November 27, Day 167 – Panama City to Crooked Island

After a great night’s sleep we woke up fairly early this morning and decided to walk into town for breakfast. Based on recommendations from the locals, we decided to give Bayou Joe’s a try. The place was right on the water, had lots of local charm and, to top it off, the food was great. We next decided to wander through town (to work off some of breakfast). Gerry soon spotted a sporting goods store and ended up buying more fishing stuff. He’s bound and determined to catch fish in Florida ….. we’ll see. Next we found Panama Marine, but unfortunately that was closed for the long Thanksgiving weekend. We almost made it back to the boat without any more purchases, but about a block before the marina, Gerry found a music store and had to stop in to see what they had. He’s always checking out anything drum or percussion related. Well, they had some kind of thing-a-ma-jig that has a foot peddle and you step on it and it hits against something else and, of course, makes a noise. Gerry says it’s called a drum peddle and is usually used with drums. However, he’s using it with a cow bell. (Not sure I described it adequately, but you get the point … it makes noise … one more thing to drive Linda crazy.)

At 10:00 Carl arrived to take the guys to get their West Marine fix (they also stopped at Publix to pick up a few provisions). Once everyone was back at the boats and had checked the weather forecast, it was decided we’d head out to Crooked Island right after lunch.

At the recommendation of Bill and Ruth (Integrity) we decided we needed to try Tom’s for one of his famous hot dogs. It is somewhat of a local institution in the area. We walked into town and Gerry got a super dog and chili pie; Linda went for the much smaller cheese dog. All were quite good.

We headed for Crooked Island around 1:15. There were a few waves out in the Gulf, but they were coming from the north so they were on our stern and the ride was comfortable. Gerry tried a little fishing on the way, but without any luck. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow. We made our way into the anchorage thanks to some coordinates from the local loopers at yesterday’s dinner. It seems that the inlet channel changes often as the sand shifts because of weather. Once inside, we and Emotion III anchored in what we thought was an okay spot, but when Second Star arrived he advised that if we were staying past Sunday, he had found out we’d have to move as the Island is actually Air Force property and during weekdays they run exercises and there are certain places you cannot be anchored. With that new information, we brought up the anchor and moved to another location within the anchorage. By the time we all got settled, it was well past 5:00 and dark ….. So, no happy hour tonight.

We had a quick dinner, did blog and route planning stuff and then off to bed.



Here's the entrance to Bayou Joe's. It had a lot of character

More of Bayou Joe's

A shot of downtown. Wasn't very busy at 8:30 in the morning.

An interesting little know fact .... there were actually 3 Blues Brothers .... here's a picture of all 3. The third one is showing off his "drum peddle"

A shot of the Floridian Jolly Ole St. Nick

As you can tell, this is Tom's Famous Hot Dogs

... and here's a Tom's Famous Hot Dog eater

Looking south into the Gulf of Mexico

Here we are approaching our anchorage. It was a bit tricky getting in.

Emotion III getting ready to lower the anchor. The picture looks basically black and white because it was getting dark .... however, notice that the red color in the Canadian flag certainly shows up.

The sun was setting as we dropped anchor

The sky had an interesting look ... we think it's probably beautiful here, but we'll have to wait until morning and daylight to see it.