Today was quite a milestone. I sailed for the first time ever in the gulf, and what a trip it was! I left Ft. McRee around 5:45. I promptly ran aground at 6:04. Note to self: pay a little more attention to the shoals when you enter a foreign harbor! See...I noticed these shallow spots yesterday when I arrived, and thought that I'd made a mental note of them, but apparently that didn't quite work out. In trying to avoid the shoals, I got too close to shore and scraped bottom. It wasn't a big deal though, & I was off in seconds headed out Pensacola Pass. (Check out the amazing sunrise!)

Once I got about 3 miles out, I hung a left en route to Destin Seabouy "CB"... a distance of 40 miles. At just over 4.5 knots, we're talking almost a 10 hour trip. I set the autopilot to 84 degrees, and it went to town. That thing is amazing...all I have to do is tell it which way I want to go, & keeps me on that heading beautifully. The wind was negligable, so the trip was pretty much a motorboat ride, although I did raise the main around 1145, when some SE kicked up. The swell wasn't bad at all...seas were about a foot until I neared Destin, & they kicked up to probably close to 2 feet. Thanks to the pilot, I was able to read about 150 pages in my book, & every hour I went down below to plot my position on the paper chart. I chilled some applesauce for a snack, and had crackers & chunk ham for lunch. Let me tell you...that ham stuff isn't too bad, but it's like licking a salt block. The sodium content of that stuff is astronomical.

Around 1245, I saw my first real flying fish. Talk about weird...it just jumped out of a wave, flew around maybe 50-60 yards then returned to the water. I also saw 3 or 4 pods of dolphin.

I never got out of sight of land...I basically just rode 3 miles or so out from the beach, but the water out there is amazingly beautiful. It's the most gorgeous deep blue that you'd ever seen, yet it was clear as day. I've never seen water quite like it.

Finally, the GPS clocked off the 40 miles confirming my navigation and I approached East Pass to enter Destin. The water at the pass turned into a bright turquois like I would imagine you'd see in the Bahamas or something. It didn't look like it could be more than 3 feet deep, but somehow it was 12. You could literally see straight down to the sand on the bottom. The water in the pass was extremely rough, & I was flying with the current (about 6.5kts at half throttle). I actually had to get out of the channel at one point to maintain suitable depth. Finally I got in and fueled up. I figured fuel usage to be about 1 gallon an hour, and that proved to be pretty accurate.

I anchored in Destin Harbor about 200 yards off the end of the docks at Harry T's. After I got the boat in some sort of order, I rowed in to Harry T's and had dinner. Not too much going on, so I went back and planned tomorrow. I'm pretty whooped, so I'm not sure if I'm going to try and make Panama City, or just hang around here and see the sights. Later!