S/V WAHOO: "If anything's gonna happen it's gonna happen out there".

Quote from Captain Ron. And if you haven't seen Captain Ron you really need to come sailing with us.

Well I guess its part of the shake down for cruising.

4/4/11 We were doing swell. Got a taxi to take us to "Mac and More" a wonderful authorized, newly opened Mac Store. They fixed the Imac lickety split and we were just smiling away.

Decided that we would move on along the GIWW to hold up until the storm passed in a protected anchorage at Roberts Bayou. According to Skipper Bob this was the spot. Skipper Bob writes a great cruising guide to anchorages along the Intracoastal Waterways. We loved not paying another night's marina fee, so off we went.

Yep, it looked just fine...until we tried to anchor. Deep mud, the anchor didn't hold!
Looked around and just waiting for us was this nice little (free) municipal wharf by a nice little park. Sounded our way carefully, didn't want to get stuck, and tied right up.

There we were all tidy waiting for the storm. Emailed with Nancy, talked to Grouper and Tricia (our lovely tenant at 7th St). Everyone said its a whopper, be careful. Seems it was bad, bad, bad in New Orleans but for us not so much.

4/5/11 Next morning - a lovely day, we waited for high tide around 10am to sail away. Long story short - had to call TowBoat around 3pm to pull us out of there. Moral of that story - high, high tide before the storm - low, low tide after the storm.

But we ended the day at a beautiful anchorage just west of Pensacola with a beautiful sunset.

4/6/11 Roy's so sweet. He didn't want to spoil our evening so he waited until after coffee to tell me that the freezer wasn't cooling. Could be the compressor $$$$$$, maybe just the thermostat. Let's go find out.

No sail to Panama City on this lovely day. But we did fine a marine refrigeration company that would come to the boat and check it out if we got ourselves over to Bayou Chico, which is up Pensacola Bay a bit. Ok, did that, out they came, wonderful folks - not the compressor (thank you to the powers that be) just a "module" and they had the replacement and knew folks who used to come to our restaurant in Lafitte. Great, even got some laundry done.

Did a little sewing, did a little laundry

4/7/11 Woke up feeling great - everything's working out. Finally we're sailing out of Pensacola Bay, winds a little high and out of the SE.

It's a little choppy, waves building to 4-5 feet so its taking awhile. We decided to stop in Destin as it was looking like too long a day to make Panama City.

Great feeling to have the anchor down and be out of the wind and waves. We'll make Panama City tomorrow.