Because we had gone West on Saturday, we decided to go East on Sunday:)
This meant going as far as the road would take us to Apalachacola (easy to say if you break it down..Apa-lacha-cola). Another good reason to go to Apalachacola (hereafter known as A) is that we will spend a night there before embarking on our great overnight, possibly 20 hour crossing of the Gulf of Mexico from A to Clearwater, on the South Western coast of Florida. Ouir ultimate goal is Charlotte Harbour. So if you look at google earth, or a map..find Tampa/St Petersburg harbor and then look down the map to the next harbor..that's Charlotte Harbor. We have been invited to stay on the home dock of our broker, Len and his wife Stephie for the duration...whatever that may be, before we take off in the New Year for other parts known and unknown (to us, anyway).
We left the boat before 10am...amazing how it takes us time to get up, have brekky, clean ourselves and restore calm and order to our lives, lol.
We took more water this time and some grapes to counteract any other food we might ingest during the day.
The countryside is a bit boring...(there's that word again!) with pine trees (forest, this time) and swamp with lots of rampant vines overtaking anything growing in it's path. The roads were so long and straight, it was difficult to stay awake at times. Just as well I have Waz nudging me in the ribs every so often (nah! just joking).
The first signs of 'life' (tho' not much) came as we turned a corner and the sea magically appeared. The not much life comes from all the For Sale signs everywhere. Obviously the summer visitors have left and people are sick of their properties being trashed by tourist (am I making this up? :) ) so they are selling up!
The main road, (Hwy 98) is bound on both sides by vacation rental homes in various states of repair and condos. Lots of For Rent signs amongst the For Sale ones. We had to get the Real Estate magazines for the area, and you would think you were in parts of NZ (the expensive parts!!!) so high are the prices.
Driving parallel to the beach made us want to stop and see what we could see...Here is Waz going to take the photos..I stayed in the car and turned the radio on to see if there was a weather forecast...being that it was overcast and looked like rain!
The Barrier Islands rather shelter this portion of the coast line, as they do so many other parts. After this, though, you are on your own out in the big wild. This beach was lovely, and the sand was sugar white and sticky.
Not far down the road, on the opposite side, we saw a large waving flag that said MOCHA!!!! Well it cant be worse than Starbucks, could it?
We are happy to report that this coffe was THE BEST EVER we have had in these United States! WOW! and Waz even got a fantastic Flat White. I, of course had to check out the Mocha!
The fellow making the coffees has not owned the business that long, and is a retired electrical engineer...we could tell by the way he talked that he was a man of some intellectual substance, and he was approaching this coffee making in a very intellectual way.:) We had quite a long discussion with him and learned his life story, and ultimately, said that if we are still alive at afternoon tea time, we will be back for more of the coffee poison he was dishing up!!!
While there, we also went next door to look at the gallery/gift shop (as you do), and another WOW! for that place! Found some great Chrissy Pressies!
Time to get back on the road and to our ultimate destination of A. Along the way we had to take some photos of the buildings (of course), and were rather taken by the decorations and Bell Tower of this Catholic Church. at least it looks like this bell is for real! So many are for decoration and they play a recording (yes, really!!!)
The hour being such that food was required, and as the coffees had been worn off in the driving and building viewing, we found our way to Tamara's food establishment in the middle of A.
Love the old brick buildings with the windows and their eyebrows:)
The food was excellent and different. Waz enjoyed his Chicken Sandwich which came with hand cut skinny chips (like the ones you find in bags of chips), and I enjoyed my bowl (large) of black bean soup and 1 crab cake tortilla. We didn't have room for the good looking desserts though. The American meals are so large, we are thinking we will end up ordering one meal and splitting it so that we can sample some of the delicious desserts we are offered.
The restaurant had lovely old wooden floors and rather 'rustic' décor, but it worked. Next door they had a Tapas Bar, joined through a hole in the brick wall.
On the opposite side of the road to the restaurant was this building, which in itself is fascinating, but there is no sign other than the Green Door hanging down thus...but what more do you need??? This contained some of the most original décor for sale that we have come across. I said to Waz..."When we buy a house, lets come back and buy this place out!", so original were the items for sale. I love the bright colors that you find everywhere down here.
These chairs were outside the shop, so this tells you something of what the colors inside were.
