Destin, FL to Carrabelle, FL

Total Miles Traveled 943

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Destin Harbor was a great safe place to watch the hurricane movement across south Florida.  We anchored here for eight days waiting for not one, but two hurricanes to die out before continuing across the panhandle.  This is the first time since we started our adventures in 2015 that an active hurricane has been in the region this late in the year.

 Best Mate anchored in the middle of the picture.

Veterans Day Air Show

As we were relaxing on the back deck, we didn't expect pirates!

On November 14^th, we weighed anchor and traveled 67 miles to Shell Island, this island separates the Gulf of Mexico and St Andrews Bay at Panama City Beach.

We kicked our sandals off and walked the beach for quite awhile, when we returned the tide had risen up the beach.  If we had been another half hour we may have lost them. 

With the wind shifting from the north, we moved to Pearl Bayou, only 10 miles and across East Bay from Panama City.  This is a protected anchorage from most winds and we anchor here almost every time we pass through the area.

An Air Force Base is near this anchorage, we get an awesome display of low flying jets.

Sunrise before departing.

We traveled 40 miles November 17^th to an oxbow anchorage near White City Florida.  On our way, we passed a Staten Island Ferry from New York.  At the time we couldn’t figure out why it would be so far from New York City.  As we traveled several miles east we passed a shipyard building two more ferries, I guess New York is retiring the current ferries or adding to the fleet.  We took the ferry across Hudson Bay to New York City during our Loop in 2016.

We watched three alligators while anchored in the oxbow for two days.   

Thats a little one to the left of the Blue Heron.

We are anchored miles from the nearest town which makes star gazing awesome.  The very small orange dot is Mars and the white dot is the International Space Station moving across the sky.

We shined a light around the shore to see if we could see a reflection of the red eyes of an alligator, no alligators but the creepy sound of wild hogs in the pitch black of night. 

Looper friends Inked Mermaid

And Lila Blue

After anchoring near White City a couple of days, we traveled 46 miles to Carrabelle, FL and rented a slip at the C-Quarters Marina. This is our last stop before the 180 mile crossing of the Gulf to Clearwater, FL.  We had planned to do an overnight crossing on the 21^st of November but the sea conditions changed making the crossing above our comfort level.  We have no schedule and if it isn’t fun, we don’t go.

Someone was very creative with the empties.

As of today, November 26^th it’s shaping up to be a smooth overnight crossing tomorrow afternoon and arriving at Clearwater around 11 a.m. on the 28^th.   

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

 

Iuka, MS to Destin, FL

Total Miles Traveled 780

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After visiting with our friends at Aqua Harbor Marina for a few days, we departed October 12^th and cruised 36 miles on the Tenn-Tom waterway to Bay Springs.  This is a large body of water formed by the creation of the waterway and it is also the first lock of 12 before reaching Mobile Bay.  We anchored here for five days, the weather was perfect!

We called Whitten Lock about a half an hour before daybreak on October 18th and discovered a tow was approaching the lock.  The tow captain offered to let us and another boat lock though with him if the lock master approved.  We have locked through with tows before but it is not a normal occurrence.  Some barges are red flagged meaning they are transporting fuel or hazardous materials so other boats are not permitted to share a lock with them.  Fortunately for us the lockmaster agreed to lock us together saving us more than an hour delay.

We locked through the next 3 locks with the tow and later discovered he was transporting two nuclear reactors.

We anchored near the Wilkins Lock on October 18^th, and then passed through Wilkins, Amory, Aberdeen, and Stennis locks on the 19^th.  We anchored in an Oxbow off the river at Columbus, MS.  This is a great anchorage near the city which has a dingy dock providing access to Columbus,  if barges are stored here it can be a little narrow getting to the anchorage.

 We met our friends Randy and Sheri on “Priorities” anchored here, and our friends Steve and Libby on “San Souci” we staying at the marina, so they picked us up in the courtesy car and shuttled us to dinner.

We weighed anchor on October 21^st and passed through the Tom Bevill Lock and the Howell Heflin Lock before anchoring just downstream of the lock in a cut about 2 miles from the spillway.  We traveled 66 miles today with perfect weather conditions.

On October 22^nd we arrived at Demopolis, AL at the Kingfisher Bay Marina.  A week before leaving Kentucky this fall our hot water heater started leaking so I ordered a new one and had it sent here.  We stayed at the marina 10 days, partially due to replace the water heater and a few preventative maintenance items, but also due to our insurance requirements.  According to our boat insurance policy, hurricane season ends on November 1^st  so we can't be too far south of this area before that date.  I checked the weather and there is a tropical storm moving west to South America, expected to upgrade to hurricane status and hit landfall near Nicaragua in a few days. 

We departed Kingfisher Bay Marina November 1^st and traveled 93 miles to an anchorage at Okatuppa Creek, about 6 miles from the Coffeeville Lock, the last lock of the waterway.  We had a few days of heavy rain earlier in the week, so the river current has increased 2-3 mph allowing us to cruise at 10-11 mph at normal engine rpm.  We also left the marina with 10 other boats making locking through a little congested.

On November 2^nd we passed through our last lock, the river current continues to be strong enabling us to travel 87 miles to an anchorage at the Tensas River.  After the Coffeeville lock there are no marinas or fuel, and very limited cell service until approaching Mobile.  Our plan was to cruise about 30 miles to the Briar Creek anchorage on November 3^rd, then cross Mobile Bay on the 4^th.  We awoke to dense fog so our plan to only cruise 30 miles worked perfectly.  We anchored in Briar Creek with “Priorities” and “The Blessing”.

On November 4^th we arrived at the shipping channel of Mobile Bay, as luck would have it we had very little commercial traffic to deal with and passing though the shipping docks was very smooth.

