Seventh Port Day in Apalachicola - Waiting for a Weather Window

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

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 210 - October 27, 2017

Today was another tourist day in Apalachicola!  We are having lazy mornings, getting up later and later.  By the time I get back from walking Baxter, Patty has made the coffee.  After we have one cup in the cockpit, had our toast, then had another cup of coffee, it seems like it is late morning. This suits us fine, because there is really nothing we HAVE to do most days now! We reflected that Apalachicola is a great place to wait for a weather window since it is a wonderful tourist destination for which many people pay thousands of dollars to do what we are doing here mostly for free!

We headed out in Marc's golf cart to tour the Orman House Museum, the second of the two antebellum homes in Apalachicola. The Orman House Museum is now a Florida State Parks property, which means it has an admission fee. Ranger Jeremy collected the $4.00, and gave us a bit of history, and started us on a self-guided tour. This house was built between 1836 and 1838, and stands on ten and a half acres. Many of the furnishings in the house are original, including a sideboard in the dining room made from cypress wood, which has never been refinished according to Ranger Jeremy. We toured the rest of the house on our own, which was fine because there were quite a few explanatory signs in each room.

Thomas Orman House Museum

Original Orman sideboard made from cypress wood

Thomas Orman, like David Raney, was born in 1799, and also like Raney, is buried in the Chestnut Street Cemetery. Both were prominent cotton merchants in Apalachicola. Thomas and Sarah Orman  had one son, William, and William and Anne Orman had one daughter, Sadie, who married John Fennimore Cooper Griggs, who was the Customs Collector and Captain of the Port.  Sadie outlived Mr. Griggs and a second husband, and lived in the house until a very old age, cared for by a second cousin, Earl Orman. When Sadie passed away, she left the property to Earl.  The last of Thomas Orman's descendants, Iona Andrews,  continued to live in the house right up until 1994.  Iona apparently lived only in the two back rooms and let the rest of the house fall into ruins. A photo from that time shows the exterior of the house had fallen into serious disrepair. 

It was purchased by Douglas and Anna Gaidry in 1994, who substantially restored the house and ran it as a bed and breakfast until 1999, when they sold it to the State of Florida after winning a Florida Trust for Historic Preservation in 1997. The Gaidrys put in electricity, plumbing, modern bathrooms, and updated the kitchen for the bed and breakfast.  Ranger Jeremy told us the State Parks will restore the kitchen to a more historic version, although the original kitchen had been an outbuilding due to the danger of fire.

The slave quarters building still stands on the property, but is literally falling down.

Slave quarters at Thomas Orman House

After the Orman House, we went over to the John Gorrie State Museum. Gorrie was the inventor of the ice machine. Dr. Gorrie invented the ice machine in an attempt to cool his yellow fever patients. The ice machine he invented became the basis for the ice industry and air conditioning. The museum contains a replica of Dr. Gorrie's original machine. Unfortunately, the museum was closed for an extended period, and we did not get to go inside!

On the way back, we looked for the historic homes listed in the Chamber of Commerce's Historic Walking Tour (riding in the golf cart of course). We found many of them, but I didn't try to photograph them all. Here are a couple that we stopped for. 

The Billy Bryant House, built in 1915, is notable because Billy Bryant, a builder of fine homes and boats, was African American.  Florida was segregated like the rest of the southern states, but that evidently did not hold Billy Bryant back! Today the Mayor of Apalachicola, Van Johnson, is an African American, and Apalachicola seems to be way ahead of Savannah and Charleston, where we saw many 4x4 pickups driving around with Confederate battle flags. We have seen nothing like that here!

Billy Bryant House

The Flatauer House was built for Adolph Flatauer in 1908 - 1909. I Googled Adolf Flatauer, and learned we was an "itinerant peddler and dry goods merchant." It seems a rather grand house for an itinerant peddler, so I assume he must have had considerable success as a dry goods merchant! I also found this studio portrait of Adolph's daughters, Clara and Tessie, on Florida Memories, the State Library and Archives of Florida website!

Clara and Tessie Flatauer

We ended our "tourist" day at the Apalachicola Chocolate & Coffee Company for some very expensive gelato and a small selection of chocolates! Back at the boat, we had probably the first dinner not at a restaurant since the previous Friday!

We continue to look at our weather resources for the weather window to cross the Big Bend. It still looks like possibly Monday or Tuesday next week. I also played with Garmin Blue Chart Mobile on the iPad. We have known how to place markers at the current location, but I Googled how to place markers at specific latitude / longitude coordinates, which is ridiculously easy and I don't know how it previously eluded me. I also Googled creating and editing routes, which likewise is very easy, but I had not felt the need for routes before, since it is hard to get lost in an intracoastal waterway or a river! We know we need to avoid the shoals, and go across to Steinhatchee from R26, a red nun way out below Alligator Point, so I placed a marker there with the coordinates in Skipper Bob, and created our route from Dog Island, where we will spend the night before the crossing, to R26, and then to the channel entrance to Steinhatchee! We love Apalachicola and the Groves' hospitality, but we are anxious to get underway again!