OK, so as I was saying, we were in a marina at Fort Walton Beach, just beside Brooks Bridge, but it was not protected where we were, and strange things were happening.


The wind kicked up by morning, and drove all of the jellyfish in Choctawhatchee Bay to our end of the world...


See the foam and the little whitecaps around us as we sit at the dock? We could have cast off the lines an hour before departure and not moved at all... except maybe backwards a bit.


Then there were the neighbors. We didn't mind the cute tugboats passing our stern all night and into the morning,


But their companions were a little alarming! And sometimes they were so massive they needed a second tug at the rear, pushing.


We had 20 kts on the nose across the bay, and pulled into Bluewater Bay Marina for the night. Incredibly protected location (Ward's Cove), despite all the whitecaps and 3' chop out in the Bay, there was almost no breeze here :-) Here she is after I washed the salt off her and everyone had their showers (hence the hanging towels):


Met some fun cruisers starting out on their annual trek southward. More details and pics in tomorrow's entry!