KnotSoFast Tugboat Travels: March 14, 2011 - Back to Santa Rosa Yacht Club in Gulf Breeze, FL

The Landing, a Ft. Walton city park where we docked Sunday night.

We all slept late this morning, and didn't stir until 7:00 am. A tow boat and barge came through about 3:00am and woke me, but was gone by the time I got up to see why the boat was rocking. It was a quiet and peaceful night.

We walked Daisy this morning and Glenda spotted what she thought was a big fish or dolphin headed for the pier, making a wake from underwater. As we all walked to the end of the pier to see it, the little otter popped his head up and looked at us. We watched as he moved from one pier to the other, coming up to look around every minute or so. At one point he stopped to harrass a duck swimming near the pier.

We pulled out just before 9:00 this morning and took a quick look at the Hwy 98 (Miracle Strip) Bridge before turning back West toward Pensacola.

Hwy 98 Bridge over the ICW

I realized that with our late start we wouldn't be in the Pensacola area for lunch as we origianlly planned. I called the Navarre Beach Chamber and got directions to "Sailor's Grill" at the lower west side of the Navarre Beach Bridge. This was sort of a "Jimmy Buffet" style beach grill. Other than the fact that they don't serve sweet tea, the meal there was pretty good.

Knot-So-Fast at the "Sailor's Grill"

Two Shrimp Boats passed us about 2:00. You can see the sound was getting choppy.

After we were out of the Navarre Beach area, we were pretty much all alone again in the Santa Rosa Sound until we got almost to the bridge at Gulf Breeze. After lunch the wind picked up again and the last 2 1/2 hours was a little rough.

Today we only saw one dolphin, who came up beside the boat to take a look at us. We had expected to see a lot more.