice cream...yum...
Back to the boat..we walked to the grocery store to get the stuff I needed for a great dinner...thank you Budget Bites..and we were we stopped by Jerry...he had stopped by the marina to find us and was told where we were are by our neighbors...they are fellow Texans...they are from Port Isabelle Texas...Pierre always says this about... me....you can always tell a Texan..but you can't tell them anything..He not get the part...but he will do everything in his power to find something that will

work...I love this town already...

Bobbin on the hook!

Sunset in Carrabelle

We are at anchor in" Shipping Cove" off Dog Island, here in Carrabelle,  Fl. It is a wonderful cove and a lot less rolly then off the beach of St George Island.
Surprise....Carrabelle's history is as rich as PSJ.
  Shortly after the Civil War, an industrious pioneer by the name of Oliver Kelly came to live near the banks of what was known as the Crooked River. Though stories vary, it seems that Kelly must have lost his wife or sweetheart in the war. Her name was Carrie. He named the settlement after his lost love and added the word "belle" to recall her beauty.  Thus the name Carrabelle was born.

Whew!!

As we where leaving PSJ..sweet company

As I write this, I am in the cockpit, watching the house on the Gulf side of St George Island glide by, so many of them! We headed out of PSJ early Monday morning, we had planned on leaving Sunday, but the boat and Pierre's knee wanted to stay put, he hurt his knee somehow and could not put any weight on it, then we decided to get the water maker going and then the generator quit working...after getting things in order off we went, we were going to go into Apalac via the Intercoastal cut, but as we got there dark thirty had set in and as we slowly made our way, we ran aground, could not believe there  is not even 10 ft of water! It's an Intercoastal for goodness sake! Apalac needs to get in together, anyone using this cut, be careful!
 Now it's pitch dark and Pierre has to get us out of there, whoops, there goes the nails again, he did a wonderful job, with my help of course and we spent a very rolly night anchored out about a mile from shore, we are headed to Carrabelle, via the East Pass, it seems, on the chart to have plenty of water...hopefully we can get the part we need to fix the generator there and I would like to go ashore and see some of Dog Island, the Guide book says to do just that. I am using my Verizon data now, so gotta go, will post lasted when we get settled in.

Andrea

Ohhhh...  Our first Tropical Storm aboard the "little ship" I woke up early this morning to sound of rain pattering on the boat. Love that...went right back to sleep...

After pouring over charts last night we decided to head to Dog Island, if you go thru the channel and round on the back side of the Dog Island there is about 25ft of water, so Pierre wants to go there. I am good with that ..but...

 The dock here at Captains Cove Marine is super good, but the yellow flys are fierce. One guy told me they are the worse they have ever been, so Dog Island is fine..but no yellow flys...if they r bad..we have to leave.

  We did the laundry today and getting ready for the Sunday take off, we drove around PSJ today and the history here is very interesting,

I read the "The Great Tide" awhile ago and it was a great book, I love reading about the history of different places,
The legend of the lost city of PSJ is a major part of the history and folklore of Nortwest Fl.  The old city of St Joe was for a time the largest in all of Florida.It disappeared without a trace durning the 1840's, however, spawning many tall tales.

Among these are the stories of a massive yellow fever epidemic and of "The Great Tide". Legends holds it that the city was so wicked God sent a plague of the fever, then used the tidal wave to wash away what was left.

In truth, the city was all but destroyed by a yellow fever epidemic and did suffer a hurricane, but it really was the economic power of Apalachicola that finally destroyed what remained of the old city. The two had been bitter rivals, but due it's location at the mouth of the river, for which it was named, Apalac prevailed.

The city is charming and it a great place for exploring not only the history of Old St Joe, but it also has some of the most beautiful coastal scenery in Fl. PSJ has revitalized itself from a failing industrial town to one of the newest vacation areas.

Back to Alcatraz....

We headed back to Panama City today in our borowed truck to get the parts we needed from Panama Marine and to get a wench from the shop for Danny Raffield, he needs it on his fishing boat and well...he has let us dock here at no charge so I told Pierre we need to get it for him. We picked up Codi at the house and met Gloria and Matt at Bayou Joe's...downtown..love that place..( Gloria...We love ya'll and hope ya'll visit us.. You are a great friend and a special person and I love you) we are going to set sail on Saturday and anchor out at the cape then set out early Sunday morning for Crystal River. I thought I would like to sail over to Vincent, Dog Island, but water is skinny...I do not want to risk it. I get so worried....yes I am a worry wart.

Envie Rose

Ohh..

We got up this morning and headed off to Raffield Fisheries, they are located just under the George Tapper Bridge in the intercoastal water way in Port Saint Joe, Fl., they fish for bait fish and butter fish, which is one of their better sellers, they sell fish all over the world..Butter Fish? Gotta try that one!!
  Pierre has made parts, welded, and generally made all sorts of stuff for the Raffields boats for years.. I must say, they are great people. Well anyway...Harold told Pierre we could tie up their docks, so, off we went....I looked up the George Tapper Bridge clearance on the Internet, and found it is 75 ft high...but if anyone on a boat knows..when you come up to a bridge, it always looks as if you are not going to make it.
 The people fishing on both sides of the bridge gathered up and watched, I bit off all my nails in a chainsaw motion, Pierre asked one guy fishing, if we were going to make it under the bridge and he just shrugged and laughed, like a glove...we cleared it with room to spare.
 Charlie met us on the dock and we spent the day getting stuff we needed and did not bring with us....Codi....we found this store downtown, and they had "Kiss My Face" 1/2 off, so I bought them out, I now have plenty of sunscreen. Sweet!

Captains log 060113

We escaped....we are at anchor in St Joe Bay...we left the dock around 10am, the sail to the pass was spectatcular, one tack. Bryant Bishop, on the Kaula, came out and sailed with us for a while ( We love you Bishop) we sailed out about 6 miles, then the fun began. The winds veered and we set down with a south west wind, around 18-20 knots. So we plowed thru some rough seas, it took us 10 hours to get to St. Joe, I told Pierre we could have run to St. Joe faster..Lol...I did get to see a big hammerhead shark, and lots of flying fish..I love them, they are so cute. Not so many dolphin, but it was really rough out there. Envie did not do so good, she is laying here next to me passed out, she had a hard time of it. I will post some picture when we get closer to the marine, and get Wifi, the data is so slow out here and St. joe just does not have that many towers.