6/5 - It Is Not So Much The Storms You Beat As It Is The PEOPLE You Meet

Although a little muggy and sticky we got a decent nights rest at the Ft Walton Free Dock.  We had been in communication with fellow gold Loopers, Jack and Patty Nickerson, the day before.  They are 'Harbor Hosts' of the AGLCA and were very helpful in giving us a recommendation for a marine canvas shop (Legendary Marine) that was almost directly across the bay from their home marina (Bluewater Bay *).  We had contacted Kenny there yesterday and he said that although they were very busy and pretty far out that they would get our flybridge bimini top in for re stitching.  If we could get it there today they could have it ready for us by noon on Thursday.

Calm waters with sun rising on Chocahatchee Bay leaving Ft Walton

We departed Ft Walton at 7:09am on our way to Niceville (Destin area) which would be a short 22 mile trip.   The day started out partly cloudy which was nice on they eyes as the sun was rising over Chocahatchee Bay.  The water was almost as flat as glass which would make for a quick and comfortable ride.   As we cruised along the sun came through the clouds and brought the heat back.  We cruised past Destin and San Destin areas which is where we had vacationed with Renee's family back about five years ago.   We had another dolphin siting and slowed to see if we could get them to play in our wake....no luck :-(   We did get a short video of them playing, but i cannot figure out how to attach/imbed a video onto this blog site.   We arrived at Legendary Marina at about 10:30am and proceeded to remove the frame and bimini top from the bridge.  Unfortunately, the entire multi piece frame had to come off and be disassembled in order to remove the canvas.   Kenny came out and met us at the courtesy dock and wrote up the order for repair.   Nice guy and we are grateful that he agreed to fit us in, understanding that we are traveling.

From Legendary we skipped across the bay and just a few more miles over to Bluewater Bay Marina where we were instantly greeted by Patty of 'Nearly Perfect' and Craig and Carolyn of 'CWay'.   We had a brief conversation with them at our first slip before we even got settled in and got power to the boat and A/C on.   After plugging into the shore power we discovered that our galvanic isolator was making a very strange and somewhat loud continuous clicking noise that we had never heard.   Hmmm..... We unplugged and plugged into a 30 amp power pole at an adjacent slip (the first one was a 50 amp that we used our adapter on).   Same results....click click click click.   Renee was pretty concerned when she did some quick 'Gods Truth' research (aka...google search).   She was very concerned that we would be putting currents into the water.  Definitely not a good thing in particular because there just happened to be a marine diver swimming around adjacent boats.   We unplugged from that second power source and decided to try to fire up our generator and plug into it to see what happened.   The power worked fine from the generator and no issue with the clicking noise.   We recalled that Craig had told us in our brief conversation that the marina did not have the best electric at the docks and they have had issues previously.    We ran our power chord across the dock and to a pole down just a bit (thinking maybe it would be on a different circuit) and BINGO....it worked just fine.   We walked up to the marina office and informed them of the issue.  They moved us to a different dock all together that has updated docks and electric that proved to work perfectly.

After settling in and taking a short nap in the now cool boat we received a message on Nebo (a navigation app that we and many other Loopers use) inviting us to "Docktails" aboard 'Nearly Perfect' at 5pm.   We had not been to the store in a few days but through together a plate of cheese and crackers and headed over to join the company.  'Nearly Perfect' has a PERFECT aft deck for 'Docktails' .   The vessel is a 43ft Hatteras with a very large totally enclosed aft deck.   There were 11 of us aboard for the gathering; fun and useful information was shared, and new friendships were made!   Bluewater Bay is a very fun marina with lots of planned activities and a lively oyster bar at the docks.   Most days on the calendar there is something planned.   Today was a sailboat race and it was neat to see 15-20 sailboats all going out of the harbor at the same time.   Tomorrow is the paddle board races; I think that Renee may have to give a try and see if she can humble the reigning champion of the race from last week (Patty)!  lol...Renee has never paddle boarded but would like to try.

'Nearly Perfect' operated by Jack and Patty.  They are Gold Loopers and harbor hosts here at Bluewater Bay in Niceville.  They are planning to start their second  loop March 2021

Sailboat races in the evening seen from our dock

More sailboats 

We were invited to go to dinner with them at what was claimed to be the areas best Sushi restaurant and Hibachi grill.    We all piled into two of our new friends vehicles.   The food was delicious and Erik even got Renee to eat some Sushi (all be it not with any seafood in it).   It was fairly late and we were tired from a long day of cruising and meeting new folks.   Time for bed.   The weather forecast for the coming several days is not very good (in fact VERY rainy) so we may be laying up here for a couple/few days to wait out the storms.  Not such a bad place to be 'stuck' at!   




*My auto correct want to change Bluewater to 'Wastewater'....certainly doesn't sound nearly as appealing does it?