And Now.....The Rest of The Story-Part 1

We left you hanging back in Carrabelle with an unknown problem at the top of the mast. We had a big crowd of gawkers when we first arrived after the crossing who were quite impressed with the fool climbing his mast while thunder rumbled in the distance. Turns out one of them is a retired rigger (one who messes about with sailboat rigging) and he offered to help the next day. We were able to get it all untangled and repaired and rewound and everything was great except for the three hours of thunderstorms that hit about 10 minutes after David was down on the deck. Still, there is no better reading than knowing your boat is ready to go once the weather is ready. We were still able to depart and make it the 22 miles to Appalachicola.

Appalachicola is a great place to visit. We have been making trips there (by road) since we first moved to Florida in the late 80s. We would be stationed somewhere else and then make it back to Hurlburt Field and then move again and now we're back for good. We have a lot of good memories walking around downtown with our girls when we were on camping or exploring trips. We were weathered in for several days once and had Dad Tye on board. Since that is the only trip we had the chance to make with him, more good memories.

These are pictures of the City Marina in Appalachicola. We were through here on our original trip bringing the boat home for the first time. Back then, the docks were in bad shape due to Hurricane Ivan and the live-aboard boats didn't look much better. Meanwhile, they have rebuilt the docks and even added quite a bit to them to accomodate fishing. The permanent party boats have also had an upgrade. Apparently it is very cheap rent and the trend seems to be to large houseboats. Below is the best example but there were others in there and two more in the construction phases.