Apalachicola

 

Dog Island beach

 Hello Readers!

We continue our journey up the Florida Gulf coast - with the blend blowing contrary to where it’s SUPPOSED to be blowing.  Good thing our boat has engines, and lots of fuel. But at one point the wind clocked around to a more south-westerly direction, so we were able to raise up the sails.  For a little while, at least.  Until it clocked back around to the west.  Lower the sails!  Oh well.

dolphin escort

 

But otherwise, the trip has been pleasant.  Sunny.  Some squalls off in the distance that didn’t bother us.  Some dolphins swam with us for a ways.  I finally was able to get a live dolphin photo!  And we also came upon spots where a flock of birds was hitting the water, and we could see schools of little fish at the surface.   

 

Dog Island anchorage

On Saturday, we left before dawn, and arrived at our next anchorage in the dark.  One hundred miles!  But wow, this anchorage is lovely.  It’s behind Dog Island, near the town of Carrabelle, on what I call the “Apalachicola Bump” of the Florida panhandle.  This is one of the places I had intended to visit aboard Dragonfly, as a staging area before traversing the “Big Bend” to  Clearwater.  It is everything I expected it to be:  quiet, secluded, picturesque.  Only accessible by boat.

 

Sunday morning we hopped in the dinghy for some exploration.  

We headed for the beach. Another catamaran full of cruisers also dropped anchor nearby.  We visited for awhile, and learned that they were eastbound, while we were westbound.  This section of Dog Island was only maybe 50 yards wide.  

We strolled along that endless Gulf-facing beach, and were surprised to find a wealth of beautiful seashells there, just waiting to be picked up.  A section of the island was a bird nesting sanctuary.

 

Sunday afternoon we pulled up the anchor and headed for the westernmost point of St. George island, another barrier island adjacent to Dog Island.  But unlike its neighbor, St. George island has a bridge to the mainland, and is well-developed with beach houses,  condos, and other amenities.  The entire 25 miles of its Gulf-facing shore is snow-white sand beaches.  On this July weekend, every bit of it was packed with beachgoers. 

 

We dropped anchor behind the island in Apalachicola Bay in the early afternoon.  Then we took a swim to cool off, and just relaxed for the rest of the day. 

 There’s some positive weather-related news:  later in the week, the wind is supposed to clock around to the south and east.

 Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we continue onward to Panama City.  All of us need to be back in Texas by August 1^st.

 Stay tuned!

 Capt. David