Roberts Bayou to Sandestin
14 January 2008 | Sandestin
Day 1- Roberts Bayou to Standard Mile 215 ICW (Just west of Fort Walton Beach)
We finally loosed our mooring lines on our slip in Roberts Bayou at about 7:30 am, Saturday, January 12, 2008, and sailed off into the sunrise! That's right, we're headed east to Carrabelle, FL (via Destin, Panama City, and Apalachicola) from where we will make the Gulf of Mexico transit to Tarpon Springs just north of Clearwater on the west coast of Florida,. We will then work our way down the west coast of FL to Key West, including The Dry Tortugas, then follow the Hawk Cut eastward to the Key Largo area, our jumping off point to Bimini, across the Grand Bahamas Bank and finally to the Exumas in the Bahamas. Weather and interesting sites and folks along the way will dictate our progress.
The first day was uneventful and was mostly accomplished under motor/motor sailing due to head winds. We managed to average about 5 kts, covering 40 nm in the 8 hrs before we dropped our anchor in a picturesque cove just east of Manatee Point and south of the ICW. As you can see from the sunset picture, our anchorage was adjacent to a military radar dome. At the time we anchored the winds were out of the south but predicted to change to the north during the night and following morning, so we selected our anchoring location to ensure we did not end up on the beach the following morning. Our plan worked but our stern was still only about 100 yds off the beach but in 12 ft of water- no problem.
Day 2- Standard Mile 215 to Baytowne Marina, Sandestin.
Since this is a narrow section of the ICW plus the winds were light, we motored against a slight current to just west of the Brooks Bridge for refueling, etc. We also took on 9 gals of extra fuel in jerry cans lashed to the deck. As we approached the bridge, the clearance board read about 48.5 ft and we generally need a clearance of 48 ft, so we were a little concerned!! We approached the bridge slowly with one crew member sighting up the mast to verify that we had adequate clearance - luckily no problem. Shortly after we cleared the bridge into Choctawhatchee Bay, we raised the mainsail and then deployed the jib to sail across the Bay. The sailing was going great, speeds of 5.5-6.5 kts, but we began to get concerned about some potentially serious electrical problems. Thus, we diverted to the Baytowne Marina at Sandestin to find a mechanic to investigate the problem and effect repairs if needed. While this was somewhat of a setback, it afforded us a wonderful opportunity to have KB and Robbie join us at the Marina for drinks and then dinner at the Acme Oyster Bar at Sandestin.