Day 138 – Fort Walton Beach, FL to Lighthouse Marina, Panama City Beach, FL - November 21, 2011

We had a lot of miles to cover today, so we were up early and moving down the Intercoastal by 6:45am.  We started the day by crossing Choctawhatchee Bay.  The bay is almost thirty miles long and in places as much as five miles wide.  We have the perfect travel day as there is almost no wind and bright sun.  Almost as soon as we enter the bay we are visited by more dolphins.  The first group started with five dolphins and grew to eight or more before they left us.  We had five dolphins swimming under the bow at one time.  When the dolphins got tired of hanging out at the bow, many of them moved to the side of the boat to play in the wake.  We were traveling over 9 miles per hour today and it was amazing how the dolphins were able to keep up.  As we crossed the bay many different groups of dolphins swam along with us – most of them starting at the bow as the first group did and then ending up swimming along side.  I don’t think I will ever get tired of watching these graceful animals interact with the boat.

At the end of the Choctawhatchee Bay is the land cut (that means it is a man made channel) known as the “Grand Canyon”.  Before entering this section we joked that the name “Grand Canyon” might be a bit of a stretch, but we were pleasantly surprised that it was quite a beautiful area with reasonably high cliffs.

We finished today’s travels by going through West Bay and St. Andrews Bay (where Panama City is located) and finally into Grand Lagoon.  Grand Lagoon is in Panama City Beach.  We will stay here until we see a weather window opening up for crossing the Gulf.  Then we’ll head to Apalachicola and Carrabelle and get ready for our crossing.

             Miles: 68.5      Bridges: 5        Locks: 0

dolphins playing in our wake...

...and swimming under the bow

more playing under the bow...

...and more playing in the boat's wake

in the "Grand Canyon"

more interesting sand cliffs in the "Grand Canyon"

a military vessel in St. Andrews Bay

These are the most interesting jelly fish.  They look like large white softballs.
Each one of these jellies had tiny little fish swimming around their tentacles.

This is a blowup shot of the above jellies.  It isn't the clearest picture,
but you can see the little fish swimming around.