Living on the hook and moving on down the coast

So far this has been such a awesome transition for us.  We spent a few days at St. Andrews Marina in Panama City Fl..  Very nice marina with good facilities. The staff were very friendly and helpful while we stayed there.  The bathrooms are clean and pretty nice.  It is just a bit of a walk to the facilities from the transient docks.

We were lucky some great friends of ours have there boat there also and they had a rental car.  This is a big deal for cruisers to have a free ride! We made a run to West Marine to get some parts to fix a item that broke while making the trip from Galveston, Tx.  Also, we made a quick run to Wal-Mart to get some provisions before we headed back to the marina.

My brother and his wife brought us my water-maker I had forwarded to his address in the Destin area.  We had a good visit with them and my niece and nephew also.  We went out to a local restaurant for a bite to eat.  The one thing is there are several local restaurants within walking distance from the marina.  Hunts Oyster Bar was our favorite that we tried.  The oysters were fresh, and the food was priced reasonable.  The atmosphere was like any typical coastal local dive.  

We left the marina and headed for Shell Island, which is a barrier island just to the east of the Panama City entrance.   We anchored in 13 feet of water with a sand bottom with some sea grass on the bottom.  Our Mantus anchor hooked the first time as usual.  We laid out a 7:1 scope since we were going to be there a few days.  Every morning there was a wave of rental pontoon boats headed over from Panama City Beach area.  We would sleep in, eat a late breakfast, eat lunch then head over to the gulf beach.



We left Shell Island after 3 nights and headed for Port St. Joe.  This is a easy day sail of around 30 or so nautical miles.  We had, and I mean we had ZERO wind.  So we motored all the way over, and tossed out the trolling lines, caught 5 bonitos.  I think the only thing they may be good for would be shark bait.  They are fun to catch, they just stink!  We pulled into the Port St. Joe Marina which we will post next week of our adventures here.  So far we like it, a lot.


#mantusanchors #cruisinglife #liveaboards #livingonthehook #panamacity #shellisland #portstjoe





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