Port-A-Gee

Sun, Nov 20 - Thurs, Nov 24 (Thanksgiving) C-Quarters Marina. All of the responses to our inquiries about the Carrabelle Marinas were not that great, so our expectations were pretty low.  Turns out C-Quarters is an old marina in a cute fishing village where we were perfectly comfortable, exceeding our low expectations. The laundry, shower rooms were pretty basic, but cleaned every day - that's all I ask! The ship store was well-stocked and appeared to be a regular stop for locals to stock up on fishing tackle and ammo. New dock planks The project to replace the planks in all of the docks began during our stay, so they are maintaining the old marina pretty well in my opinion. Wifi was really good - extra points for that! Kim, the manager and delivery captain, was a fantastic and realistic resource for analyzing the feasibility of crossing the Gulf.  The rest of the staff was equally helpful too.  We did the 1/4-mile walk over to the Moorings for the nightly captains' meeti...

Sat, Nov. 12 - Orange Beach to Spectre Island Anchorage (51.5 nm) .  We peeled ourselves away from our beloved Wharf around 10:00 a.m. and set course for Fort McRee Anchorage.  We've been talking about going to this anchorage since our trip in 2020, so we were excited to finally go. Guess, what?  It was Blue Angels Homecoming - marking their last performance of the year. Guess where E V E R Y O N E goes to get a good look?  Fort McRee!  Oh well, we can appreciate this spectator sport.  We enjoyed the aeronautical acrobats as we cruised by.  We executed Plan B and set our course for 40 miles East to Spectre Island near Fort Walton. BIG DEAL :  As we passed Fort McRee, we finally found "new-to-us" water! In November 2020, we suspended our trip when we reached Orange Beach, putting the Cutwater on her trailer and to storage in Cape Coral. When we returned to Florida in February 2021, we trailered the Cutwater to Punta Gorda and finished that year in ...

Tuesday, Nov 1, 2022 - After a quick trip home for Savannah & Connor's wedding, we caught an early flight from Chicago to Pensacola. We kept tacking more days onto our transient slip at the Wharf until we finally got the monthly rate - which actually was a bargain!  If you stay more than a week, might as well stay a month.  First, we added an additional week to give Brian time to complete: 200-hour engine maintenance, Rebuild the head (crappy job), Replaced the port starter solenoid, Replaced the windless, Repair the stanchion that was allowing water penetration into the dinette We truly could not afford to do this trip if we had to pay a third-party for these services. I really appreciate Brian's expertise on all aspects of this adventure.  Seems like a good opportunity to post this again! Then, we intended on leaving Mon, Nov 7 to spend a few days at anchor, but Tropical Storm Nicole was threatening to intensify and wreak havoc on the east side of the peninsul...