March 6, 2009: St George and Dog Islands, near Carrabelle

The Scipio Marina is very sheltered and the water last night was like glass. The boats all looked like they were mounted on a mirrored surface.

Today was our last day in Apalachicola, a day when I had several conference calls to make. When the toast was done for breakfast, Tom discovered his plans for the day!He couldn’t get the toast out because the microwave/toaster door opener latch was broken. So he spent the day learning that getting the microwave out of the cabinet required taking the doors off of the refrigerator and finding someone who could repair the appliance.

We saw a sightseeing boat full of passengers donning orange life jackets with cameras come down Scipio creek. They stopped to take pictures of the pelican landing pad on the barge with the crane. It has been fun watching the pelicans glide just above the water surface for their long run way to land there.

Around 3:00 pm we cast off passing three large fishing boats with their tall wings and their nets drying. Our path crossed Apalachicola Bay. This was another broad but shallow body of water where you closely followed the channel markers all the way across, under the long bridge, and along the inner coast of the barrier islands.

We cruised along the white sandy beaches of St George Island and past the inlet and on to Dog Island. This is a very low, narrow barrier island with several large beach cottages which apparently have no access by land and strikingly little protection from high water. Tonight we are anchored just off shore north of Dog Island. And after two nights secured to a dock, we really notice the mildly rolling sea. What a huge sunset we saw over the island as the evening waned.

Tomorrow we will cross the Big Bend of Florida. This is 1800 square miles of shallow sea grass meadows, basically 1 foot of depth for each mile from the shore line. We will travel 100 miles in distance about 50 miles off shore skirting what we figure is a great nursery for the shrimp.