Blue Angel Log Entry 7/11-14/97

Pulled my 15'11" Cuddy (w/50 HP Honda) from Spartanburg, SC to Pensacola with a buddy, Sadler.  We left Thursday afternoon, so we spent the night just shy of Montgomery -- we put the boat in the water about 11am Friday at the public ramp at Shoreline Park in English Navy Cove.

We immediately made for the inlet and dropped the hook on East Bank for a leisurely lunch.  After lunch we headed east to Pensacola Beach.  As we arrived, the Blue Angels showed up for practice.  We anchored and watched the show preview.

About 4pm we pulled in the hook and debated which direction to go.  Sadler said he thought there was an inlet to the east (near Navarre Beach), where 399 goes north to join 98, but I didn't have a chart to verify.  We headed east and after leaving the fishing pier sufficiently to stern, we decided the road map just wasn't good enough for navigation.  We continued east anyway, as I knew from a road trip 8 years earlier that there was an inlet at Destin, and surely we could get back in at Panama City if not at Destin.

We ran the inlet at Destin and spent some time in the little harbor east of the inlet just short of the bridge.  We topped off the tank with 9 gallons but the marina didn't have a chart -- "No one uses charts around here..."

We picked up the ICW and headed west.  When it started to get dark, we hooked out just short of the Navarre bridge.  We cooked hot dogs one at a time on the single burner (camping) stove and ate them on unadorned buns...they tasted sooo good!

We had a few mosquito visitors, but otherwise an uneventfull night.  Wheaties and coffee for breakfast and we were on our way.  We needed ice and bread so we beached the boat at Fishing Bend near the bridge and picked up the supplies at the 7-11.  A friendly local named Pete met us at the beach, taught us the ins and outs of getting ashore from a beached boat and provided other 'local knowledge'. By the time we were ready to leave we had a challenge threading past the swimmers and other boats -- man that place filled up fast.

We went back out the inlet, and made our way to Pensacola Beach.  We knew the exact spot to be because we'd been there the day before for the practice.  We dropped the hook about 12:30 in 35 feet of water, observing that there were not as many boats in the Gulf as yesterday.  But other boats rapidly joined us until there were perhaps 300 boats swinging on the hook in close quarters.  The weather was clear and calm so there were no collisions, but judging from the way most folks casually anchored, if the weather had been brisk, the anchorage would have been a rats nest of dragging anchors and tangled rodes.

The show was awsome!  We had the sun at our backs and it appeared we were much closer to the action than the thousands of folks crowded on the beach.  There were a couple instances where a Blue Angel got so close we could see the moisture boiling off the wings -- we guessed the pass overhead put him less than 200 feet from our boat.  The anchorage was in extatic cheer as the roar of the engines followed the plane off to the horizon.  The Stealth Bomber looked like spaceship out of a science fiction movie as it showed us it's stuff.

After the show, the wind picked up and it began to cloud over.  Everyone made a mad dash for the inlet.  The picture behind us looked like the Charge of the Light Brigade only with wakes.  Things calmed down as we made our way back inland and the skies even cleared.

With substantial daylight left, we decided to do some exploring.  We still didn't have charts, so we were playing it by ear.  Looking back, I think we spent some time in Bayou Texar up from the Public Ramp at the East side of the Pensacola end of the Pensacola Bay Bridge.  It was a nice protected area -- the only place we saw any water skiiers.  Comming back, we ended up in Bayou Chico at Harbor View Marine where the friendly folks fixed us up with gas, water and a chart.  We asked about a restaurant on the water.  They recommended The Manatee on the Inner Harbour.

We found The Manatee and tied the boat up out back.  The food was excellent and very reasonable.  It's a place I would enjoy taking my family to.

It got dark quickly -- before we cast off.  We relied on the GPS to get us across the bay and back out into the Gulf.  We found the spot on East Bank where we'd had lunch the day before and dropped the hook for the night.  It's a tradition to spend the night anchored in the Gulf -- we'd done it about a year earlier at Sanibel, before trailering to Titusville to watch a shuttle go up.

We spent a pleasant night in the Gulf and after debating on whether to go east or west, we opted for a westward direction.  We ran the Pensacola Inlet in to the ICW and leisurely followed it west to Dauphin Island.  The waterway is pretty and diverse along the Gulf waterway.  I prefer unspoiled narrow stretches, but Sadler found charm in the oil rigs and shrimping trawlers in Bon Secour Bay.

We didn't really need gas, but the cold drinks were running thin, so we poked into the channel just north of Fort Gaines and made our way west to a marina just short of the bridge in Dauphin Island Bay.  The run from Mobile Bay to the marina is all at idle speed in a channel at the water's edge, but the guy at the dock enlightened us to a short-cut back across the bay.  There was a restaurant near the marina which served up a hamburger that I'm sure was better than the Spam we would have to have eaten aboard.

As we left Dauphin Island astern, we couldn't resist the urge to try the Gulf.  It wasn't flat, but the weather was clear and pleasant so we figured we shoot back to the Pensacola inlet from the Gulf side.  I might have explored the two intermediate inlets we passed on the way back to Pensacola, but Sadler was at the helm as we passed each one and wasn't interested in abandoning the Gulf, so we stayed outside.

We arrived back at the ramp around 6pm and by 6:30 we were on the way back home.

Engine hours = 21

Fuel used = 44 gallons

Trip log = 300 miles