Extracts from my diary...

Panama City, June 8th

We seem to bounce back to this place like a boomerang - Panama City, Florida. Tied up at Ken and Monica's private dock in Watson Bayou since yesterday afternoon. We left Apalachicola for Port St Joe after having spent 3 days there, meeting Linda (who is from Venezula) and Mike, who live on their boat. Linda came to the US about 3 years ago. She left her son and 18 year old daughter behind and started a new life with Mike. She runs the Cafe Con Leche in Apalachicola, the only Internet Cafe in town. We had a great time together; eating a bunch of the world-famous Apalachicola oysters - with lime juice, horse radish and Louisiana Hot sauce...

Port St Joe was gorgeous! The state park beats Shell island off Panama City any time! We spent 2 or 3 days anchoring there. Saw alligators, a rackoon, sea turtles, and Bob even spotted 2 sand sharks - almost 6 feet long - coming out of Crooked island where we spent the night before last. Now back in PC with our dear friends the Gleason family we are running some errands (top off diesel cans, stock up on groceries). Decided to take the Francis Lee back up north and sail the Great Lakes next summer. So upriver it will be for us... 19 locks are waiting for us.

Pensacola Bay, June 11th

Another 3 miles to our anchorage that we picked for tonight. Last night we stayed outside of Destin (what a complete nightmare the Destin pass with a channel marking not the navigable channel itself but the sandbars!) after having got up in Panama City at 3 AM where we anchored in St Andrew's Bay near Smack Bayou. Headed out the Panama City pass just as the sun was rising... Motorsailed on the Gulf, about 5 miles offshore in the morning. Then, around afternoon, the 2 lines we were trolling off our stern indicated that something had hit. Bob pulled in his line, shouting "There's a fish, I got one" and glancing at "my" line he told me "you got one too! Pull it in!"... So I did, only that when I pulled at my line it felt like the fish was really light, so I yelled back at him "Don't worry about me. Get your fish in, babes!" Then I thought I'd lost my fish. I pulled in most of the line and the end got caught under the swimming ladder at the transum. I saw the lure and it seemed empty at first glance, no fish. So I said to Bob "I lost it"... Then I saw the fish! It was a great big king mackerel... Bob filleted them both straight away and I put them on ice after having washed the fillets. We cleaned the cockpit of all the guts and blood and by then the wind had picked up and was favourable so we sailed all afternoon. Really nice sailing, enjoyed it immensely! What an amazing day we had!All I kept thinking, looking at the photos we took was "Especially Grandma and Daddy are going to be so proud of me"