Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Inquiring minds... continued.

Oct 9th - Harrison Bayou to Shell Island

Had the anchor up and we were underway by 0815 this morning. Anxious to get down to Shell Island and get a good spot. This is a very popular place with the locals, we we hope to be able to get there early and get a prime location. There was quite a bit of boat traffic for a weekday here. I think a lot of the boats we saw heading out St. Andrews pass were charter boats, but there were also a fair number of recreational boats, too.

As we pulled into the bay behind Shell Island, around 1000, we saw many, many boats there already. Uh-oh!  Then we noticed that almost all of them were rental pontoon boats. Since these have to be returned before sunset at least they would be gone tonight. We continued east behind the island further than we had on our last visit, and ended up in an area called Lands End. There were hardly any boats back here, and we had our choice of anchorage locations.

The spot we chose proved to be a good one. Since we are all the way at the back of the bay, there was very little traffic here. After around 1600 everyone had gone home, and the we had the entire area to ourselves. We witnessed a glorious sunset, and sat on the bow for hours watching the stars come out, listening to the waves on the beach, and watching shooting stars. The water was crystal clear, and every little disturbance caused little explosions of bio luminescence, like fireworks. Just beautiful!


 Oct 10th - Land's End, Shell Beach, Panama City, FL

We expected the boat traffic to increase a bit today, with it being Friday. To our surprise it was actually quieter. Around midday another trawler arrives, a Grand Banks 36, I believe. It was a local boat, coming for the weekend. They were the only boat to stay overnight, but they were anchored about 1/2 mile away, and were very quiet.

I took Duke to the beach around 1100 for his late morning constitutional. As we returned, I noticed something hanging down from the bottom of the boat. I got my mask, snorkel, and fins and hopped in to check it out. It was a long, black, polyethylene rode wrapped around the port prop!  I don't know when we could have picked it up, most likely it was a line from a crab trap. Fortunately, it had not wrapped around the shaft, but was just trailing behind the prop. It was twisted into a long, tight mess, but was easily cut free from the prop. While down there I noticed a fair amount of barnacles on the props and rudders, as well as some slime on the boat bottom. Well, what better place to do some bottom cleaning.

I got a scraper and brush, and went to work. It took the better part of two hours to clean all the barnacles off the starboard running gear, and clean the growth from the waterline all the way around the boat. I could have done it quicker with scuba, but since I could only hold my breath for a minute or two at a time, this was slow going. After a couple of hours I was winded, and tired. I decided I would continue tomorrow. All work and no play makes for a miserable vacation!

We spent the afternoon lounging, reading, and just relaxing. Around 1700 it was time for sun downers and we moved to the bow to watch the sunset and stars again. Then time for dinner and then bed. This vacation stuff is hard work!

More tomorrow, time for bed!


1 comment:

Unknown said...

Sounds like a pretty decent time after the "fuel fiasco". Weather seemed to cooperate too on these days as well. Really enjoy the stories, thanks for sharing! :)