Tuesday, November 29, 2011

I didn't take any photos today because I forgot the camera when we went into town.

Yesterday, Joe went over the information available about the best time to do our crossing of the Gulf and it looked like Thursday would have the most favorable wind and waves.  Since we had a whole day, we planned to spend several hours in Apalachicola today exploring this interesting little fishing village.  We took the dinghy across the channel, tied up at the dinghy dock and prepared to start our explorations.  Before we ever got started, we happened to run into (not literally!) Michael Samway (m/v Muddy Waters, a 48' Kadey Krogen North Sea).  When Loopers get together in Apalachicola, they talk about when they will make the Gulf crossing and our conversation was no exception.  It turns out that there are a dozen or more boats that are going tomorrow, including Muddy Waters.  Most are leaving from Carrabelle and a few are leaving from Apalachicola.  We figured they must know something we don't and, after getting the bare essentials in town (a pint of oysters, a pound of scallops, a gallon of milk), we headed back to Paradise to start getting ready to leave tomorrow.  We didn't get to see the town at all.  =0/

After we got back to Paradise, Joe reviewed all the most current information and decided that we will go for it tomorrow.  The next window of opportunity is several days away and we're ready to settle down for a while in Dunedin.  Even if we won't be able to actually see any of the other boats, we may be able to pick them up on our radar or hale them with our marine radio so we won't feel so alone out there.

While I got bread dough started so we could have sandwiches tomorrow (I've finally nailed down a bread recipe that makes both of us happy), Joe made sure that everything was secure up on the flybridge (and he found bird doodoo all over up there--grrrrr), screwed down the chest of drawers in the salon, and strapped down the flatscreen TV in our stateroom.  I found a bungee cord to hold our bar stools in place by the breakfast bar, started stashing loose stuff into cabinets and the settee, and got the bread dough kneaded and rising.

Tomorrow morning we'll take care of last minute stuff like the salon table, the PC monitor and printer,  and anything else still loose and waiting to get thrown around
My brother, Bill, went to the municipal marina in Dunedin to see if we could get a transient slip there for the month of December.  The manager talked to Joe and said he can put us into a 43' slip that's wide enough for us; the price is right so we'll try it but we're not sure if it will work out because Paradise is 50' long and the dinghy off the back adds another 5' or so.  Also, there's only a "catwalk" on one side of the slip with posts on the other side.  We're not sure what a catwalk is, but it doesn't sound very wide.

 Seven weeks ago today, we waved goodbye to our daughters and cruised out of Stillwater.  Since then, we've stayed in marinas 9 nights, tied up at free docks 2 nights, and anchored out 37 nights.  We've enjoyed the privacy of anchoring out, but I'm hoping that the slip in Dunedin will work because I'm looking forward to being able to start the coffeemaker, the washer & dryer, and the vacuum cleaner without having to run the generator.

Also, all of our daughters are coming to Dunedin to spend Christmas with us and it sure would be a lot more convenient to be in a slip when we have company.

There won't be any internet connections out on the Gulf so the soonest I'll be posting an update will be on Thursday.

Ciao!