Things grow larger here in the 'Forgotten Coast' of Florida! On the wall of the building, adjacent to the dock we were at, a whole bunch of these colorful grasshoppers on steroids were hopping around.
We awoke again this morning to a forecast of fair winds and following seas :-) There was still a chance of some afternoon thunderstorms and rain, but, it seemed like a reasonable enough forecast for us to plan to move on to our next destination, Carabelle, which would be our 'jumping off point' for our crossing of the armpit area of the Gulf. With our water tank filled and everything secured and checking out on our pre trip walk-through the boat was prepared for today's planned short voyage of about 31 miles. Because it was now almost 8am and that just HAPPENED to be the time that the doors opened at Apalachicola Coffee & Chocolate, we set off for one last short stroll over to enduldge in our morning servings of Apalachicola Affogato.....why not? you only live once 😋
Pulling out of Apalachicola harbor looking back and saying our farewells. We can definitely see making another visit to this most enjoyable town someday.
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| We were not able to go out to St George Island (off the coast of Apalachicola) to visit the St George Lighthouse but did get a pretty good view of it as we were cruising out the pass. Even though the picture didn't come out very clear the memory will be vivid! |
On our cruise to Carabelle we saw several more dolphins and tried stopping, slowing up, varying speeds in an attempt to see if we could get them to play in our wake.....no dice 😐. We have seen many videos and read descriptions from other Looper blogs showing dolphin pods following along with them and we are hoping that at some point of our travels this will happen to us!
We arrived at C-Quarters Marina, Carabelle at a little after 1pm.
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| As the boat is backed into the slip with just a small finger pier at the back you need to lasso the pilings on either side of the boat in order to get it tied off and secured to not blow into the boats beside you |
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| After securing the front to the pilings you go to the back and cross the rear lines to secure the back |
We were greeted by one of the dock hands at the still challenging to us finger docks. The wind was blowing briskly in the same direction (Northwest) as the current was flowing. We knew that this would make for a challenging docking. The dock hand was patient (yet likely laughing internally) with us. Erik's first attempt at backing into our assigned slip was foiled by the wind and current. No big deal though....We've learned that if all is not looking good and everyone is not comfortable to pull out and come around for another approach. We would rather take it slow and easy and be sure to get Aquaholic (and us) to our resting spot WITHOUT taking out any pilings or scratching up the hull (and more importantly our egos!). The second approach was much better and we slowly eased back into our slip. However, as we were backing in that pesky current and wind continued to bring the boat over toward the pilings on the starboard side of the boat. Renee made a couple of valiant efforts to lasso the outermost piling on the Starboard side which was at this point 5-6 ft away since the wind and current was taking us to the opposite side. Erik, with all of the patience that he could muster 😂 then came down from the bridge to unsuccessfully show off his lassoing skills. After a few minutes of watching us falter the dock hand made a SUGGESTION to us stating to tie off loosely to the Starboard side pier (which that side of the boat was already right against!) and then push off of it to get us closer to the pier we were further away from....duh, it seemed so obvious after he made the suggestion. Since Renee and Erik have become adept through recovery principles at understanding that "suggestions" from someone else who knows how to do things correctly are akin to them saying, "Why don't you try it this way dumb ass!", we followed his directions and were soon nicely secured and ready for explorations of Carrabelle.
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| Cute small lizards are abundant. This guy decided to try and come along for a ride as we prepared the bicycles for a ride |
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| When Erik's foot was placed on the pedal he (or maybe she??) jumped off and onto the tire. You're about to get REALLY dizzy poor guy! |
After checking into the Marina office and chatting it up with several locals for a bit we unloaded the bikes and set out into town. We had found online that the Apalachicola Group of AA meets on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and we were looking forward to stop in for some fisherman style recovery. At the literature meeting we met some more very friendly folks and read/discussed a couple of pages form the BB of 'There Is A Solution'. It was a very nice evening and we are excited to see what fun things we can discover tomorrow!
There is a solution. Almost none of us liked the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation. But we saw that it really worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it. When, therefore, we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved, there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet. We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.
-Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book p.25
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