We Made It to Gulfport, Mississippi

 In my last entry we were awaiting a storm. We were hunkered down in the Impenetrable Swamp, just north of Port St. Joe, Florida. We were in an oxbow, which is a bend in a river that was cut off by an either man made or natural reroute of the river. We had protection from every direction and did not have to worry about flooding current. 

The storm came as predicted and brought with it about an inch of rain. We are fine with rain; we are a boat after all. We did have some wind approaching 30 knots, but not much more. We did have to pick up the anchor twice and reset because the change in wind direction had us too close to the trees along the shore. The good news is the area was deep enough that we did not go aground. The good news is that we got some needed rest after our long passage across the Gulf of Mexico. 

We were getting pretty close to those trees. The good news is that the water was deep almost all the way to the edge.

That bucket was there to catch some rain. 

We were now in the next phase of this journey. From here we would be doing all day sails. We would be able to go in an inlet each night and put the anchor down and get some sleep. That sounded pretty good to us. 

We left our little place in the swamp on Friday, April 12th. We took the ICW down to the Gulf County Canal, which brings us out to Port St. Joe. We went to the recently reopened Marina there to refuel and get water. It is a very nice marina, but they charged us over $5.00 per gallon for diesel. We took on 25 gallons. We had paid only $3.60 per gallon in Gulfport, Florida just a few days prior. 

We then headed 5 miles across the bay to the St. Joseph Peninsula State Park. We anchored in 20 feet of water about 500 yards off of the beach. We got the dinghy down and went to shore to take a walk on the beach. We found a great place to leave the dinghy at the boat ramp dock. The local concessioner even offered to watch it for us.   

This beach has some special significance to us. We came here with the RV, just a few days before I retired in 2013. We had a nice camp site just off the beach and Kim loved it. She really wanted to come back to see how it has recovered. The area was ground zero for Hurricane Michael in 2017. Michael was one of the most powerful hurricanes to make landfall in the continental US. The Peninsula was cut in half and the State Park destroyed. They have fixed the break and rebuilt the State Park. Our walk on the beach brought back some amazing memories. It is kind of like we have come full circle.

We had to take a Kim on a beach photo on her favorite beach. It was a bit windy, but a beautiful day. 

Just look at that beautiful white sand. The surf was a bit rough.

We saw an eerie turtle skull. 

Kim loved her walk on the beach, but we could not stay long. The wind was going to build throughout the day. We got back out to the boat in the dinghy and got it ready for travel. We stayed there at anchor that night with winds reaching 25 knots. We had put out 200 feet of chain, so we were ready and held fast. That night, I got a call from an old motorcycle riding friend. Rick and his Wife Mary now spend some time in Panama City, Florida. We were planning to go to PC the next day, so we were going to try to meet up for dinner. 

We got going early on Saturday, April 13th. We made the 35-mile sail and in the inlet. I had chosen a place to anchor, but when we got there it was crazy with many boats zooming past just a few feet away. I had already found another place, but it was on the other side of town about 5 miles away. We headed there and Kim researched a place to land the dinghy. We found a great place to anchor and a local pier to land the dinghy. We locked the dinghy to the dock and Rick and Mary came and picked us up. We had a great dinner and a better catch-up conversation. It is so great when these situations work out. The only bad news was that the outboard on the dinghy was not putting out enough cooling water on the way back to the big boat. We made it, but that would not allow us to use it for the rest of the trip. 

This was the very welcome calm anchorage in Panama City

We were up before sunrise the following morning and made it out the inlet before all the Sunday boat traffic got crazy. We had light wind, but it picked up as we made our way to Destin, Florida. We had not been to Destin by boat before. The inlet looked a bit crazy, so I called Sea Tow to get some local knowledge. I did not ask for it, but the tow driver came out to the inlet and made sure we got in without an issue. Talk about great service. Destin was in full Sunday afternoon party mode. There were boats everywhere, but we had no issues getting into the harbor and finding plenty of room to anchor in the very protected anchorage. 

Destin

More bars and restaurants, but we couldn't go ashore

The beach side of the inlet was lined with boats with very scantily clad women. The captain had issues keeping his eyes on the heavy traffic. The one time it was nice to go so slow.

More Destin

Tour boats cruising by, but most respected the idle speed rules in the harbor.

Destin at night. It was Sunday night, so the music ended early, and it was a nice calm night. 

We were up early the next day and made the sail down to the Pensacola Inlet. It was only 37.7 miles, which felt short after the 51.9 that we had done to get to Destin the day before. That would be the last of our offshore sailing. Our anchorage at Spanish point was great, but we couldn't go to the beach that was only a short distance away. Then on April 16th we moved only 12.5nm to Ingram Bayou in Gulf Shores. That set us up to cross Mobile Bay the following day. We headed out on the 17th expecting strong currents against us and hoping to make it to Dauphin Island by nightfall. I still am not sure why, but the currents did not materialize and some wind behind us did. We moved through the bay at over 6 knots. We were at Dauphin just a bit after noon. We had visions of going all the way to Gulfport that day, but it would be after dark, so we decided to stop for the night at Horn Island. Tired and happy after a 63.1 nm day. 

Here was our view of Horn Island, which is part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore. 

We got up late on April 18th and had breakfast before getting underway. We only had 20 miles to go. The forecast was for light winds, but we had a nice 10 to 15 knots come up and we were able to shut the engine off and sail all the way to Gulfport. We came in the inlet, went to the fuel dock and settled into our slip. We were so happy to be done with this long journey. 

SHIFT in her slip at the Gulfport City Marina

This is where we will be until the lock at Demopolis is repaired and we can continue our journey to Kentucky Lake. We will leave the boat for a month or so to go visit family and witness some of life's milestones. 

So there you have it. 18 days since we left Marathon in the Florida Keys. We traveled a total of 687.8 nautical miles or 791 Statute Miles (the measure most people in the US use). That took us 130.25 hours underway. If you drive a car at 65mph for 130 hours you could go from New York to Los Angeles three times. Why do we do this? Sometimes I just don't know. 

Come back for my next entry where we will continue this journey.