Traveling the Great Loop

Dec 29, mile 327; Todays’ Run: 45 miles

Leaving South Port Marina, Panama City, we leave the green marina channel buoys to starboard. Entering the East Bay shipping channel, we keep them to port. As we approach the Dupont Bridge, we slowed the boat to have a discussion.  The buoys continue on the other side of the bridge span but they appear to have switched sides again. We need to feel comfortable with this, understand why they have changed sides before we continue. We conclude that this must be where the East Bay shipping channel merges with the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and therefore, the green buoys are to be kept to starboard. (Traveling eastward on the GIWW, green buoys are kept to starboard).

As we approach Port St Joe, we follow a different set of channel markers, red buoys to starboard, (red right returning). While Mike steers, I scan for buoys using binoculars to assist with keeping us inside the channel. I was looking for a green buoy that is shown on the chart marking the narrow, harbour entrance, (below).

I announce that I have spotted it and give Mike directions. But soon I realize that I had not seen a buoy but a fisherman standing in a green shirt! What are the chances?  At least he was standing in the right position to line us up with the entrance. We never did see the official green buoy.

A little history: In 1835, St Joseph (St Joe), was founded by businessmen who were skeptical of developing business in nearby Apalachicola where land disputes between indigenous peoples and early settlement governments were ongoing.

By 1855, Port St Joe was the largest city in Florida with a population of 10,000. There were 8 hotels*, and the dockyards consisted of a wharf that extended three-quarters of a mile into the bay. Pilings from the wharf are still evident along the shore today, where massive merchant ships, nearly 400 feet long, arrived here from England to pick up lumber.** The lumber industry closed with the coming of World War I.

*The Florida constitution (1839) was drafted here because of the number of hotels available: 8 hotels: (The Mansion House, Bryon, Tontine, Pickwick, Shakespeare, Pavilion, Fontaine and German Ocean House. )

**England needed lumber. The following is an excerpt from Yes, the World is Round, Part I.

By year 1811, there were approximately 1,019 ships servicing the British Royal Navy.

Nelson’s ship, the HMS Victory, lays in Portsmouth as a museum ship, reportedly in much the same condition as when she led the victory over the combined French and Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. She carried one hundred iron forged guns weighing up to three tons each and stowed thirty-five tons of gun powder with which to fire them. She was one of the largest ships of her time and her collection of twenty-seven sails allowed her to be one of the fastest ships on the seas. In calm conditions, she required a team of four to steer her, and during rough conditions, a team of eight. Several teams were engaged to lift her anchor which often took up to twelve hours. She was built from the timber of six thousand trees.

*The Apalachicola Northern Railroad, (Gulf Coast to the Georgia border, approx. 100 mi.) has been in service for over 100 years.

Although the town flourished with the establishment of the St Joe Paper Company, (1936-1966), increasing the population to 5000 during which time 16 churches serviced the residents, the odour from the pulp and paper mill, supressed the tourist industry.

Since St. Josephs was settled in 1837, the district has been hit with gales, hurricanes, forest fires, and in 1841, yellow fever which reduced the number of inhabitants from 5000 to 500.  The most recent disaster to destroy the town and surrounding area, was Hurricane Michael in 2019.

EN ROUTE: The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway

Wherever there is water you will find at least one fisherman. Young, old, fathers, grandfathers and women too. One night, we heard fishermen talking just down the dock from where we were berthed. Maybe they were not on the dock, maybe they were standing in their boats throwing lines out between the docks. I had seen that. But this time it was 3 o’clock in the morning!

Before I go: A conversation with a fisherman.

Early one morning, after walking to the harbour entrance to watch dawn break, I stopped to talk with one of the fishermen. His name was Jamar. While chatting, he landed a spotted trout.

Getting out his tape measure, he announced that the fish was undersize by one inch. He threw it back. “You can get a $300 fine for keeping undersized fish”, he said. “They can stop you from fishing for 3-4 years.” “Do you eat what you catch?” “Oh yes I do.” I’ve got an old cast iron stove my father had and a couple of cast iron frying pans to cook them in.” When he learned that I was from Canada, he told me a story about having driven to the Yukon. 

