Another early start 730 am again, but another lovely sunny day. This has been a surprisingly lovely part of the journey , traveling around the Florida Panhandle.
We prefer it to a lot of the ICW on the East Coast.Not as built up or as busy and nice scenery.
Again we were able to run at 15 kts for much of the time, although being a Saturday it did bring out more fishermen in some of the areas . We passed a big paper mill just after leaving Panama City. It had that distinctive strange smell you recognize once you have smelt it.
We saw what looked to be evidence of wrecked boats along the shores, probably from old hurricane damage. 
This part had some narrower channels all tree lined on both sides, so lots of tannin in the water turning it a dark tea color.It reminded us a bit of the Dismal Swamp in Virginia 
The channels would lead into a lake like area and back again to another narrow channel .Later we started seeing crab pots ! Just after noon , (we had just gone forward an hour ) , we arrived at Apalachicola, a quaint little town right on the intercostal.This has some lovely old historic buildings and lots of eating places with fresh seafood like Blue crab, Grouper , and local mussels .Erica had called one of the marinas to check if there was anywhere we could dock for a couple of hours and have lunch there.
Yes , one of the marinas said there was a city dock you could probably just tie up to .
He gave us instructions how to find it, and it was easy enough.
We walked down to Caroline's River Dinning and had a wonderful lunch on the porch overlooking the water.Erica had blue crab cakes in lobster sauce and Graeme fresh grouper Reuben! 
Then a stroll around the town, checking out the bakery on the way. A nice break off the boat for two hours.
This area is known for its sponges.Further down the coast at Tarpon Springs there is a sponge museum and lots of Greek restaurants.
The Greeks came over and started the sponge diving here and made Tarpon Spings the sponge capital of the world .Well , so says the waterway guide we use!
Back underway and two hours later arrived at Carabelle.This is a big fishing port as well as the place to stay for Loopers and boaters waiting to cross the waters to Tarpon Springs, Clearwater Bay or Dunedin. Our friends Lisa and Tom had decided to skip Apalachicola and were already in their slip ready for tomorrow's adventure to cross the water to Dunedin.We were all keen to go as with this hurricane in the Caribean , you never know how the Gulf can be affected even if it goes end up going up the East Coast of Florida.Tomorrow will be an even earlier start with possibly a 10 hour trip or longer. Light supper on board and early to bed.
Over and Out,
E and G
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