Brown Eyed Girl: More Panama City and Carabelle

We ended up staying a third day and night in Panama City because of the weather. It was windy, rainy and cold so Bob and Patty rented a Suburban and we drove to Mexico Beach, Port St. Joe and Apalachicola. Mexico Beach had a long pier that we went on to see the angry Gulf. There were 6 to 8 foot waves so we knew we were not crossing the Gulf anytime soon. We knew we were not going to stop on the boat at Port St. Joe so we drove over and it was a very nice marina with a good restaurant. There were only two Looper boats that I saw. The waitress said that they were expecting many more Loopers in the coming weeks. We had heard from Sid and Evelyn on "Something Special" that there were Loopers at Apalachicola so we drove over and we got to see some people we had not seen since the rendezvous. Most of them were moving on the Carabelle the next day to get ready for the crossing the Gulf.

Gene on "FREE TO B" and myself decided that we would get up real early the next day and travel all the way to Carabelle instead of stopping in Apalachicola. Carabelle was 90 miles away and we were going from Central Time to Eastern Time which meant we were going to lose an hour. We knew we couldn't go at 10MPH and get in before dark so we would need to run fast for part of the trip. We got up at 5 Central Time and looked at the weather and said why not. We both had to pump out and we decided that Bob would stay on the fuel dock to catch the lines. We wanted to get "FREE TO B" first so Bob could just get on our boat after we were done and then leave. The only problem was that we were in the way of "FREE TO B" so we decided to take the "Brown Eyed Girl" out into the harbor and wait for them to get pumped out and then we would take our turn. It was now about 5:30 A.M. and while there were lights on at the fuel dock there were no lights on in the harbor and let me tell you that it was DARK. Ginny was at the helm and I got a flashlight and tried to point it in the water so she could see. I am sure you are all saying what the H are these people thinking. Our number one rule in boating is not to run in the dark and yet here we were in a strange place with a little flashlight leading the way. I guess I woke up at that point and called Gene and said don't leave the dock, we are coming back in to wait for daylight. Anyway we got back in, pumped out and then left a little after 6 when we could at least see the water. We ran at speed long enough to get us into Carabelle about 2:30 in the afternoon eastern time.

Most of the slips in Florida are not nice floating docks that you can easily get in and out of but rather a four wooden posts with a tiny little dock to get on and off of the boat. To make it a little more challenging you have to back in and there is wind and current to consider. Now just for fun the dockmaster sometimes tries to put a 14' 4" boat into a 14' opening. We got about half way in after two tries and the dockmaster said, hey this slip won't work you need to go to slip 186. I thought he was kidding but he wasn't so we got to do it all over again. We finally got docked and met all of the the loopers at happy hour. Happy hours in Carabelle are not social events but rather a gathering of couples talking about how and when to cross the Gulf of Mexico. Every boat and every crew are different and trying to get a consensus is by nature impossible but it is a lot of fun to watch. The only thing that we knew for sure was that "Buddy" was going to host a meeting the next day at 6 AM to let us know if the weather was good enough to cross. The only reason we went to this particular marina was because Buddy was the expert on the Gulf weather. Buddy is also the dockmaster (see above). We all went to dinner and then went to bed early.