It is Friday, April 14, 2023. It was raining so hard at 4am that I got soaked trying to close the hatches. I did not expect that, but by 6am the weather was perfect. I left this wonderful place in search for more.
There was no wind for a while but the speed was nice because of favorable currents.
Just as I was about to enter a nicely protected area, I received a destress call from a sailboat. As you can see in the picture, he was very large and completely stuck in 5 feet of water with his 6 foot keel. The good news was that it was low tide and it would resolve itself, the bad new was these poor guys were ill prepared. They had sailed from South Carolina on their way to Houston. If they could get that far without a clue as to what they were doing, I suspect I will be fine.
I tried my best to pull them out, but no go. After 5 tries I told them to hold tight and in about 2 hours they will float to freedom. At least I tried. Several other boats with more power just blasted by without paying much attention. So sad. I have witnessed the wonderful people of Florida, but also the guys with big boats and big egos…….and of course the small things as well.
I trucked along the nicely protected area with some very strange sites. Check out the picture of all the concrete animals on the edge of the gorge. That was the only civilization I saw until Panama City.
As I approached Panama City, I had to go through one of those very open waterways that had no protection from any wind, and the wind was blowing faster than expected. It was reaching 20 knots at times, but it was favorable for my sails so I hoisted the genoa and clipped along at a good rate of speed saving a bunch of gas. The fun part was when I noticed a nice big sailboat ahead of me with his sails up going in the same direction. I caught him quickly and passed him like he was standing still. And before you make an assumption, no he was not anchored. I was just blowing his socks off as any good trimaran should do to a monohull.
It was a good day, but I was exhausted after 12 hours. I found this peach of an anchorage just past Panama City called Pearl Bay. In fact it was Pat from the previous marina who told me about it. She was right about how perfect it was. It is right next to an Airforce base, but you would never know it except for the beautiful revelry playing over the loudspeaker at 5pm. There were several other sailboats here as well.
It is calm and quiet, and Gnarly and I are going to get a good night sleep.
