Change of Pace

Sometimes you don't need a map to tell you when you've crossed a border.  Florida looked exactly like Florida the second we went over the line on our charts:

After rushing day after day to get off the rivers and back to big water we've been settling in to a much slower pace here in Florida.  We are aiming to be in Panama City Beach for American Thanksgiving to visit with Reg's brother (who lives nearby) and his parents (who are flying in for Turkey Day).  When we left Mobile we had 10 days to cover only 145 nautical miles which gives us time to stop more than one night in places we like such as this:

We anchored in Big Lagoon north of Perdido Key for two nights.  Perdido Key is part of the Gulf Island National Seashore so it is unspoiled.

This guy greeted us when we were anchoring and stayed with 15' of the boat for about an hour.  I guess they are used to people feeding them but I was a little scared of him so I didn't encourage him to stick around.

Perdido Key Dunes

From Perdido Key we finally got what we have been after for months - a long, fast sail!  We didn't stay on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway from Pensacola to Destin, FL because there are three bridges that we would need to reach at low tide for a comfortable clearance above our mast. Instead we sailed on the open ocean on a beam reach for 40 miles in a perfect 15-20 knot breeze.  To travel without the engine again is wonderful. Unfortunately after months on the rivers Riley had forgotten that he needs to keep his porthole closed and he was woken up at 7am with a salt water wave in his face!

After a night anchored in the harbour in touristy Destin we are now in a small marina in Niceville, Florida.  They have a courtesy car so we did a big reprovision today which will keep us going for a few weeks. We bought some canned meats so we can start experimenting with them for when grocery stores are few and far between in the Bahamas.