“When I was 47, I’m 81 now, my wife and I did a trip to anchorage Alaska. We saved up until we had three new spare Michelin tires and 4 on the ground before we headed north. My wife was a nurse, and she had a couple of months off. About 100 miles north of Seattle, a dirt road goes all the way to Anchorage. The road is paved now. It took us 2 weeks driving 14 hours a day to get there. The road was just rock and gravel. When we got to Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon, the road started to be paved. It was paved going to Dawson too. They offered my wife a home and an acre of land if she would sign a contract to nurse in Dawson for two years. It was 1988 or ’87 and they were hurtin’ for nurses.

At the time, I was driving a 1985 ford conversion van with a bed in the back. We had to camp to cook our meals. We used two black iron skillets that we put on stones over a campfire. One night we would  stay in the van, the next night we would stay in a hotel when we would clean up and watch some TV.

One day, we picked up a young woman whose car broke down. We were in the middle of nowhere and she was alone. You know, the next town could have been 400 to 500 miles away. We told her she shouldn’t be out here alone like this. She appreciated us stopping.

What was amazing to me about that whole trip was that one night, we were camping out with other people and I noticed they all had gone to bed and we were still up. I wondered why they had gone to bed but here it was 3 o’clock in the morning and we didn’t even know it. It was so light out! When we went to bed, we had to put towels and paper on the windshield so we could sleep because it don’t get dark.”

“It was great fun; a trip of a lifetime.”

“What kind of work did you do? ” “Well, I was a welder. I worked mostly for a cement plant. I worked for them for 35 years. I used to repair the blades inside the hoppers; sometimes the trucks would need mending; I did a little of everything. I enjoyed it. Sometimes I think about those times when I was a young man and didn’t have a trade doin’ anything but was trying to make a liv’in’”. “ What lead you to be a welder ? ” “ When I was a young man, I was go‘in to Miami and really didn’t know much about anything. I had a certification as an auto mechanic and I wound up going to what they called a chop shop. They were goin’ out steal’n cars and trucks; we would cut them up, take the seats out of them , tie the doors, cut the chassis in two, and lay all that stuff in a container. Sometimes a transport truck would pull up to the warehouse and they would say to us, we want this truck in the container by tomorrow morning. Some of them trucks were almost brand new that they brought in there. They were shipping them to South America in shipping containers. They had crews over there that would put them back together.” He laughs, “I didn’t know it was that kind of thing until I was with them 2-3 years and my boss man went to federal prison for 20 years. But I’m innocent,” he laughs again, “I was just a labourer. You tell me to cut this up and that’s what I done. I was just making a living for my family. After that, a friend came by and said, I need a good man like you. When do you need a man? I asked. I need one tomorrow. I said, where do you want me to be? And I stayed with him until I retired. I was 38 when I started with him and I stayed with him until I was 63.”

I had decided to serve a roast of beef that night to celebrate the end of the year. If you remember, my first attempt at cooking a roast onboard, was a disaster. And at that time, we had company for dinner! I tried pressure cooking it. Why would I do that? Well, I had read that it could be done. So I tried it. Our friends graciously ignored that overcooked, tasteless, hunk of muscle and remarked how special it was to spend a night at anchor in a serene setting. This time, I thought I would use my Instant Pot’s sous vide cycle . I cook with a sous vide, (vacuum packed, cooked in a water bath,) at home. A 5-Ib roast takes about 6-6.5 hours using a proper sous vide pump. I thought a 3-Ib roast would take about 3 hours. It took 24 hours!

That was a surprise! We had it for dinner on New Year’s Day instead. I started cooking the roast in 2023 and I served it in 2024! And it tasted like it. Again, not a great piece of meat. The grocery stores I sometimes need to shop in are not in areas where families would cook beef roasts very often. But I was happy to learn that I can use the pot to sous vide; I just need to add a few hours to the cooking time and make sure we’re well fed while we wait for dinner!