Monday, January 3, 2011

85° 18.581’ W

29° 48.919’ N

Port St. Joe Marina

Port St. Joe, Florida

First and foremost – HAPPY 13^th BIRTHDAY – to our granddaughter Grace.

This morning two looper boats, “Present Moment” and “Lady Royal” left Port St. Joe and headed for Carrabelle. They had to delay their departure a few hours as the wind had blown some of the water out of the harbor and they were soft aground. As the wind subsided the water returned and they left. With a little luck we will catch up with them during the next few months as we head south. Tomorrow the weather man is predicting a good weather window for them to cross the Gulf to Tarpon Springs.

I was giving Carl a hand removing the old microwave from his boat prior to taking a road trip into Panama City. We loaded the microwave into a cart and pushed it to the dumpster provided by the marina. I then tossed it into the deep dumpster. A half hour later Ricki realized that her new (never used – 1 day old) sauce pan was still in the microwave! With a lot of ingenuity Carl and I were able to slip a long 2x6 under it and lift it high enough for Carl to recover the pan. Never thought I would go dumpster diving on this trip!



Sunset in Port St. Joe



Later Ricki, Carl, Barb and I drove to Panama City to a new restaurant for a 2 pm lunch. On our return to the marina we had cocktails with Pat and Dick on their boat “Gypsea”. Weather permitting they will depart tomorrow and head south.



Tomorrow I plan to change oil, filters and just work on the boat weather permitting. The boat continues to serve us well as we have had nothing major fail us!

For my fresh water boating friends back home – the boaters down here place brominating tablets into their water intake strainers to kill aquatic organisms from clogging their engines. In fact any system using sea water for cooling should receive the chemical treatment! The prescribed dose is one small tablet per strainer per month! The tablets are used in hot tubs to keep growth from forming.