Egmont Key (Tampa Bay) to Panama City, Fl

If you exclude insane cat people, we love animals and wildlife as much as anyone, but...we moved to the north end of Egmont Key on our last afternoon/evening to get away from the bird sanctuary and the incessant squawking of the one trillion resident sea gulls. It also moved us closer to the inlet for a quicker late night departure. It was a bit bouncier but much quieter, and after a fitful nap our anchor was up at 11:07 pm. So, by a margin of 53 minutes, we broke our unintentional habit of leaving harbor on Friday the 13th. Seems as though we nailed most of them when they came around.

With the tide against the wind, the inlet was rough, but once we hung a right and pointed the bow to Panama City the seas calmed down. We sailed close hauled for several hours with 9-13 knots of wind, then bore off to a close reach to pick up some speed. Even though we were going into the wind, the seas were comfortable. We gambled that the wind forecast would hold true, so we didn't tack. This put us about 12 miles west of our rhumb line. The winds were supposed to pick up to the mid to upper 20s the following day and move behind us for a broad reach. We never want to sail on a close reach in those winds but on a broad reach it can be fun. If the wind didn't clock and stayed on our nose we would have had to bear off to Pensacola. But our Winlink forecast was on the money and with the wind clocking toward our stern, we were able to turn into a broad reach right on into Panama City. I wouldn't call it fun, because we were doing the cork screw twist and the seas were not small with the winds in the upper 20s, but it worked as planned.

When we approached Panama City, it was post card pretty with white sand beaches and several shades of beautiful blue water. As we reached the jetties, the water became flat and we had a wonderful sail up to the mouth of Watson Bayou, where we would rendezvous with Jesa and her crew.

Our anchor was down shortly before 3:30 pm with Jesa swinging on her anchor a couple hundred feet in front of us. Jesa hails from the Kemah/Galveston area and is crewed by Zak, Karen, and Jessie. Karen is Lisa's eldest sister.

The following day was Lisa's birthday, and she was excited because she now qualifies for senior discount at IHOP. Woohoo!


These are not Cheerios. These are Oh's. If you have never tasted them you don't know what you are missing. Don't mess with milk, just eat them plain. 

Before you accuse me of being cheap, we decided many years ago not to do the gift thing on birthdays and Christmas. Too much pressure and we aren't into the obligatory spend money-because-it's-what-you're-supposed-to-do thing. If one of us wants something--well there are 3 hundred and sixty something days in the year. So for birthdays, we do the eat out thing and maybe a treat or something. It works for us. And Lisa loves Oh's.

Jessie spent a night with us on our boat. 

We had a fun evening and we learned a lot about NCIS and Sugarland. We always enjoy spending time with Jessie. I like to tease her, she likes to tease me, and Jessie and Lisa like to gang up on me. 

Sometime the following week, Jesa and Nicki May anchored in St Andrew Sound just off of Shell Island. The only way to get there is by boat.


Photo: courtesy of Karen since I forgot my camera. The crews of Nicki May and Jesa (minus Karen) make their way from the St Andrew side to the Gulf of Mexico side of Shell Island. Beautiful white sand that squeaks under your feet.


Once again, photo is courtesy of Karen Kuykendall. Good thing her middle name isn't Kristine. For those of you from Rio Linda...


Left to Right. Zak and Boone headed for shore. I wish I had Zak's full head of hair, and Boone is wishing the dinghy ride was over with already.

We are glad the winds didn't blow us to Pensacola. Panama city is a great place for boating with nice water and good coves to tuck into, and we really enjoyed our couple of weeks with the Kuykendalls.