From The Moorings to C Quarters Marina

Day 113, November 22nd, 2009

We worked hard in the morning thinking there would be a weather window to move up to "Alligator Harbor" that afternoon, in order to shorten the leg to Steinhatchee the next day.

We'd decided not to pull the dinghy on such a long leg, for safety's sake and to reduce drag. One of the jobs we didn't finish before leaving home was to make a motor mount on the stern rail for the outboard. We'd bought a bit of teak for the job but that's as far as it got. So, although we'd started it the previous evening it wasn't right and needed some modification. Right after breakfast we got started, remeasured, drilled a few more holes and by 11:00 a.m. had the outboard up in position. We then pulled the dinghy up on the bow using the spinnaker halliard and scrubbed her clean before getting her into her bag and strapped over the front hatch. We also checked the weather forecasts on the internet and it looked pretty good for a couple of days. As advised by "Buddy" we thought we could get to Port Inglis, then wait out more weather before reaching Tarpan Springs. While checking out of The Moorings and paying our bill, we met Pat from Sharpie's Dream and he said they were not ready and would not be leaving. They'd run into computer problems and had contacted a guy who would be visiting that afternoon to fix it. So we pretty much rushed back to the boat and called Twice 's Nice on the VHF and told them we were ready to go. They called back shortly after and said that the fishermen at their marina, C Quarters, were all saying "Don't go!" They apparently never take their boats into Steinhatchee because of the shallows, and were recommending we all wait for the next front to blow through and then go all the way to Tarpan Springs as we had originally planned! Very confusing. Local knowledge is so important but when you get two different sets of advice, its so hard to make a comfortable decision. We ended up deciding to listen to the fishermen and moved the boat over to C Quarters where the rates were cheaper. Were we indecisive? Yes and No!!! So we ended up saying a temporary goodbye to Sharpie's Dream and joined up again with Twice s' Nice. (The marinas are only a block apart.) We felt kind of stupid actually but what can you do?

Sue had bought a bag of jumbo shrimp from off the boat the evening before. Neither of us had ever cooked fresh shrimp before, but the locals told us to boil it for no more that 3 minutes and rinse with cold water. This huge bag of shrimp only cost $10.00 - enough to feed the four of us for two nights. And they were delicious! We had garlic butter to dip them in and some cocktail sauce, cole slaw and naan bread on the side. Washed down with margaritas, it was a feast!