Panama City and Niceville

The trip from White City to Panama City was pretty uneventful. I cast off from the dock at White

Coming into Panama City

City and threw the lines up on the deck, know that I would have to secure them better before I headed out onto the Gulf to cross from Port St. Joe to Panama City. I made my way through the narrow canal and out to the Port St. Joe Bay. I put the boat in neutral and donned my PFD to go forward and secure everything for the trip on the Gulf. There is a small craft advisory out for the Gulf waters from the Walton/Bay County FL line to Pascagoula, MS, 20 miles out. I won’t be in the advisory area, but I will be close by the end of the trip. I secured the cabin and deck for a bouncy ride. It was a pretty smooth ride. The waves where less than 4 feet on the trip. The wind was consistent between 10 and 13. It was blowing off shore, so it was great for sailing. I made it to Panama City around 12:15, about 30 minutes earlier than expected.

Sally and Steve Sanders came out to the marina greet me upon my arrival. After I got the boat tied up, they took me to lunch and then back to their condo for a great afternoon of catching up. I found out that a couple from Bowling Green was visiting with them this week, David and Darlene Davis. They invited me back the next day to watch the Super Bowl with them. It was great fun.

Fun on the balcony at Sally and Steve's

The next day it was off to Niceville, where I will be getting some work done on the boat. I once read, in preparing for the Great Loop, that you will go from 100 smiles an hour to being bored out of your mind. The trip between Panama City and Niceville was mostly the bored out of your mind type of trip, except for a couple of people fishing along the shore. Let me explain. As you can see from a couple of the pictures, the canal part of the trip (from West Bay to Point Washington) was the most boring 20 miles that I spent on the trip so far, there are no houses, not much evidence of human inhabitance at all.

When I am traveling, I often try to find time to exercise. I run/march in place or modified jumping jacks, generally it’s about vigorously moving around. Sometimes it is a cross between running in place, dancing the twist or something else. I always try to keep this to a time where no one sees me. Sometimes everything aligns in a most embarrassing way. And it happened on my trip between West Bay and Point Washington. I decided that this area was so remote that it would be a good time to exercise.

The seemingly remote canal

I the music cranked up and start my exercising “routine”. JJ Gray’s 99 Shades of Crazy is a good sing along song. So, I am singing along, and most of you know I cannot sing, but that doesn’t stop me on the boat when I am by myself. I am doing my jogging in place/twist as well as singing along. Life was great, until I look over and see two guys fishing along the bank. This part of the river is only about 200 feet wide, I am quite certain the way they were looking at me, they got quite the show, but they didn’t applaud or whistle, so it was hard to tell how much they enjoyed the show.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. Choctawhatchee Bay was windless, I had to motor all the way across. I did have a dolphin join me for about 5 minutes, but he/she was at he front of the boat riding the bow wave and I couldn't get a picture. I arrived at Bluewater Bay Marina around 4:15 and checked in to start making arrangements for getting the work done on the boat.

Lesson Learned: Even though a place may look deserted, it may not be.