They are asking you to adopt a 'dog god' (Fire hydrant) to help out the local orphanage, but I am of the opinion that the fire hydrant actually needs some TLC itself!
Modern businesses inhabit the restored buildings, which is fantastic. I love that the effort has been made to do so.
The area is founded on the export of Cotton,sponges, seafood etc. There are the usual celebrated entrepreneurs from the early 1800's who left behind large homes that are how Museums. We have had our fill of these, so we didn't go inside, but we still admire the homes themselves and inspect the gardens.
There were a few volunteers out doing their thing around the garden, yesterday, but they need a whole lot more to really do this place justice.
The hitching post
Front veranda
Simplicity itself!
The old shed with two hose bibs just below the window.
At the end of the street...Shrimp Boats with Crows!
Turned around and Whoa! Had to take a photo of this baby! Once a biker, always a biker, eh?
This one was on the main street down to the wharf. It obviously never made it back into the water!!!
This fella was conservation staff. He had been out in the wilds somewhere with a scientist, whom he had just dropped off. The Marshes around here are very delicate, but glorious.
As I said earlier...vines overtake everything...
This is a Pecan nut before losing it's skin.
The Botanical Gardens next to the grand homestead were in disarray, but they had a butterfly garden (that badly needed weeding, like everything else), and there were dozens of Monarch Butterflies feeding there.
Along the entry walk to the homestead were Cotton shrubs. Yes, they are soft and feel like cotton! The only thing that hurts on this bush is the dried outer shell of the Bol.
a Bol that is young...lovely colors and curlicules around it
The raw cotton literally drips out of the pod.
A Kumquat tree in the homestead grounds. I tried a really orange one, but it was VERY sour. I normally love them.
Just below the homestead was a Vietnam Memorial Garden. Read the last photo in this series for the legend.
Moving words by the sculptor.
The bridge takes you to Carabelle, another stopping off town for Loopers and where so many of them leave from to cross the 'pond' (Gulf). It goes from there to Talahassee.
From town we went down along the waterfront just past the bridge to the Town Dock. It isn't free, but a nominal fee is paid to dock there. Some of the boats looked like they were welded to the spot, they had obviously been there so long. The house boats take up much of the long finger that goes out into the bay.
The marshes look good from the outside, but I don't know how healthy they actually are. When you consider that a boat needs to 'pump out' it's sewerage system about once a week (depending on tank size), most of the boats in the marina have never moved. What does that tell you??...and they wont be backed up!
The white things are electricity boxes for transient boats like us to plug into. They are only 30 amp though and we prefer 50Amp. We have a splitter for rwo 30 amp boxes, but we have to run two boxes for that.
Boats on the ICW come through the middle of the bridge span where the gap is...and turn in along the channel into the town marina.
A fellow was net fishing in the Gazebo at the end of the dock..making a bit of a mess too , I might add. He had already filleted some of his catch, which was in the yellow bucket. He said they were for a friend..yeh riiight!
The old...
...and the new replica. We quite liked this one. Would have made an offer, but we didn't think we wanted to be on a long skinny piece of land surrounded by water...that regularly gets wiped out due to Hurricanes!
Florida Queenslander!
We think this chair was recovered from the drink...The oysters wont be too happy about that!
So, we departed A around 3.30pm with a specific goal in mind...to get to the coffee shop before they closed at 5pm! :)
We made it! and we had excellent return coffee and a longer visit with the owner and learned more about his life, his dreams (apart from the fact that he was going to stowaway on our boat) and talked how to make good scones, because the poor effort sitting in his food cage was not something any self respecting person should eat. We encouraged him to offer English Teas and Devonshire Teas with scones, jam and cream. His baker will have to do better with the scones than he is doing right now, though.
Coming back to the boat at dusk was not much fun, especially as we couldn't deviate from the hwy we went out on..it is the only one! and just as boring and long and straight!
We arrived home around 5.30pm and had the last of the bean/chicken/veg soup with a ciabatta roll for dinner. Waz fell asleep on the sofa again......but then he wakes up aty 5.30am!!! I should stick pins in him to keep him awake! How is he going to stay awake on our Gulf crossing? We will have to employ all kinds of diversionary tactics, I think.
And so endeth another day in the life of!
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