6/7 - Family along the loop route

We awoke from a good nights sleep and were busy looking at weather and buoy reports almost immediately as we were both anxious to get back onto the water and move forward to our next destination.   We also want to ensure that we are in the general area of where we will be departing for our upcoming Gulf crossing sooner rather than later.   It is really hard to say right now how long we may or may not have to wait when we get there for window of appropriate weather and wave conditions for a safe passage.  The forecast called for a good amount of rain and some thunderstorms today, but, intermittent and it appeared that we had a several hour window opening up to allow us to get a good ways towards our next planned stop in Panama City.   Erik decided to follow a couple of golden looper rules:
1) We will not depart for a days voyage unless both the captain and navigator are satisfied with the conditions and in complete agreement that the day is a 'Go Day'
2) Use your harbor hosts expertise and knowledge of the area and conditions to help in making decisions like this
We walked over with our morning coffee and sat with Jack on the back deck of 'Nearly Perfect' and reviewed our planned trip and the conditions.  After some conversation, Jack confirmed that there was a window of opportunity and if it were him he would go.   Erik didn't need much persuasion but this buy in from Jack gave Renee what she needed to be in agreement.   We bid our farewells to our new friends and went back to the boat to do our pre launch checklist (Remember our 'lesson learned'!).  With fluids checked, windows and hatches closed, and coffee cups full we were on our way!

More fly overs by impressive military jets.  We can definitely tell this area has a large Navy/Air Force presence

The first 25 miles or so of today's planned 68 mile ride was across a the pretty large and open Choctawhatchee Bay.  As we entered into the bay we had cloudy conditions, but, NO RAIN!  A bonus was that the water was fairly flat which allowed us to keep a good speed up.  We cruised for the first hour and a half across the bay at 17 mph or so.  When we reached the East end of the bay we were guided by the channel markers into what is considered 'The Grand Canyon' of the GCICW.   This is an area where for approximately another 20 miles we would be in a somewhat narrow (maybe 200' across) channel with 20' high or more of rock and sand walls on each side of us.  This 'canyon' gave us great protection from the wins and therefore the water was flat as glass.....easy cruising and for the most part no channel markers or navigational aids to need to pay attention to.   The weather forecast was continuing to worsen and we were watching the radar and clouds around us as the weather radio was announcing some severe storms with heavy rain, lightning and potential 60 mph winds.   We kicked it up a notch more and increased our speed to 20 mph and managed to keep just ahead of the storms. 

Entering into the 'Grand Canyon' of the GCICW

The smooth water in the 'Grand Canyon' allowed us to make some time and hopefully beat the incoming storms

We came out of the gorge into 'West Bay'.   Panama City has two large distinct bays on either side of it.   We needed to get through the 25+ mile West Bay and Grand Lagoon in order to make it to our destination of 'Pearl Bayou' which is actually a part of Tyndall AFB.  Again, we managed to stay just in front of the storms that were moving in from the West and South.  Coming into Pearl Bayou and preparing to anchor in 10-15 ft of water the skies REALLY darkened and a storm blew in on us.   We attempted several times to get our anchor set unsuccessfully.   Frustrated, Erik decided to just man the lower helm and ride the storm out.   To bad that we didn't have any REO Speedwagon tunes loaded on our phones :-)   The storm passed after a short 15 minutes or so and the clouds moved on.   Finally, on about the sixth attempt we were able to get our anchor set.   We waited patiently looking at the shorelines and setting an anchor alarm with a 70' radius to determine if in fact we were not dragging the anchor or moving.

pulling into Pearl Bayou adjacent to Tyndall AFB.  The skies are sure looking ominous! 

Trying to get anchor to set and not drag.  We did NOT get that accomplished before the rain and rain unleashed on us.  It gave Erik a nice cool off up on the bow in his boxer shorts pulling the anchor up and letting it drop multiples of times.  Maybe a windlass is in our future?? 

Erik became confident that we were set sooner than Renee and began to inflate our kayak (thanks for the Christmas present Devin!).  With a fair amount of coaxing, Erik convinced Renee that a) the anchor was set and Aquaholic was not going anywhere, b) the inflatable kayak was not going to spring a leak and sink, and c) It was not a huge distance to shore, but really only a few hundred yards and we would be fine making it that far.    Besides we had been communicating with Erik's cousin Adam who informed us that the very large orange and grey boats at the piers on shore were 'recovery vessels'.......how convenient, if anything should go wrong at least the proper vessels were in place (lol).   Renee was in the front with the oar while Erik sat in the rear.  It was quickly discovered that either Erik has NO kayak maneuvering skills, OR, steering an inflatable kayak from the rear, in the wins, with two people in it is just really challenging.  Whichever the correct answer is to that question it was determined that Renee was better off paddling from the front while Erik assisted with paddling with hands and/or utilizing them as a rudder.   After we got a couple hundred feet from the boat we realized that we REALLY should have brought the oar that we have aboard for the boat.....duh.  Oh well, we were on our way now and made it to shore pretty quickly.

First time using our new inflatable kayak
Inflated and ready for boarding

We made it to shore!  You can see Aquaholic out in the bayou and the kayak placed under the palm tree on shore

We had made arrangements with Erik's cousin to come to the shore of what is actually their recreation center and pick us up to go to his house.  The grounds and buildings on the property were a real mess from the hurricane still.   Most were not being utilized still.  Adam and his families home was damaged very badly during Hurricane Michael.   They are some of the fortunate ones who were fully covered by their insurance and are now in the process of rebuilding.   Adam had been posting on Facebook several videos on the progress of the re build in process and Erik was eager to see his cousin as well as the project they have underway.   At Adam and Erin's house they have a camper trailer that they have on the property where they are staying while the house is under construction.   We talked and caught up for a bit and toured their house.  They told us of what all happened during the storm.   One entire upstairs wall of their home had blown out/off.  Much of the siding and windows were out or damaged.  The screened porch was totally gone. There were pine trees down in their swimming pool. They certainly had a lot of damage and a real mess to clean up and rebuild from.    Adam is in his final year of service and is preparing for retirement from the military in May 2020.  Even though that is almost a year off he is already preparing and figuring out what he will be doing when he gets out; it sounds as though they offer a lot of training and direction to him for these preparations.  Pretty cool to be 39 years old and using the word 'retirement'!

Adam Sorell (Erik's cousin) and his wife, Erin
Their house behind us still under re construction
They are hoping to be back in within about 6 weeks or so

After a short but nice visit with Adam and his family he drove us back to Pearl Bayou to paddle back out to the boat where we would spend the night at anchor.  We rounded out the evening by cooking dinner on the aft deck.   We copied (with a couple extra flares) the recipe that our friends in Fairhope had shared with us.   Cube steak wraps filled with cream cheese, jalapeno and onion then wrapped in bacon and placed on the grill....yum!  With full bellies we retired for what would hopefully be a smooth night of no storms and the anchor not dragging!

We got a little wet on our paddle back to the boat
but....we were rewarded with a rainbow when we got there

Yet another beautiful sunset after all of the storms passed