DAY 2 - Success. I'm in St. Joseph Bay / anchored

For those of you following along, i am on day two of a three day adventure. Day One - Destin to Panama City.  Day Two - P.C. to St. Joseph Bay.  Day Three - tomorrow i go down / over / through the ICW to Apalachicola.  (the ICW is the inter coastal waterway.)  The ICW in Texas that i have been on is nothing but a muddy ditch.  So I'm excited to see how Florida has decorated their portion?  I have been unable to go ICW till now because of low bridges.  My mast is 55'6" off the water and they have had some 48' bridges which wont work...  Tomorrow i have two bridges that sit 65' off the water, so smooth sailing.

Last night in Panama City shooting the shoreline.

Speaking of "sailing,"  my sister Lynn asked me, "Were you sailing or motoring? You mentioned "sail" about your plans to move along down the coast."  Great question Lynn!  (I guess she is calling me out?)  Truth be told, i AM motoring.  But the last two days i raised 2 sails in addition to the motor.  (really mostly for practice.)  It's a 'SAIL'boat, so we say "sail it" instead of sayintg i'm going to motor along.  But unless the wind is coming from the right spot, it doesn't help much.  So far it's almost directly coming from where i want to go.  Still learning.  Also Lynn says, "The pics on your blog made it a lot more understandable about how close the other boats are and what options you might be thinking about in a hurry."  that's another great comment.  Yes i need to give more illustrations for non-sailors.  So you can understand, so you can "see" what i mean.  I'll work on that.

Here is a photo of a shrimp boat about 8 miles away.  depending on how you program your AIS alarm, this boat could sound alarm about a future possible collision.

So you keep an eye out and watch what he's doing to avoid a "situation."  

(a vessel towing a fishing net has the right of way.  so i have to move for him)  Also, remember i'm travelling about 5 knots of speed.  A little more than 5.7 mph.  (about a very fast walk)

I figured since we are looking at Shrimp Boats, we ought to see some!

My AIS went off to allert me to a potential vessel.  It was this one listed as "Military Training."  I dont know what they were doing.  BUT, while shooting the shrimp boats these two jets flew directly overhead.  Imagine a VERY loud roar.  Last week i saw two Blue Angels flying formation a few inches apart, but they were long gone before i could grab a camera.  There are three air bases down here and lots of planes flying.  Trouble is they fly so fast they are usually gone before you can turn around.  i just got lucky to have the camera in hand and standing on deck when these two flew over.  In the photo, they are going almost straight up.  It's pretty special to see.  

St. Joseph Bay Marina

Well, that's enough words for one day.  I have a big day ahead tomorrow.  A Pirate has to rest!

-Capn Skip