Stats for November 14, 2018

Origin:  The Wharf, Orange Beach, Alabama

Destination:  Free Wall, Pensacola, Florida

Distance:  29.3 miles

Speed:  8.7 mph

Time on the Move:  3 hours and 22 minutes

We woke up to another overcast, chilly, rainy day, so we decided we had overstayed our welcome in Orange Beach.  We braved some wind to pull out of the slip and past all those huge boats, but we made it out just fine.  

We have a “new normal” to get used to, traveling on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.  There is a marked channel to stay in, but it is fairly tight at times.  Lots of boats in the channel are running on plane, so they throw huge wakes at us that we bounce over at 8-9 mph.  Some boats are pontoon boats and you feel like you are going to swamp them when you go past them at 8mph, but I can’t imagine passing them at 20+.  Quite often there is a ton of water to be seen, but just outside of the channel markers, it gets extremely shallow–like 1-2 feet in many places.  INNTW would not like that, so we stay between the markers.  Sometimes the chartplotter plays a trick and wants to send you outside the channel or tells you the channel is actually over about 50 feet to one side or the other, but we’ve heard (and learned) that you should trust what you see and just stay between the markers.  

Due to the weather and the fact that it was a Wednesday, we didn’t see many (any??) boats out on this particular travel day.  What we did hear over and over again was a warning from the Coast Guard about “pyrotechnics” at a nearby Fort Somethingorother.  Of course we had to look it up right away to make sure we weren’t close to that location, and thank goodness we weren’t.  But just another adventure to keep our day interesting.

We made it in to Pensacola and tied up at a free wall at the end of a long, narrow channel.  It was a little nerve wracking because we weren’t exactly sure we knew where the free dock was (despite reading Active Captain reviews and scouring satellite images) and it was such a tight space, there was very little room for error.  After arriving at the dock, we barely fit in the space, so we are lucky no one was there before us. After a quick lunch and layering of every single warm thing we had, we were off to explore Pensacola (a high of about 50* expected–brrr).

We walked on a little trail and learned about some of the early explorers in the area and then headed to an archeological museum. 

After we were bored of learning about pirates, explorers, treasure, and artifacts, we called for an Uber to take us to the FREE Pensacola Naval Aviation Museum.

The Naval Aviation Museum was awesome.  We saw so many planes, learned about many “firsts” in aviation, and developed a new respect for those who protect our freedom.  What an awesome stop!!  Plus, we couldn’t believe it was FREE!!   That is, aside from the Uber ride to get there.  But then when we tried to leave, we learned that Uber drivers aren’t allowed on base to pick up riders, so we had to wait for a cab from a specific company.  We waited well over an hour for our ride and about half an hour after closing time.  In the end, the FREE museum cost us about $80 in transportation, but at least the museum was amazing!!  Just another adventure, right?!

When we finally got back to the boat we were hungry, tired, and freezing.  The temperature on the boat was about 55* so we cranked that heat up and ate a quick dinner and headed to bed.

Oh yeah….by the way.  The Pensacola Wall is supposed to just be a day stop with no overnight docking.  Our plan was to move to a nearby anchorage before dark, but with the Uber confusion we didn’t get back until well after dark.  We figured we’d take our chances at staying overnight and no one ever said a thing.  Thank goodness!  I did not want a knock on the boat in the middle of the night telling us we had to leave, but I suppose we would have just explained our story and worked the fact that we have 3 kids on board to our advantage.  Nothing is easy on this adventure and every single day is different, that’s for sure!!  Part of what makes it so amazing, I guess.  Thanks for reading and following along!!