Dec 8th: Ah! Oh! Where is all the water?

The storm passed through overnight as predicted and the sun tried to peek through the clouds now and then.  I slid the door open to climb up onto the dock and when I looked down thought to myself, Houston I think we have a problem. We were on the bottom.  It seems the wind combined with the tide to blow more water out into the bay than usual and all six of us parked along the dock were on the bottom. When I climbed up on the dock the water on the other side had receded so far there was a 55 gallon drum that was half buried on the bottom now showing. A raccoon was trying to dig inside, looking for breakfast. Birds were running up and down in the mud taking advantage of items they usually cannot get too.  Our 11:00 departure time was obviously out the window.  Tom and I decided to take advantage of the extra time and enjoy one more spin around Apalach.  It is such a neat fishing village, with so much great history beyond being recognized as having the best oysters in the nation if not the world.  I took pictures of the old theatre that has been reopened and has more plays and concerts than any in our area at home as well as a few of the other buildings.  We have met several couples that told us how they came for a visit by boat or car and never left. That would be easy to do. About 1:30 in the afternoon the water had come up about a foot so we decided to try and get out. Several of the other boaters helped push us out away from the dock and Tom let Laughter drift out a little more before giving her a little nudge. He let her drift then gave her another nudge and we inched our way out like this until his nudge stopped stirring up mud.  We followed the channel markers out very carefully as beyond the markers in either direction means instant grounding.  Below are a few pictures of downtown Apalachicola.

Dec. 7th - The storm arrived

No sun this morning but the temperature wasn't bad at 60 degrees. It started to rain but since the temperature was warm I rode my bike to an Internet cafe anyway. The cafe' was soon buzzing with locals who came in for their morning coffee and conversation.  It was hard to concentrate on what I was doing, listen to the conversations, and answer questions about where I was from but I did enjoy myself. By the time I left the cafe' the rain had stopped but the temperature had dropped 15 degrees. We spent most of the day close to or inside the boat. Late in the afternoon the sun did shine for a little while providing an opportunity for the boaters along the dock to gather and visit bundled up like we would have been in Chicago.  By evening the temperature dropped into the thirties!  We learned that the couple in the sailboat next to us did not have heat on their boat so Tom lent them one of our electric heaters. The wind picked up significantly after nightfall, gusting to a reported 34mph. I was thrilled yesterday that we were the last boat along the dock closest to the Bay because of the beautiful unobstructed view. Tonight, not so thrilled because of the need to practice my balancing skills as I moved throughout the boat. If I listened to music in bed to match the movement of the boat rock and roll would have been the choice over soft rock. I even worried a little about Peanut.  If she was going to experience seasickness on any part of our trip tonight was going to be the night. The storm was supposed to pass through tonight and the wind settle by mid morning so we planned to leave about 11:00am tomorrow for our 21/2 hour trip to Carrabelle.