Florida! Issue #15 12-18-2017

​Port St. Joe, Florida

We arrived in Port St Joe, Florida, on Dec 4 and stayed until Dec 14.  We intended to stay 2 nights.  We were forced to wait for a good weather window to get to Apalachicola , 3 hours away.  Tim had to practice patience...hourly.

And it rained.  Almost every day.  And cold.  The locals kept telling us this was unusually cold for this time of year.  But the cute, downtown district was a short walk from the marina so we had our choice of restaurants and a Piggly Wiggly grocery store.
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And they had great shower facilities.

​Christmas Parade

​Saturday night the city of 4,000 put on a Christmas parade with floats, little Shriner cars and the high school marching band.  We collected all the candy that landed by us and gave it to the little kids on either side.  Although Tim did keep all the Dots.

Only in Florida would you see a boat covered in lights in the parade.  It was delightful.

Tides

Tides are awesome. Tim has perfected the art of tying the boat to a fixed dock to compensate for tides. 

Because the docks are fixed (not floating) the boat goes up and down with the tide. 
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That means sometimes I can step off the boat onto the dock and sometimes I have to crawl up on the dock or get a boost.  It is still weird to wake up to the dock at eye level.  In this photo you can see the boat is about 3 feet below the dock.

​Apalachicola, Florida

This is the cutest little town! 
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We stayed one night in the marina there and walked downtown for shopping and dinner. 
We are now traveling (buddy boat) with Miss Norma, a Ranger 29 tugboat.  The owners are delightful.  And it’s fun to travel with another Ranger Tug.

​Carrabelle, Florida

I am writing this post from Carrabelle, Florida.  The sun final came out and we traded our jackets for shorts.

We might be here awhile.

The next leg of the journey takes us out into the Gulf of Mexico.  Yikes.  Tim is watching 5 different weather forecasts and consulting with other Loopers on a weather window that would give us 7-10 hours of acceptable wind/wave conditions in the ocean.

We are at the Moorings Marina with our buddy boat, Miss Norma. We are having fun exploring the little town of Carrabelle.  The marina has free breakfast every morning, good showers, and a captain's lounge with a big TV, tables and chairs and couches.  
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If we have to wait somewhere this is an OK place to be.