Out of Order...What Happened Before the Big Crossing.

Ingram Bayou. We stayed another day, due to the weather. It rained very briefly, and somewhat anticlimactically (is that even a word??)...We needed the 'poor man's boat wash'! We had expected high winds and rain...well, drizzle isn't rain, and what happened to the winds? I should be grateful they didn't happen...much.

Sunrise is one of my favorite times of the day, it seems. Being used to getting up early, with so many early starts, it has become a nasty habit (5am!), but I do get to witness the first of the day, and I love to go outside and listen for the birds and insects coming alive after a night of rest. I do have to admit that the insects appear to be active most of the night, in many places, especially in the marshes...they are VERY noisy places.:)

We had parked in Ingram Bayou last year so it was lovely to come back and spend a day there.

 I made blueberry pancakes for Waz...I forgot the banana! oops....they need that natural sugar because I don't add any. He put some maple syrup on them and of course the whipped cream.:) Delish! I do without the syrup, but definitely missed the sweetness of the banana. I had one too! sheesh!

 and because I had some pastry in the freezer that needed using, I made up a lovely rich mix of savory hamburger...what we kiwis call Savory Mince (vs sweet mince). This is multi-purpose kind of food. I made some kiwi meat pies and put the left overs in the freezer.

 Another chore was to clean my  new dinghy cover. Some lovely Heron had put its dirty feet all over it! sheesh!

 We love to watch the Kingfishers along the rivers and in the Bayou...they are very active fisherfolk.

As you can see, the rain clouds don't look too serious. We have seen worse!:)

I made two large dinner sized pies and then made the rest in muffin holes.
The pastry was less than good, so I cobbled it together, rather. These don't look very appetizing, but they will taste good.

 We had them for lunch with some lovely tomatoes . They tasted great!

After leaving Ingram Bayou, we made our way along familiar territory, across Pensacola Bay to the Emerald Coast/Fort Walton, where we were fortunate to find the town dock vacant for a boat our size:)

Pensacola in the distance

Our little parade of boats coming into Pensacola Bay. The one in the middle departed our channel and turned left to go to a marina up the bay. They had family members to meet, and the Blue Angels Homecoming  festivities to enjoy for the weekend.

LOTS of military in this place, and this marina is just for military folks, we understand.

 White sand beaches all along the channel coming into Pensacola bay. Their lovely long fingers creep out into the channel and we have to be careful not to stray.

 These sand dunes are on the Barrier Island coming into Pensacola Bay.

 Two military ships. The Coast Guard vessel was busy telling us on the radio, that they were about to leave the dock, and we looked back several times to see her making her way down the big shipping channel and out to sea.

 Eglin Air Force Base is a little further along the channel, and we find this runway most interesting. Traffic (of the vehicular kind) is routed behind it.

Just before the bridge at Fort Walton, we pulled off to port to dock at the municipal Dock.  These two little Ranger tugs were here before us. A fellow who was drawing the red one, came to our aid and helped us tie up to the poles. I really find poles most annoying, but a free dock is not to be argued with.

There is a very pretty park along the waterfront.

 We badly needed some exercise, having been boat-bound for some time, so went ashore to walk around the town...and maybe find a meal.

 Pretty late afternoon light and Untide at the end of the dock.

 The county park.

 ...and of course, an Hibiscus:)

We walked a long way down the main road until we came to a Church Craft Fair. We went inside the most enormous building and all the rooms had  crafts of the most amazing kinds inside...all for sale. We went outside to see the view...lovely!

We didn't buy anything, although tempted.

On the way back, we came to this fast food restaurant...seafood, of course...Captain D's. It looked a little run down, but inside was lovely and clean and the food was excellent. Cant beat dinner for $15!
Waz had two catfish fillets with a small serving of fries and cole slaw. I ate the shrimp and fish dinner with small fries and cole slaw. Delish.

 

 

We got back to the boat just as the sun was setting.

It was an interesting evening. There was nowhere for us to plug the boat into, or for water, so we had to put the genset on.
Waz was already having a snooze beside me on the sofa, so I turned it on at 7.35pm. At about 8pm, a light was shining in the window onto my face. I got a surprise, I have to admit. There were local people on the dock, fishing, but they didn't have any flashlights, to my knowledge. I went outside to see who it was. One of the women from the next door Ranger Tug was grumpily asking me how long I was planning to keep the genset running. They had electricity plug ins, I might add at this juncture....
I told her I needed it on for at least an hour, but as we would be going to bed early, it wouldn't be past 8.30pm. She told me that I had woken her up and she couldn't sleep with the genset going. Well, I wasn't sure how to deal with this. Being as it was so early in the evening, and she could have gone about this quite differently, I felt obliged to turn the genset off early...which meant that the inverter didn't charge properly, and we had barely warm instead of hot, water. Aieee!! If it was 9pm, I might have been more apologetic, but I felt her request was unreasonable. These things put a bad taste in ones mouth.
Anyway...we had to be off early the next morning, and were up at 5am. I was determined to get some hot water going, but I did wait until 6am to turn the genset on again. We left the dock by 6.35am with the genset still running. I made breakfast on the run.
Such a gorgeous Sunrise that morning.

 As we  anticipated, we are seeing lots of Bald Eagles. This one stayed put until we had passed, before flying off. What magnificent birds they are.

We were now in Choctawhatchee Bay...you can see the dash lines of the channel at the bottom of the chart.  At far right it enters a narrow 20 mile channel that takes us out into West Bay just before Panama City.

 The 20 mile man made channel has significant damage along the coast, with trees in the water, and nothing much to keep them on the banks, frankly.

 I went outside to clean the 'glas and took this photo...We are still wearing our woolies. It might be bright, but it is cold, still.

 A Father and Son were fishing here, but they had grounded. Dad was trying to get the motor started, but it was stuck in the sand. They managed to get off the sand by the time our wake caught up with them.

 Further along, this man had beached his small boat and built a fire.

Almost from the time we entered West Bay, we had the wonderful company of Dolphin. They entertained us so well.

 Surfing just off the back of the boat.

 You can see how close they are to the boat. I am standing on the cockpit deck and interacting with them the best I could. They knew I was there and performed accordingly.

I took wayyyyy too many photos, but had such fun with them.:)

We pulled into the Municipal Marina in Panama City, and went straight to the Fuel dock,. They had the best prices. We docked for the night behind Meander, who was ahead of us during the day. A large Hatteras came in behind us and in front of Tom in Balderdash, another large Hatteras. We all got together on the dock to help with the lines.

We joined Stu and Julie off Meander, for a late lunch at a local café down the road from the marina...just before 3pm. The café was in the process of closing, but never mind, they served us lunch anyway. We bought a latte each...not the best we have had, but warm...it was freezing, outside.
We had forgotten our grocery bags, so, after lunch we went back to the boat for them before making our way to the grocery stores...first up was the Dollar General, which really didn't have anything we wanted, so we found the second store, which had discounted foods for low income folks. It was interesting, is all I need to say:) We got what we wanted and walked back to the boat, about a mile or so, in the dark.

There was much discussion at the dock about plans for the next day or two, as we neared Appalachicola and the Gulf Crossing. We all turned in early enough.