Big Sabine Point, Santa Rosa Island

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 200 - October 17,. 2017

Everything had to come out! of the vee-berth when I cleaned it!  This included all the cushions and all the stuff on and under the shelves on each side, which is more than you would think possible to put in the vee-berth and still have room for two people and a dog to sleep!

When everything comes out of the vee-beth, that means it gets piled in every possible place in the cabin and cockpit. We needed to wait for the vee-berth to dry out and the chlorine fumes to dissipate before putting it back together. So things were still in considerable disarray on Daydream this morning. There were also things in the house that had to be put on board, like the new bedding, some new towels, and the new Camfrano fan, Then there were our duffel bags, toiletries, computers, phones, chargers and Kindles! 

After showers, coffee and breakfast, putting Daydream back together was the order of the morning! It actually went back together faster than we thought it would. We were planning on departing around noon, but we were ready about 10:20 a.m. We said our goodbyes to Bob and Marie on their dock, did a 180 degree turn in the canal, and followed our track out of the bayou back to Perdido Bay. It took almost two hours to get across Perdido Bay down to the ICW.

Once on the ICW, we followed the channel markers and our Garmin Blue Chart Mobile cruise line. We saw all the places from the water side that we had toured in the car two days before; Big Lagoon State Park, where the bird watching tower was,  Pensacola,  NAS Pensacola, Gulf  Breeze, and the Gulf Islands National Seashore.  Our destination was the Active Captain Big Sabine anchorage on Santa Rosa Island, because it allegedly has a beautiful sandy beach, and the reviews all extolled what a great place it was for the dog to run.

Does this look like a "beautiful sandy beach" to you?

What we found was a "sandy beach" with about two feet of sand  between the water's edge and the marsh grasses. The wind was also blowing something like 15 knots according to SailFlow.  Baxter and I made it to shore and back to the boat in the kayak, but it was an exciting paddle!

We had a pleasant evening in the cockpit after sundowners and dinner.  We spent a little bit of time with Active Captain planning our stops for the rest of the cruise to Apalachicola, where we plan to stay a couple of days to visit our friend Marc Grove. It looks like we should arrive there Friday afternoon. The mile markers are spaced way farther apart on the ICW on our Garmin Blue Chart Mobile and Navionics electronic charts than they had been on the rivers, which makes it more difficult to calculate distances, but  according to Skipper Bob, Apalachicola is at Mile 351. According to our electronic charts, the Big Sabine Santa Rosa Island anchorage is at Mile 197, so we have about 154 miles to Apalachicola,  We are planning on running 54 miles to Tucker Bayou today and 58 miles to White City Thursday, leaving us about 42 miles to Apalachicola on Friday.  It will no doubt turn out to be farther.

We were treated to another fine sunset over the ICW.  I know the sun rises and sets every day, but somehow we never tire of great sunsets!

Just another sunset over the ICW!