Mobile Bay still has its hazards...

After crossing Mobile Bay, we entered the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and stopped at Lulu’s to pump out, top off our water tank, and have lunch.  We continued on to Ingram Bayou and anchored with “Priorities” and later “San Souci”.  As soon as we entered the Orange Beach area we witnessed the destruction of a hurricane that passed through this year.

We slept in a little on November 5^th and traveled only 16 miles to Ft McKree, this is one of our favorite anchorages near Pensacola, FL.  The Blue Angels are stationed here and the runway approach is directly overhead.  We didn’t have any flyovers while anchored, but watched them doing maneuvers on our way.

We finally put our feet in the Gulf of Mexico....

Randy, Sheri, and Steve

We’ve been monitoring hurricane Eta daily, who would have thought when it hit Nicaragua it would make a U-turn and head for Cuba…..and Florida. On November 6^th we cruised 52 miles to Destin Harbor, FL. 

We will stay at this anchorage to monitor Hurricane Eta, as of today November 7^th, all of the projected models indicate it will pass through Cuba and turn to the Gulf then move back East and make landfall near Tampa Florida.  If the storm indicates a westerly direction we’ll move East and if it indicates a Northerly direction up the coast we will move back West and continue back up the river if need be.  We are only two long travel days from our anchorage to Briar Creek, 10 miles upriver from Mobile Bay. 

Grand Rivers, KY to Iuka, MS

Total Miles Traveled 193

Follow our Track

We had a great time visiting family and friends this summer, our grandkids are now all teenagers and young adults so we really appreciated being able to spend time with them.  We enjoyed anchoring out with them too; they really enjoyed fishing, swimming, and kayaking. 

We managed to pull up some interesting objects while anchoring this summer.  One of them was a keeper, a 25 pound Danforth anchor that I'll use for a stern anchor.

A passing storm

Sophie's 13th Birthday

Our friends from Indiana, Darin and Linda, stopped by as they were completing a cruise from Knoxville, TN to Evansville, IN.  The Tennessee River and all of its connecting lakes, is one of the most beautiful bodies of water we have cruised on.

We did have an unforgettable experience though.  On July 12^th we were awaken at 3 a.m. with someone pounding on our boat yelling the “pier is on fire”!   Our friends Bob and Deb were spending the weekend with us so waking up from a dead sleep to all of the commotion was a very stressful experience.  Our slip was on the opposite end of the pier from the fire, but only 7 slips away, by the time we were awaken the whole end of the pier between us and shore was engulfed in flames.

My first thought was to get everyone safely to shore but we were able to disconnect power and our lines and leave our slip.  The wind was blowing very hard and an approaching storm was coming which was fueling the fire.  As I ran around the front of the boat I could feel the heat traveling in our direction.  I noticed our friend’s boat a few slips down from us was still dark so I ran down to their boat, beat on it as hard as I could yelling at them to get up.  I ran back to our boat and everyone thought I was already on the fly bridge and was pushing the boat out….sure glad they didn’t leave me.

Since we were in a slip, I had all of the boat instrumentation powered off.  I started the engines and backed out of the slip but had no radar or chart plotter in the blackness of night.  On top of that, I forgot to put my glasses on with all of the confusion.  I was able to keep the boat away from the other piers and boats until we had everything powered up and was able to leave the marina to an anchorage a couple of miles away.  We were fortunate that the storm held off until we had our anchor set.

We have heard that a newly purchased houseboat was the source of the fire but it is still under investigation.  Thankfully no one was injured but 11 boats were lost in the fire.

Bob Williams took this video while we were leaving the marina.

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Green Turtle Bay marina was full before the fire so we had to find another marina to spend the remainder of the summer.  We moved to Prizer Point Marina on Barkley Lake, about 25 miles from Green Turtle Bay.   Our friends Steve and Libby on m/v San Souci keep their boat here and we are both on the same pier.

We also participated in a Trump Parade on Kentucky Lake, I don’t know how many boats participated in the event but it stretched several miles and ended with a giant raft up in the afternoon. 

We returned to Green Turtle Bay for a couple of weeks on September 12^th to prepare for departure and to visit our friends at the marina, it’s amazing how fast the summer has slipped by.  We departed Green Turtle Bay October 5^th and traveled 38 miles to an anchorage on Kentucky Lake at Panther Bay. 

You can see the silhouette of our boat on the shoreline. 

 The next morning we traveled 48 miles and anchored behind an island at Rockport Landing.  The nights have been cool, and so far the early morning fog has burnt off not long after sunrise.  When leaving Rockport Landing we had a clear sky but after traveling a few miles we entered a valley between two hills,  and fog.  

Fortunately by the time we arrived at the valley, the fog started to break up and we were able to continue at a slower speed.  We arrived at the Clifton Marina that afternoon and met another Looper m/v Aquarius II.

Pickwick Lock has started dropping Pickwick Lake level to winter pool.   Kentucky Lake has already dropped about 4 feet, so the additional water being let out of the Pickwick dam has caused a considerable increase in opposing current.  We have lost about 2 mph at our normal engine rpm.  We departed Clifton Marina with clear skies on October 8^th planning to get though Pickwick Lock well before dark.  After traveling only a couple of miles we encountered another fog bank, this time we decided to pull out of the channel and anchor until it cleared.  

We waited two hours before it lifted, delaying our arrival time at the lock to 5 p.m...  After locking through we were able to anchor in a cove on the Tenn-Tom Waterway, about 2 miles from Aqua Yacht Harbor Marina just after sunset. 

We arrived at Aqua Yacht Harbor Marina around noon on October 9^th.  We will stay here through Sunday and wait for the remanence of Hurricane Delta to pass.