200 mi from Gustav

The attached video is just a few shots from around Pensacola Bay. Not a huge amount of rain thus far, but very windy along the waterways. Three Mile Bridge is more windy at the top and it's advisable to hold on to the steering wheel with both hands. If you look closely at the video of the Sea-Me-Knot, you can tell that she is leaning to the starboard side. The most interesting sight today was watching a pelican flying backwards. Right now it's sunny and cloudy, windy and rainy with none of it lasting more than a few seconds at a time.

The Cone of Destruction

Well the weatherman may explain that the path of any given hurricane is projected in a cone of uncertainty, but then again that's the weatherman. Hurricane preparedness has been in the forefront of our minds for the last two weeks. With Gustav reaching Cat. 4 status we spent all day in the hot sun securing the Sea-Me-Knot. We now have a boat with no sails, no bimini, and plethora of lines securing it to the dock. After 8 hours of work, red faces, and burned shoulders, we're back at home and dreaming of sailing. I think tonight we'll watch Captain Ron...

Boaters Blues

This weekend was spent just hanging around the dock and talking with our neighbors. We also went to the boaters party on Saturday night. This years theme was The Boaters Blues because the cost of fuel, insurance and dockage has all gone thru the roof. It was fun to get to know some of our marina neighbors that we haven't met yet. We made it an early night and went back to Sea-Me-Knot. I have included a few pictures of our marina.

Palm Harbor Marina

New boat slip neighbors

Posted by Mike: 08/04/08
We have new slip neighbors, (I hope they're not pirates) I met the captain and like me he only works two or three days a week so were going to try to get in a little weekday sailing together. We had a slow weekend, we had no out of town visitors so Saturday, Shari did home maintenance (She watches way too much HGTV) and I did boat maintenance (hid at the marina) until it was time to go to a very nice 50th wedding anniversary reception for one of Shari's coworkers. On Sunday a tropical storm named Edouard started brewing off the coast.
After church we went to the beach with some friends and played in the large surf until the red flags came out.

If you haven't found it yet, I started a new picture of the day blog. www.mikespicoftheday.blogspot.com It's just pictures of things that might catch my eye during the day.

Those who say you can't take it with you never saw a car packed for a vacation trip...

Posted by: Shari 7/26/2008
The weather may not have been great for sailing this past week, but it was a great week for seeing our friends on vacation from TN. Thursday night we enjoyed dinner at Grazie's on Restaurant Row in Destin, FL. It's a little Italian place just around the corner from the Front Porch. There we had dinner with Pearl, Rick, Zack & Isaac. The food was great, and Isaac really liked the lemons and the cheese! :) Saturday we had the pleasure of sharing a meal with Curt, Susan, Zack & Jacob. As you can see in the photo above we enjoyed seafood at Pompano Joe's on the beach. I highly recommend the coconut shrimp! After dinner we were off to Bruster's for ice cream.
Have a great week!

Honey, Don't Forget The Camera

Posted by Shari 7/23/08
I suspect that you may be wondering why we have a picture of our lunch on this post. We like to eat just as much as we like to sail. Only while sailing we like to pretend we're health conscious and enjoy delights like that in the picture above. Speaking of pictures--famous last words "Honey, don't forget the camera" is what I called out to Mike as I stood on shore and he took off in the dinghy headed for the Sea-Me-Knot which was, of course, anchored a short distance off shore. We had a lovely sail, experienced no wind, and then motored to a less inhabited part of Santa Rosa Island. If a picture is worth a thousand words, you can calculate that you have missed at a minimum 5,000 words. But who's 'a counting? While at the beach we saw crabs in the water, under our feet and even chased a few. We learned that Robbie and Jonah could easily be nicknamed sand-crab cowboys as we laughed while watching them try to catch a rather sizeable one on the beach. That's two photo ops, and three to go. As we strolled down the shore each of us scattered a few feet from the other we spotted a stingray gliding along in the water. He was at least 4ft wide and for me this was a 1st to see one of that size in its natural habitat. Then there was two large schools of not-so-small fish (I was more concerned about what would be chasing fish that size), and the best missed picture of all... The dolphins! They were so close to us as we traveled back to the Sea-Me-Knot in the dinghy, we thought we'd get to touch them. They were awesome.
The pictures we did take

Naval Air Museum 07/15/08

Posted by Mike 07/23/08
On July 15th my sister Robbie and her family came to see us and we decided to visit the National Museum of Naval Aviation. We had called ahead and reserved time in the F-14 Top Gun Air Combat Simulators. These four simulators, are the real deal. They were used to train more than 1,000 F-14 pilots during the 30 year length of service of the Tomcat. The ride costs $25 for one or two people and includes a pre-flight briefing and 20 thrilling minutes at the controls. The simulators are two-seaters with the pilot in the front seat and the radar intercept officer in the back seat. During my time at the stick I soon realized, that even though I have real flight time (single engine Piper Colt) I'm no match to a 14 year old with countless hours of Nintendo, Play station and X box training.

We plan on visiting again and hopefully we will take one of the guided tours through the museum because this trip was spent riding simulators and shooting parents out of the sky.

The museum is located on the Pensacola Naval Air Station also home of the Blue Angels. When the Blues practice sometime we can sit on Sea Me Knot and get a free show.

A few pictures of our visit.