Waiting for weather window

Monday, October 17. 2016

We are still in Port St. Joe!  We originally planned to stay here for 2 nights but we have been here for 3 weeks today and planning to stay 1 more night.  Ugh!  Can you spell "bored"?  This is really a charming town.  Here is the main shopping district.







Port St. Joe is an interesting town struggling to remake itself after a large paper mill closed about 20 years ago.  The old mill is gone and the marina was dredged on part of the property.  Targeting high end tourists, nice shops and restaurants have opened in historic downtown buildings.

We had a great dinner at Provisions last week and plan to go again before we leave.  They even have a dog-friendly patio!

Hike and bike trails are convenient to explore several lovely city parks, using loaner bikes from the marina.  Unfortunately there is no place close to rent a car, so we have been confined to nearby destinations.

As noted in previous posts, Robert has enjoyed wade fishing along the nearby shoreline.  We finally launched the dingy and have explored the area by boat and kayak.

And we have enjoyed a spectacular series of sunsets from our spot in the marina.








Our plan is to leave on Wednesday for the 30 mile trip to Apalachicola, then 40 miles on to Carrabelle on Thursday.

The Intracoastal Waterway ends at Carrabelle and begins again just north of Clearwater, due to the very shallow waters in the bend of Florida.  Clearwater is near Tampa on the west coast of the Florida peninsula.

Boats our size must cross the open waters of the Gulf to get to Clearwater, which will be a 22 hour overnight passage. We will wait in Carrabelle for a weather window to cross in calm seas (we hope)!